and the besieging force under Cortez alone was more than 100,000 men,
and his flotilla of canoes was 3000. The chief aim of the Spanish
ruler was to take the market-place, and plans for a general assault
were arranged, now that the blockade of the city was strictly kept.
From this center it was hoped all the streets could be cleared. The
large number of allies who each time the town was assaulted swarmed
over the roofs of the houses and made light of all other obstructions,
seemed to promise a speedy termination of the struggle. But before,
in the general attack the inclosure of the town was reached, the
Aztecs in canoes and on the various land approaches, which had now
been partially destroyed, made an unexpected sally. There was a call
to arms sounded from the apex of one of the principal temples, the
ritual drum being beaten whose tones could be heard at a distance of
two or three leagues. Instantly, as the Indians came rushing upon them,
the Spaniards were thrown in a panic, and made a precipitate retreat.
Cortez was himself in danger and would have been killed, had not his
enemies made strenuous efforts to take him alive in order that he might
be kept for a sacrificial offering. None of the other captains fared
better; Alvarado’s men narrowly escaped destruction.
Many European prisoners were made, and from their camp the Spaniards
could watch their comrades being offered up to the sanguinary deities
of the Aztec religion. They were pierced with stone knives and their
palpitating hearts were drawn out as they lay recumbent on the stone
altars that capped the temple pyramids. At the same time the men in the
camp had to listen to the threats of their foes who, close at hand,
promised them the same fate as their comrades. There was no inclination
at this point on the part of Cortez and his men to resume the fight;
orders were given to restrict operations to the defense of the camp.
But the temper of the native allies was not affected by the defeat. The
Tlaxcalans especially took the lead in harassing their enemies, while
the Spaniards kept to their quarters. They also suggested a plan by
which the remaining supplies of food and drink might be cut off.
This gradual process of attrition had its natural effect on the powers
of resistance of the Aztecs. Cuauhtemoc was forced to cover up the
losses in his army by disguising the women in the city as warriors.
Standing on the flat roofs of the houses they were easily taken to be
male warriors, and at closer quarters the Spaniards found them to be
as brave as the men. Cortez, indeed, tried to induce his opponents to
see how desperate their case was. His offers of peace were rejected;
when envoys were sent it was always a signal for renewed attacks on the
three Spanish camps.
After consultation with his captains Cuauhtemoc resolved to die
fighting with his people rather than let them become the slaves of
the Spaniards. The chief food of the inhabitants now was the green
vegetation growing on the lake shallows, and they drank the saline
water from the same source because fresh water was no longer to be had.
Numerous must have been the victims of hunger and thirst and pestilence
in the Aztec quarters, and great were the losses in the continued
combats with an enemy far stronger, whose own losses were being made
up by uninterrupted accessions of strength, while there was the whole
countryside open from which supplies kept pouring in. It is significant
that the success of the Aztecs in blocking the general assault of their
capital made no impression outside. So far as we know, no attempts were
made to break the Spanish investing lines, nor, on the other hand, did
the failure to take the town in any way stop the movement to throw off
the Aztec yoke which was plainly the prime motive on the part of the
natives in helping the Europeans to take Mexico.
The siege had now lasted forty-five days; it was time, therefore, to
make a radical change in the primitive methods of attack hitherto
followed by Cortez, methods that recall the Homeric accounts of the
siege of Troy. Each day there was hot fighting in the streets or on
the lake where the Aztec canoes gathered about the brigantines. At
nightfall there was a general return to the camp. The new plan was to
destroy all the houses in the portion of the streets where the daily
fighting took place. As the horsemen charged, the space was cleared
and the work of destruction began. On the exposed part by the lake
the brigantines and the canoes of the allies were able to do much
effective damage. The scale of the operations is indicated in one of
Cortez’ letters, where he speaks of using in this kind of fighting
150,000 warriors. Under these conditions, where each day ground for
the next stage of occupation of the town was secured, the great
market-place was taken.
