DECISIVE VICTORY--INDIAN COUNCIL--NIGHT-ATTACK--NEGOTIATIONS WITH
THE ENEMY--TLASCALAN HERO
1519
The Spaniards were allowed to repose undisturbed the following day, and
to recruit their strength after the fatigue and hard fighting of the
preceding. They found sufficient employment, however, in repairing and
cleaning their weapons, replenishing their diminished stock of arrows,
and getting everything in order for further hostilities, should the
severe lesson they had inflicted on the enemy prove insufficient to
discourage him. On the second day, as Cortés received no overtures from
the Tlascalans, he determined to send an embassy to their camp,
proposing a cessation of hostilities, and expressing his intention to
visit their capital as a friend. He selected two of the principal chiefs
taken in the late engagement, as the bearers of the message.
Meanwhile, averse to leaving his men longer in a dangerous state of
inaction, which the enemy might interpret as the result of timidity or
exhaustion, he put himself at the head of the cavalry and such light
troops as were most fit for service, and made a foray into the
neighboring country. It was a mountainous region, formed by a
ramification of the great sierra of Tlascala, with verdant slopes and
valleys teeming with maize and plantations of maguey, while the
eminences were crowned with populous towns and villages. In one of
these, he tells us, he found three thousand dwellings.[135] In some
places he met with a resolute resistance, and on these occasions took
ample vengeance by laying the country waste with fire and sword. After a
successful inroad he returned laden with forage and provisions and
driving before him several hundred Indian captives. He treated them
kindly, however, when arrived in camp, endeavoring to make them
understand that these acts of violence were not dictated by his own
wishes, but by the unfriendly policy of their countrymen. In this way he
hoped to impress the nation with the conviction of his power on the one
hand, and of his amicable intentions, if met by them in the like spirit,
on the other.
On reaching his quarters, he found the two envoys returned from the
Tlascalan camp. They had fallen in with Xicotencatl at about two
leagues’ distance, where he lay encamped with a powerful force. The
cacique gave them audience at the head of his troops. He told them to
return with the answer, “that the Spaniards might pass on as soon as
they chose to Tlascala; and, when they reached it, their flesh would be
hewn from their bodies, for sacrifice to the gods! If they preferred to
remain in their own quarters, he would pay them a visit there the next
day.”[136] The ambassadors added that the chief had an immense force
with him, consisting of five battalions of ten thousand men each. They
were the flower of the Tlascalan and Otomi warriors, assembled under the
banners of their respective leaders, by command of the senate, who were
resolved to try the fortunes of the state in a pitched battle and strike
one decisive blow for the extermination of the invaders.[137]
This bold defiance fell heavily on the ears of the Spaniards, not
prepared for so pertinacious a spirit in their enemy. They had had ample
proof of his courage and formidable prowess. They were now, in their
crippled condition, to encounter him with a still more terrible array of
numbers. The war, too, from the horrible fate with which it menaced the
vanquished, wore a peculiarly gloomy aspect, that pressed heavily on
their spirits. “We feared death,” says the lion-hearted Diaz, with his
usual simplicity, “for we were men.” There was scarcely one in the army
that did not confess himself that night to the reverend Father Olmedo,
who was occupied nearly the whole of it with administering absolution,
and with the other solemn offices of the Church. Armed with the blessed
sacraments, the Catholic soldier lay tranquilly down to rest, prepared
for any fate that might betide him under the banner of the Cross.[138]
As a battle was now inevitable, Cortés resolved to march out and meet
the enemy in the field. This would have a show of confidence that might
serve the double purpose of intimidating the Tlascalans and inspiriting
his own men, whose enthusiasm might lose somewhat of its heat if
compelled to await the assault of their antagonists, inactive in their
own intrenchments. The sun rose bright on the following morning, the
fifth of September, 1519, an eventful day in the history of the Spanish
Conquest. The general reviewed his army, and gave them, preparatory to
marching, a few words of encouragement and advice. The infantry he
instructed to rely on the point rather than the edge of their swords,
and to endeavor to thrust their opponents through the body. The horsemen
were to charge at half speed, with their lances aimed at the eyes of the
Indians. The artillery, the arquebusiers, and crossbowmen were to
support one another, some loading while others discharged their pieces,
that there should be an unintermitted firing kept up through the
action. Above all, they were to maintain their ranks close and unbroken,
as on this depended their preservation.
