WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT
1796-1859
One of the stories that mankind has always liked to believe is that of
the existence of a marvellous country whose climate was perfect, whose
people were happy, whose king was wise and good, and where wealth
abounded. The old travellers of the Middle Ages dreamed of finding
this land somewhere in the far East. Many books were written about it,
and many tales told by knight and palmer of its rivers of gold, mines
of precious stones, and treasure vaults of inexhaustible riches. But,
although from time to time some famous traveller like Marco Polo or
Sir John Mandeville described the great wealth of Ormus or Cathay, yet
no one ever found the real country of his imagination, and the dream
passed down from generation to generation unfulfilled. The Spaniards
called this country _El Dorado_, and perhaps their vision of it was
the wildest of all, for not only were they to find inexhaustible
riches, but trees whose fruit would heal disease, magic wells which
yielded happiness, and fountains of immortal youth. Thus dreamed the
Spaniard of the fifteenth century, and when Columbus found the new
world it was believed that it included El Dorado. Leader after leader
mustered his knights and soldiers and sought the golden country. They
traversed forests, climbed mountains, forded rivers, and waded through
swamps and morasses; they suffered hunger, thirst, and fever, and the
savage hostility of the Indians; they died by hundreds and were buried
in unmarked graves, and expedition after expedition returned to Spain
to report the fruitlessness of their search. But the hope was not
given up. New seekers started on the quest, and it seemed that the
ships of Spain could hardly hold her eager adventurers.
In a strange way this dream of El Dorado was realized. Two soldiers
of fortune, bolder, hardier, luckier than the rest, actually found not
one country but two, which were in part at least like the golden world
they sought. High upon the table-land of Mexico and guarded by its
snow-capped mountains they found the kingdom of the Aztecs, with their
vast wealth of gold and silver. Safe behind the barrier of the Andes
lay the land of the Incas, whose riches were, like those of Ophir
or Cathay, not to be measured. Both of these countries possessed a
strange and characteristic civilization. In fact, even to this day,
scholars are puzzled to know the source of the knowledge which these
people possessed.
In Mexico Hernando Cortez found a government whose head was the king,
supported by a tribunal of judges who governed the principal cities.
If a judge took a bribe he was put to death. In the king's tribunal
the throne was of gold inlaid with turquoises. The walls were hung
with tapestry embroidered with figures of birds and flowers. Over the
throne was a canopy flashing with gold and jewels. There were
officers to escort prisoners to and from court, and an account of the
proceedings was kept in hieroglyphic paintings. All the laws of the
kingdom were taught by these paintings to the people. The Aztecs
had orders of nobility and knighthood; they had a military code and
hospitals for the sick. Their temples glittered with gold and jewels,
and they had ceremonies of baptism, marriage, and burial. They had
monastic orders, astrologists and astronomers, physicians,
merchants, jewellers, mechanics, and husbandmen. Their palaces were
treasure-houses of wealth. In fact, they were as unlike the Indians of
the eastern coast of America as the Englishman of to-day is unlike
the half-naked savage who in the early ages roamed through England,
subsisting upon berries and raw flesh.
In Peru Francisco Pizarro found a great and powerful empire, ruled
over by a wise sovereign. In the whole length and breadth of the land
not one poor or sick person was left uncared for by the state. Great
highways traversed mountain passes and crossed ravines and precipices
to the most distant parts of the kingdom. Huge aqueducts of stone
carried the mountain streams for hundreds of miles to the plains
below. Massive fortresses, whose masonry was so solid that it seemed
part of the mountain itself, linked the cities together, and a postal
system extended over the empire composed of relays of couriers who
wore a peculiar livery and ran from one post to another at the rate
of one hundred and fifty miles a day. The walls of temples and palaces
were covered with plates of gold encrusted with precious stones. The
raiment of the king and nobles was embroidered with jewels. The lakes
in the royal court-yards were fringed with wild flowers brought from
every corner of the empire and representing every degree of climate.