Finally the Aztecs were confined to an eighth part of their capital;
there was no bread to be had; nothing but fetid water to drink; and a
diminishing supply of defensive weapons. Cortez himself reports that
the Aztecs stood on the housetops, covering themselves with their
cloaks but without weapons. The streets and the houses were filled with
dead bodies. On the 13th of August the signal for the final attack was
given. Crowded together, without arrows or even stones and sticks to
defend themselves, the Aztecs were mowed down by the Spanish gunfire.
It was a disappointment to Cortez to have to use such extreme measures;
largely, it appears from his own words, because there would be no spoil
to be taken. Most of the houses had been destroyed, and the people
threw their wealth into the lake before they perished.
The sufferings of the besieged made an impression even on the hardened
feelings of the Spanish commander. The last fights in the city and on
the lake took place amid scenes of horror; everywhere were dead bodies;
on the lake they were heaped up around the combatants, and could be
seen floating about as the canoes kept up the unequal conflict with the
Spanish brigantines. Diaz reports that all the houses were filled with
dead Indians; there was nothing green to be found; the inhabitants had
even eaten the bark off the trees.
The end came when the cannon, at Cortez’ signal, began to fire on the
mass of unarmed Mexicans, too weak to move, stretched out one upon the
other, dying heroically, still even in their extremity, as Cortez says,
“never asking for peace.” As the artillery seemed slow in carrying on
the work of destruction, the brigantines with the European soldiers and
the allies were brought up and ordered to fall upon the remnant of the
Aztec warriors, who were either slain on the spot or cast into the
water from their last place of refuge.
Cuauhtemoc fled from the city in a large war-canoe, and the Spaniards
gave chase. When overtaken he first prepared to sell his life dearly,
but seeing his wife and other women in the boat, rather than expose
them to risk he gave himself up and was conducted to Cortez, who spoke
in a friendly way and praised his valiant defense of his capital,
promising at the same time that he should be allowed to rule his people
as he had done before. The capture of the Aztec chieftain took place on
the 13th of August, 1521, the day that Mexico fell into the hands of
the Spaniards.
The losses of the Aztecs in the final battle are set down as 40,000;
many chose to die by throwing themselves and their wives and children
into the lake rather than surrender. At the close of the siege there
followed scenes of pillage of the usual type, with no pretense at
discipline. The actual treasure seized was small, and to increase the
disappointment, no trace could be found of the lost gold and silver
which had been abandoned during “the mournful night” of the previous
year. The supposed explanation was that it had been carefully hidden.
Accordingly, Cuauhtemoc and others of high rank with him who, like
himself, were captives, were tortured by fire. But no revelations were
made, and the amount of gold distributed to the soldiers was small,
only five pesos to a horseman and less to a foot-soldier. The native
allies were paid off even more cheaply; they departed for home taking
with them promises of future land grants.
Cortez’ plans for reconstructing the city were put into operation
immediately after the end of the siege. All the temples and great
houses that survived during the street fights were removed. In order
to make the conversion of the people to Christianity easier, the
records of their past were obliterated. In a few years all traces of
the complex Aztec society, with its divisions into nobles and priests
and warriors, were lost. But at least the native population in Mexico
did not meet the fate of those in the isles of the Antilles: the stock
was a hardier one and the systematic working of the mines did not
begin until twenty-five years after the conquest, when, owing to the
propaganda of Las Casas, protective measures were enforced. Cortez
introduced European grains and took care to repair the losses in the
food supply produced by the devastation of the conquest.