They had not advanced a quarter of a league, when they came in sight of
the Tlascalan army. Its dense array stretched far and wide over a vast
plain or meadow-ground about six miles square. Its appearance justified
the report which had been given of its numbers.[139] Nothing could be
more picturesque than the aspect of these Indian battalions, with the
naked bodies of the common soldiers gaudily painted, the fantastic
helmets of the chiefs glittering with gold and precious stones, and the
glowing panoplies of feather-work which decorated their persons.[140]
Innumerable spears and darts, tipped with points of transparent _itztli_
or fiery copper, sparkled bright in the morning sun, like the phosphoric
gleams playing on the surface of a troubled sea, while the rear of the
mighty host was dark with the shadows of banners, on which were
emblazoned the armorial bearings of the great Tlascalan and Otomi
chieftains.[141] Among these, the white heron on the rock, the
cognizance of the house of Xicotencatl, was conspicuous, and, still
more, the golden eagle with outspread wings, in the fashion of a Roman
_signum_, richly ornamented with emeralds and silver-work, the great
standard of the republic of Tlascala.[142]{*}
{*} The accounts of the Tlascalan chronicler are confirmed by the
Anonymous Conqueror and by Bernal Diaz, both eyewitnesses; though the
latter frankly declares that had he not seen them with his own eyes he
should never have credited the existence of orders and badges among the
barbarians, like those found among the civilized nations of Europe.
Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 64, et alibi.--Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala,
MS.--Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 305.
{*} [_I.e._, the standard of the tribe. The tribe was divided into
phratries. Each phratry had its peculiar cognizance, as had also each of
the clans into which the phratry was divided. It was the color of the
clan, and not of its war chief, by which the warriors were
distinguished.--M.]
The common file wore no covering except a girdle round the loins. Their
bodies were painted with the appropriate colors of the chieftain whose
banner they followed. The feather-mail of the higher class of warriors
exhibited, also, a similar selection of colors for the like object, in
the same manner as the color of the tartan indicates the peculiar clan
of the Highlander.[9]
The caciques and principal warriors were clothed in quilted cotton
tunics, two inches thick, which, fitting close to the body, protected
also the thighs and the shoulders. Over these the wealthier Indians wore
cuirasses of thin gold plate, or silver. Their legs were defended by
leathern boots or sandals, trimmed with gold. But the most brilliant
part of their costume was a rich mantle of the _plumaje_ or
feather-work, embroidered with curious art, and furnishing some
resemblance to the gorgeous surcoat worn by the European knight over his
armor in the Middle Ages. This graceful and picturesque dress was
surmounted by a fantastic head-piece made of wood or leather,
representing the head of some wild animal, and frequently displaying a
formidable array of teeth. With this covering the warrior’s head was
enveloped, producing a most grotesque and hideous effect.[143] From the
crown floated a splendid panache of the richly variegated plumage of the
tropics, indicating, by its form and colors, the rank and family of the
wearer. To complete their defensive armor, they carried shields or
targets, made sometimes of wood covered with leather, but more usually
of a light frame of reeds quilted with cotton, which were preferred, as
tougher and less liable to fracture than the former. They had other
bucklers, in which the cotton was covered with an elastic substance,
enabling them to be shut up in a more compact form, like a fan or
umbrella. These shields were decorated with showy ornaments, according
to the taste or wealth of the wearer, and fringed with a beautiful
pendant of feather-work.
Their weapons were slings, bows and arrows, javelins, and darts. They
were accomplished archers, and would discharge two or even three arrows
at a time. But they most excelled in throwing the javelin. One species
of this, with a thong attached to it, which remained in the slinger’s
hand, that he might recall the weapon, was especially dreaded by the
Spaniards. These various weapons were pointed with bone, or the mineral
_itztli_ (obsidian), the hard vitreous substance already noticed as
capable of taking an edge like a razor, though easily blunted. Their
spears and arrows were also frequently headed with copper. Instead of a
sword, they bore a two-handed staff, about three feet and a half long,
in which, at regular distances, were inserted, transversely, sharp
blades of _itztli_,--a formidable weapon, which, an eyewitness assures
us, he had seen fell a horse at a blow.[144]
Such was the costume of the Tlascalan warrior, and, indeed, of that
great family of nations generally who occupied the plateau of Anahuac.