In a word, it was the dream of El Dorado fulfilled.
Although these two countries were alike peopled by races who had lived
there since remote antiquity, neither had ever heard of the existence
of the other, and thus we have the picture of two civilizations, very
similar, springing up independently.
The conquest of Mexico by Cortez in 1521 changed the entire life of
the people. Their forts and cities were ruined; three of their kings
had fallen during the struggle; the whole country had been divided
among the conquerors, and the Aztecs were made slaves. Cortez
rebuilt the City of Mexico and filled the country with cathedrals and
convents. He tried to convert the natives to Christianity, and Mexico
became Spanish in its laws and institutions.
But the old civilization had passed away; there was no more an Aztec
nation; and though in time the Indians and Spaniards formed together a
new race, it did not partake of the spirit of the old.
What Cortez did for Mexico, Pizarro accomplished twelve years later
in Peru. On the death of their monarch, the Inca, the Peruvians lost
spirit and were more easily conquered than the Aztecs. Peru became a
Spanish province, and, like Mexico, was considered by the crown only
as a treasure-house from which to draw endless wealth. No regret was
felt for the two great and powerful nations that had ceased to exist.
In the meantime the settlement of America went on rapidly. Florida,
the valley of the Mississippi, Canada, and New England became powerful
colonies forming the nucleus of new countries, which had never heard
of the civilizations of Mexico and Peru, and whose only knowledge
of Indians was gathered from the savage tribes from which they had
wrested the soil. In 1610 the Spanish historian Solis wrote an account
of the subjugation of Mexico, in which the conquerors were portrayed
in glowing colors. This work was read chiefly by scholars. In 1779 the
English historian Robertson gave in his _History of the New World_ a
brilliant sketch of the Spanish conquests in America. But not until
1847 was the world offered the detailed narrative of the conquest and
ruin of the Aztec empire.
This work was from the pen of the American scholar, William H.
Prescott, who was already known as the author of a history of
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, a work which had brought him a
European reputation.
Prescott was born in Salem, Mass., in 1796, in an old elm-shaded
house. From his earliest years he was a teller of stories, and had a
high reputation among his boy friends as a romancer. Walking to and
from school with his companions he invented tale after tale, sometimes
the narrative being continued from day to day, lessons and home duties
being considered but tiresome interruptions to the real business
of life. Very often one of these stories begun on Monday would
be continued through the whole week, and the end be celebrated on
Saturday by a visit to the Boston Athenaeum, into whose recesses he
would beguile his fellows, while they buckled on the old armor found
there, and played at joust and tournament, imagining themselves to be
Lancelot, Ronsard, or Bayard, as the case might be.
A life of Gibbon which Prescott read in his teens led to an
enthusiastic study of history and to the resolve to become if possible
a historian himself. While a student at Harvard one of his eyes was so
injured by the carelessness of a fellow pupil that he lost the entire
use of it; but he kept to the resolution to fulfil the task he had set
for himself. His fame began with the publication of the _History of
Ferdinand and Isabella_, which was published almost simultaneously in
Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Russia. It covers the history of
Spain from the Moorish invasion through the period of national glory
which illumined the reign of Isabella. The civil wars, the Jewish
persecutions, the discovery of the New World, the expulsion of the
Moors, the Italian wars, and the social life of the people, their arts
and pursuits, their amusements, and the literature of that age, are
vividly presented.
The recognition of his merits was welcome to Prescott. While doubting
which subject to choose for his labors he had heard several lectures
upon Spanish literature, prepared for delivery at Harvard College, and
at once applied himself to the study of the Spanish language, history,
and romance as a preparation for his life work, and two years after
began his celebrated work. The book was eleven years in preparation,
and is full of enthusiasm for the romance and chivalry of the Old
World. Prescott's _History of the Conquest of Mexico_ began with a
sketch of the ancient Aztec civilization, proceeded to a description
of the conquest by Cortez, and concluded with an account of the after
career of the great commander, the whole work seeming a brilliant
romance rather than sober history.