Incapable of reconciling himself to the humdrum life of peaceful rule
after his years of adventure, the commander could not endure to see his
lieutenants penetrating into the unknown regions of the south, while
he stayed behind receiving their reports of immeasurable treasure. In
October, 1524, he set out for Honduras with a few Europeans and a large
number of Indian allies. Among his companions were Cuauhtemoc, the
dethroned Aztec overlord, and many of his nobles and chieftains. The
march was through difficult country filled with dense woods, mountains,
and morasses. The expedition suffered from the heat, and had to endure
lack of water and food as well as perils from enteric fever. Cuauhtemoc
and the Aztec lord of Tlacopan were charged with plotting against their
new masters and were, therefore, put to death. Nothing was accomplished
in this expedition, and after twenty months Cortez returned to Mexico.
Soon after he was recalled to Spain to answer various charges due to
his maladministration and to his uncontrolled dictatorship. He was
treated with great honor and named captain-general of New Spain, but
care was taken that he should no longer be intrusted with the duty of
civil administration in the new province. He returned to Mexico in 1530
and again tried his fortune as a discoverer, this time undertaking,
either personally or by lieutenants, expeditions to the northwest. Two
fleets equipped by him were destroyed; a third was led by him into the
unpromising region about the Gulf of California. In 1540, he again
left Mexico to secure an indemnity from Charles V for his unsuccessful
ventures. He followed the Emperor to the siege of Algiers in 1541, but
was not able to secure attention to his demands. The rest of his life
was passed in preparing petitions to a monarch whose treasury was being
drained by other more immediate claims. He did not return to Mexico,
and died on December 2, 1547, at the age of sixty-three years.
III THE INCAS
It is the custom to associate, when the spheres of Spanish conquest
are in question, the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. The
parallel is only roughly accurate, for, although the Incas had made
a great record in material advancement by the time they came into
contact with the Spaniards, the level reached by them was considerably
lower than that attained by their neighbors to the north. Their method
of reckoning was far more primitive; they used picture painting for
ornament; there was no commerce, no division of labor, no standard of
value. On the other hand there was no such cannibalism as that found
consecrated to the religious usages of the Nahuatlaca.
Among the Incas there was a vast peasant class who had been brought
into subjection by the conquering race who entered Peru from the
south. Apparently the first home of these invaders was the high land
of Bolivia, in a small canton, Cuzco, situated on the natural highway
that leads from the Bolivian highlands to the upper tributaries of the
Amazon. The origins of Inca history can hardly go back further than
three hundred years before the Spanish conquest. When the Spaniards
came, consistent traditions were still preserved of the origin of the
dominant tribe that told how, when Cuzco was first settled by them, it
was already occupied by aboriginal inhabitants whose district was taken
possession of by Manco Ccapac, the founder of the Inca rule. From the
time of the first occupation eleven sovereign chiefs had borne sway
over them for a period which may be justly estimated as three hundred
years.
There were no chronological records, but there was curiously unique
evidence in the shape of the mummified bodies of the eleven
chieftains, who were given the same attention as lords and landowners
that they enjoyed when alive. Their estates, herds of llamas, serfs
were still treated as belonging to them; food and drink were daily
placed before them; new clothing was prepared, and they were carried
out for daily exercise in richly ornamented litters.
The rise of Inca domination had not been without serious opposition;
there was a powerful coalition formed against them when their
aggression became a menace to the neighboring tribes. The Inca
chieftains were killed, and the situation was saved only by the
appointment of a new leader, Huiracocha, who saw that more was to be
won by conciliation than by aggression. This chieftain was one of the
four to whom the consolidation of the Inca dominions was due. Under
a later Inca chieftain Pachacutic (1435-1471), “the changer of the
world,” the pueblo of Cuzco dominated the whole of central Peru, and a
district 300 miles in length towards the northwest. To the southeast it
had a sphere of influence over a district of about equal extent, which
was converted into definite subjection by Pachacutic and his allies.
The next stage of conquest was towards the north, where no special
obstacles were encountered. The population was sparse, and in a low
condition. Here an Inca colony was founded, which, with its capital
at Quito, still survives under the form of the republic of Ecuador.