Some parts of it, as the targets and the cotton mail, or _escaupil_, as
it was called in Castilian, were so excellent that they were
subsequently adopted by the Spaniards, as equally effectual in the way
of protection, and superior on the score of lightness and convenience to
their own. They were of sufficient strength to turn an arrow or the
stroke of a javelin, although impotent as a defence against fire-rms.
But what armor is not? Yet it is probably no exaggeration to say that,
in convenience, gracefulness, and strength, the arms of the Indian
warrior were not very inferior to those of the polished nations of
antiquity.[145]
As soon as the Castilians came in sight, the Tlascalans set up their
yell of defiance, rising high above the wild barbaric minstrelsy of
shell, atabal, and trumpet, with which they proclaimed their triumphant
anticipations of victory over the paltry forces of the invaders. When
the latter had come within bowshot, the Indians hurled a tempest of
missiles, that darkened the sun for a moment as with a passing cloud,
strewing the earth around with heaps of stones and arrows.[146] Slowly
and steadily the little band of Spaniards held on its way amidst this
arrowy shower, until it had reached what appeared the proper distance
for delivering its fire with full effect. Cortés then halted, and,
hastily forming his troops, opened a general well-directed fire along
the whole line. Every shot bore its errand of death; and the ranks of
the Indians were mowed down faster than their comrades in the rear could
carry off their bodies, according to custom, from the field. The balls
in their passage through the crowded files, bearing splinters of the
broken harness and mangled limbs of the warriors, scattered havoc and
desolation in their path. The mob of barbarians stood petrified with
dismay, till at length, galled to desperation by their intolerable
suffering, they poured forth simultaneously their hideous war-shriek and
rushed impetuously on the Christians.
On they came like an avalanche, or mountain torrent, shaking the solid
earth and sweeping away every obstacle in its path. The little army of
Spaniards opposed a bold front to the overwhelming mass. But no strength
could withstand it. They faltered, gave way, were borne along before it,
and their ranks were broken and thrown into disorder. It was in vain the
general called on them to close again and rally. His voice was drowned
by the din of fight and the fierce cries of the assailants. For a
moment, it seemed that all was lost. The tide of battle had turned
against them, and the fate of the Christians was sealed.
But every man had that within his bosom which spoke louder than the
voice of the general. Despair gave unnatural energy to his arm. The
naked body of the Indian afforded no resistance to the sharp Toledo
steel; and with their good swords the Spanish infantry at length
succeeded in staying the human torrent. The heavy guns from a distance
thundered on the flank of the assailants, which, shaken by the iron
tempest, was thrown into disorder. Their very numbers increased the
confusion, as they were precipitated on the masses in front. The horse
at the same moment, charging gallantly under Cortés, followed up the
advantage, and at length compelled the tumultuous throng to fall back
with greater precipitation and disorder than that with which they had
advanced.
More than once in the course of the action a similar assault was
attempted by the Tlascalans, but each time with less spirit and greater
loss. They were too deficient in military science to profit by their
vast superiority in numbers. They were distributed into companies, it is
true, each serving under its own chieftain and banner. But they were not
arranged by rank and file, and moved in a confused mass, promiscuously
heaped together. They knew not how to concentrate numbers on a given
point, or even how to sustain an assault, by employing successive
detachments to support and relieve one another. A very small part only
of their array could be brought into contact with an enemy inferior to
them in amount of forces. The remainder of the army, inactive and worse
than useless, in the rear, served only to press tumultuously on the
advance and embarrass its movements by mere weight of numbers, while on
the least alarm they were seized with a panic and threw the whole body
into inextricable confusion. It was, in short, the combat of the
ancient Greeks and Persians over again.