The materials for Prescott's work were gathered from every known
available source. The narratives of eye-witnesses were brought
forth from their hiding-places in the royal libraries of Spain, and
patiently transcribed; old letters, unpublished chronicles, royal
edicts, monkish legends, every scrap of information attainable, was
transmitted to the worker across the sea, who because of his partial
blindness had to depend entirely upon others in the collection of his
authorities. These documents were read to Prescott by a secretary, who
took notes under the author's direction; these notes were again read
to him, and then after sifting, comparing and, retracing again and
again the old ground, the historian began his work. He wrote upon a
noctograph with an ivory stylus, as a blind man writes, and because of
great physical weakness he was able to accomplish only a very little
each day. But week by week the work grew. His marvellous memory
enabled him to recall sixty pages of printed matter at once. His
wonderful imagination enabled him to present the Mexico of the
sixteenth century as it appeared to the old Spanish cavaliers, and as
no historian had ever presented it before. He made of each episode of
the great drama a finished and perfect picture. In fact, the _History
of the Conquest of Mexico_ is more than anything else a historical
painting wrought to perfection by the cunning of the master hand.
Prescott spent six years over this work, which enhanced his fame as
a historian and kept for American literature the high place won by
Irving. Indeed, Irving himself had designed to write the history of
the conquest of Mexico, but withdrew in favor of Prescott.
Three months after the publication of his work on Mexico, Prescott
began the _History of the Conquest of Peru_, the materials for which
had already been obtained. But these documents proved much more
complete than those describing the Mexican conquest.
The conquest of Mexico was achieved mainly by one man, Cortez; but
while Pizarro was virtually the head of the expedition against Peru,
he was accompanied by others whose plans were often opposed to his
own, and whose personal devotion could never be counted upon. Each
of these men held regular correspondence with the court of Spain, and
Pizarro never knew when his own account of the capture of a city or
settlement of a colony would be contradicted by the statement of one
of his officers. After the capture and death of the Inca, which was
the real conquest of the country from the natives, Pizarro was obliged
to reconquer Peru from his own officers, who quarrelled with him and
among themselves continually.
The conquest is shown to be a war of adventurers, a crusade of
buccaneers, who wanted only gold. The sieges and battles of the
Spaniards read like massacres, and the story of the death of the Inca
like an unbelievable horror of the Dark Ages. This scene, contrasted
with the glowing description of the former magnificence of the Inca,
shows Prescott in his most brilliant mood as a writer. Perhaps his
greatest gift is this power of reproducing faithfully the actual
spirit of the conquest, a spirit which, in spite of the glitter of
arms and splendor of religious ceremonial, proves to have been one of
greed and lowest selfishness.
_The Conquest of Peru_, published in 1847, when Prescott was
fifty-two years old, was the last of his historical works. These three
histories, with three volumes of an uncompleted life of Philip
II., which promised to be his greatest work, and a volume of essays
comprise Prescott's contribution to American literature, and begin
that series of brilliant historical works of which American letters
boast.
Prescott, during the most of his literary life, was obliged to sit
quietly in his study, leaving to other hands the collection of the
materials for his work. For, besides the accident which during
his college life deprived him of one eye, he was always delicate.
Sometimes he would be kept for months in a darkened room, and at best
his life was one of seclusion. The strife of the world and of action
was not for him. In his library, surrounded by his books and assisted
by his secretary, he sought for truth as the old alchemists sought for
gold. Patient and tireless he unravelled thread after thread of
the fabric from which he was to weave the history of the Spanish
conquests.
If Prescott had had access to documents which have since come to
light, if he had been able to visit the places he described, and to
study their unwritten records, his work would have been a splendid
and imperishable monument to the dead civilization of the Aztec and
Peruvian.
As it is, it must serve as a guiding light pointing to the right way,
one which shed lustre on the new literature of his country and opened
an unexplored region to the American writer.