From this vantage ground in their northern colony the Incas seem to
have been brought into direct connection with the sea coast, for,
owing to the long overland journey between Cuzco and their northern
possessions, the water route was easier, and owing to the penetration
of the land by the gulf of Guayaquil would easily suggest itself to
those who as residents of the interior were not familiar before with
journeyings by water. The advance into the coast valleys met with stout
resistance on the part of a powerful confederacy which had Chimu as
its center. The place was of strategical value to the Incas because it
commanded important roads leading from the coast plain to the sierras,
and was also accessible to the newly acquired northern colony and its
hereditary domains.
Because of the successive steps by which the power of the Incas was
so rapidly extended, the name of Pachacutic was associated with the
whole of the administration of the Inca state as a lawgiver, architect,
engineer, economist, and chief priest. His successor Tupac-Yuparqui
followed in his father’s steps by enlarging the state’s borders both
on the south and north. Resistance was cruelly repressed, as one sees
from the narrative of his war on the coast valley of Huarco, where
the Inca’s warriors, brought together for three years in a permanent
camp, wore out the natives by constant harryings, until they agreed to
capitulate on the condition of being incorporated with the Inca nation.
Tupac had no scruples in violating the compact by a general massacre of
the vanquished. Even at the conquest immense heaps of bones were still
pointed out, as relics of the methods by which Inca rule had been built
up.
In 1493, Tupac died at Cuzco and was succeeded by his son Huaina
Capac under whom the era of expansion came to an end; he occupied
himself with temple building, with road construction, and with making
punitive expeditions on the savage tribes who dwelt on the outskirts
of his empire. Afterwards, in 1525, he fell a victim to an epidemic.
There was a civil war due to a rebellion in the northern colony under
Tupac-atahuallpa who assumed the government because of the incapacity
of Huascar, the new chieftain at Cuzco. The revolt was successful; the
warriors from the northern colony steadily advanced until they forced
Huascar to leave Cuzco and finally to surrender himself and his family
into the hands of the rival chieftain, after which he was taken to
Lazamara, the fortified station midway between the northern colony and
the original dominion.
The extent of the territory conquered by the Incas, as well as the
rapidity with which the conquest was made, gives their annals a unique
position in the history of tribal life at a comparatively low state of
culture. As soon as they passed beyond the confines of middle Peru,
their expansion as a conquering power met with no setback. The peoples
who were threatened by their advance did not form a coalition against
them, and when new areas were once conquered, new peoples were at once
added, who supplied them with additional warriors. The structure of
the empire was so simple, so loosely knit that it collapsed as soon as
it was confronted by the serious internal difficulties that grew out
of the disputed succession. The Spaniards came at an opportune moment
and received without trouble the large landed inheritance of the Inca
overlord, whose domains covered the territory now occupied by Ecuador,
Peru, Bolivia, and Chili.
In estimating the standard of civilization attained by the Incas their
theology, which is certainly of an advanced type, is naturally taken
into account. The worship of the sun was one of the strongest bonds
that kept together their widely separated lands. In each pueblo there
was an estate of the sun god that was worked exactly as if it belonged
to a chieftain. This economic network of temple estates was primarily
intended to provide the sun with such constant supplies of food
that the god’s beneficent activity on the earth and to man could be
sustained. The processes of tillage and the craft of weaving were all
brought in this way in close relation to the religion of the dominant
people. Portions of the finest woven stuffs, along with the offerings
of the ground, were burned in sacrifice at each pueblo; the rest was
carried on the backs of llamas belonging to the estates of the sun for
the great festivals celebrated annually at Cuzco, where these beasts
of burden and all they carried were sacrificed in honor of the god. An
essential part of the ritual of sacrifice was the offering of human
victims. These were not war captives as in Mexico; they were taken from
the women serfs, attached to the estates of the sun, the weavers of the
llama wool, who were called “the selected ones.” This name was given
to them because from each family in the pueblo there was collected a
regular tribute of girls, distinguished by their beauty and vigor, who
were trained to become members of the communities dedicated to the
sun’s service. After an education of eight years most of them were
distributed among the various temples of the gods, the sun receiving
the larger share, while some were given to the Ccapac Inca himself or
to his officials.