Still, the great numerical superiority of the Indians might have enabled
them, at a severe cost of their own lives, indeed, to wear out, in time,
the constancy of the Spaniards, disabled by wounds and incessant
fatigue. But, fortunately for the latter, dissensions arose among their
enemies. A Tlascalan chieftain, commanding one of the great divisions,
had taken umbrage at the haughty demeanor of Xicotencatl, who had
charged him with misconduct or cowardice in the late action. The injured
cacique challenged his rival to single combat. This did not take place.
But, burning with resentment, he chose the present occasion to indulge
it, by drawing off his forces, amounting to ten thousand men, from the
field. He also persuaded another of the commanders to follow his
example.
Thus reduced to about half his original strength, and that greatly
crippled by the losses of the day, Xicotencatl could no longer maintain
his ground against the Spaniards. After disputing the field with
admirable courage for four hours, he retreated and resigned it to the
enemy. The Spaniards were too much jaded, and too many were disabled by
wounds, to allow them to pursue; and Cortés, satisfied with the decisive
victory he had gained, returned in triumph to his position on the hill
of Tzompach.
The number of killed in his own ranks had been very small,
notwithstanding the severe loss inflicted on the enemy. These few he was
careful to bury where they could not be discovered, anxious to conceal
not only the amount of the slain, but the fact that the whites were
mortal.[147] But very many of the men were wounded, and all the horses.
The trouble of the Spaniards was much enhanced by the want of many
articles important to them in their present exigency. They had neither
oil nor salt, which, as before noticed, was not to be obtained in
Tlascala. Their clothing, accommodated to a softer climate, was ill
adapted to the rude air of the mountains; and bows and arrows, as Bernal
Diaz sarcastically remarks, formed an indifferent protection against the
inclemency of the weather.[148]
Still, they had much to cheer them in the events of the day; and they
might draw from them a reasonable ground for confidence in their own
resources, such as no other experience could have supplied. Not that the
results could authorize anything like contempt for their Indian foe.
Singly and with the same weapons, he might have stood his ground against
the Spaniard.[149] But the success of the day established the
superiority of science and discipline over mere physical courage and
numbers. It was fighting over again, as we have said, the old battle of
the European and the Asiatic. But the handful of Greeks who routed the
hosts of Xerxes and Darius, it must be remembered, had not so obvious an
advantage on the score of weapons as was enjoyed by the Spaniards in
these wars. The use of fire-arms gave an ascendency which cannot easily
be estimated; one so great, that a contest between nations equally
civilized, which should be similar in all other respects to that between
the Spaniards and the Tlascalans, would probably be attended with a
similar issue. To all this must be added the effect produced by the
cavalry. The nations of Anahuac had no large domesticated animals, and
were unacquainted with any beast of burden. Their imaginations were
bewildered when they beheld the strange apparition of the horse and his
rider moving in unison and obedient to one impulse, as if possessed of a
common nature; and as they saw the terrible animal, with his “neck
clothed in thunder,” bearing down their squadrons and trampling them in
the dust, no wonder they should have regarded him with the mysterious
terror felt for a supernatural being. A very little reflection on the
manifold grounds of superiority, both moral and physical, possessed by
the Spaniards in this contest, will surely explain the issue, without
any disparagement to the courage or capacity of their opponents.[150]
Cortés, thinking the occasion favorable, followed up the important blow
he had struck by a new mission to the capital, bearing a message of
similar import with that recently sent to the camp. But the senate was
not yet sufficiently humbled. The late defeat caused, indeed, general
consternation. Maxixcatzin, one of the four great lords who presided
over the republic, reiterated with greater force the arguments before
urged by him for embracing the proffered alliance of the strangers. The
armies of the state had been beaten too often to allow any reasonable
hope of successful resistance; and he enlarged on the generosity shown
by the politic Conqueror to his prisoners--so unusual in Anahuac--as an
additional motive for an alliance with men who knew how to be friends as
well as foes.
But in these views he was overruled by the war-party, whose animosity
was sharpened, rather than subdued, by the late discomfiture. Their
hostile feelings were further exasperated by the younger Xicotencatl,
who burned for an opportunity to retrieve his disgrace, and to wipe away
the stain which had fallen for the first time on the arms of the
republic.