These offerings of human victims took place at the prescribed
sacrifices during the religious year, and also at extraordinary
crises--for example, when the Inca chieftain was attacked by disease,
when the country was endangered by wars, or when earthquakes and
eclipses occurred. To symbolize the sun, images in the figure of a
man were carved with an attire resembling that of the Inca chieftain,
decorated with a headdress of darts, to resemble the solar rays.
As in Mexico the warrior class in Peru had a special ritual of sun
worship not shared by outsiders. In this case the idol represented an
infant molded of solid gold, with golden embroidery, shod with golden
sandals, and with a headdress copied from that worn by the chiefs.
For the purpose of popular worship, as these esoteric rites were not
accessible to the common people, great sun dials covered with leaf
of gold were set up, where they were exposed to the rays of the sun,
and on them simple liquid offerings were made, that were visibly
appropriated by the god through the processes of evaporation.
A great center of pilgrimage was the throne of the sun at Titicaca
where, in the innermost shrine, there was a sacred rock the summit of
which glittered with gold leaf. In the neighborhood of Cuzco and on
the road to the rock of pilgrimage there were stations of sacrifice,
where burnt-offerings of llamas, cocoa, and maize were made in order
to inaugurate the new sun’s progress from his ancient birthplace in
the south. Sunrise was the time selected for these offerings; a white
llama, bearing fuel, maize, and cocoa leaves, was previously led up
to the mountain top, fire was kindled, and the victim was slain and
consumed in the flames. By the time the sun was about to rise above the
horizon, the burning pile was in full blaze. As the sun rose, the Incas
chanted the prayer for the protection of their god: “O Creator, Sun,
and Thunder, be forever young! Multiply the people, let them ever be in
peace.”
In the Peruvian religious system much attention was given to the
service of dead chieftains by a class of special attendants organized
like those who served the gods. There was, therefore, throughout the
whole Inca domains, a large class of ecclesiastics well endowed with
lands and serfs; at Cuzco at the time of the conquest most of the
inhabitants of the pueblo were assigned to the service of some mummy.
There was no hope for the living unless they could keep the good will
of the dead; in all the affairs of life they had a part, food was
set before the dead body at feasts and liquid refreshment was forced
between the mummy’s lips.
Huascar, the rival of Atahuallpa for the chieftainship of the Incas,
lost the support of the warrior class because he was reported to have
said that all the dead ought to be buried and their property taken
from them. He did not wish to rule over mummies, from less sentimental
reasons than those once expressed on a celebrated occasion by the
spirit of Achilles. There had undoubtedly originated in Peru a movement
against the economic monopoly connected with the temple worship. An
effort had been made to meet this difficulty on the part of the Inca
chieftains, who apparently, in view of the multiplication of festivals
and sacrifices, had adopted the policy of diminishing the worship of
the minor divinities and of concentrating the sacrificial offerings as
far as they could on the Creator, Sun, Thunder, Earth, and Moon.
Under Inca rule the simple tribal administration was retained
throughout the group of districts which were added in rapid succession
to the seat of the race at Cuzco. Each Inca pueblo had its local chief
or curaca, to whom were assigned a certain number of llamas and those
portions of the land that were worked for him by the peasantry, who
did all the agricultural labor. Distributions of the same character
were made in each pueblo for the use of the head chieftain who dwelt
at Cuzco, the so-called Ccapac Inca, and for the service of the tribal
chieftains. The products of these reservations were taken to Cuzco and
deposited there in store-houses from whence the llama hair was given to
the women of the chief pueblo and woven by them into cloth. The food
and the cloth so prepared were either kept as stores for military
expeditions or used for sacrificial purposes.