In their perplexity they called in the assistance of the priests, whose
authority was frequently invoked in the deliberations of the American
chiefs. The latter inquired, with some simplicity, of these interpreters
of fate, whether the strangers were supernatural beings, or men of flesh
and blood like themselves. The priests, after some consultation, are
said to have made the strange answer that the Spaniards, though not
gods, were children of the Sun, that they derived their strength from
that luminary, and when his beams were withdrawn their powers would also
fail. They recommended a night-attack, therefore, as one which afforded
the best chance of success. This apparently childish response may have
had in it more of cunning than credulity. It was not improbably
suggested by Xicotencatl himself, or by the caciques in his interest, to
reconcile the people to a measure which was contrary to the military
usages--indeed, it may be said, to the public law--of Anahuac. Whether
the fruit of artifice or superstition, it prevailed; and the Tlascalan
general was empowered, at the head of a detachment of ten thousand
warriors, to try the effect of an assault by night on the Christian
camp.
The affair was conducted with such secrecy that it did not reach the
ears of the Spaniards. But their general was not one who allowed
himself, sleeping or waking, to be surprised on his post. Fortunately,
the night appointed was illumined by the full beams of an autumnal moon;
and one of the vedettes perceived by its light, at a considerable
distance, a large body of Indians moving towards the Christian lines. He
was not slow in giving the alarm to the garrison.
The Spaniards slept, as has been said, with their arms by their side;
while their horses, picketed near them, stood ready saddled, with the
bridle hanging at the bow. In five minutes the whole camp was under
arms; when they beheld the dusky columns of the Indians cautiously
advancing over the plain, their heads just peering above the tall maize
with which the land was partially covered. Cortés determined not to
abide the assault in his intrenchments, but to sally out and pounce on
the enemy when he had reached the bottom of the hill.
Slowly and stealthily the Indians advanced, while the Christian camp,
hushed in profound silence, seemed to them buried in slumber. But no
sooner had they reached the slope of the rising ground than they were
astounded by the deep battle-cry of the Spaniards, followed by the
instantaneous apparition of the whole army, as they sallied forth from
the works and poured down the sides of the hill. Brandishing aloft their
weapons, they seemed to the troubled fancies of the Tlascalans like so
many spectres or demons hurrying to and fro in mid air, while the
uncertain light magnified their numbers and expanded the horse and his
rider into gigantic and unearthly dimensions.
Scarcely awaiting the shock of their enemy, the panic-struck barbarians
let off a feeble volley of arrows, and, offering no other resistance,
fled rapidly and tumultuously across the plain. The horse easily
overtook the fugitives, riding them down and cutting them to pieces
without mercy, until Cortés, weary with slaughter, called off his men,
leaving the field loaded with the bloody trophies of victory.[151]
The next day, the Spanish commander, with his usual policy after a
decisive blow had been struck, sent a new embassy to the Tlascalan
capital. The envoys received their instructions through the interpreter,
Marina. That remarkable woman had attracted general admiration by the
constancy and cheerfulness with which she endured all the privations of
the camp. Far from betraying the natural weakness and timidity of her
sex, she had shrunk from no hardship herself, and had done much to
fortify the drooping spirits of the soldiers; while her sympathies,
whenever occasion offered, had been actively exerted in mitigating the
calamities of her Indian countrymen.[152]
Through his faithful interpreter, Cortés communicated the terms of his
message to the Tlascalan envoys. He made the same professions of amity
as before, promising oblivion of all past injuries; but, if this proffer
were rejected, he would visit their capital as a conqueror, raze every
house in it to the ground, and put every inhabitant to the sword! He
then dismissed the ambassadors with the symbolical presents of a letter
in one hand and an arrow in the other.
The envoys obtained respectful audience from the council of Tlascala,
whom they found plunged in deep dejection by their recent reverses. The
failure of the night-attack had extinguished every spark of hope in
their bosoms. Their armies had been beaten again and again, in the open
field and in secret ambush. Stratagem and courage, all their resources,
had alike proved ineffectual against a foe whose hand was never weary
and whose eye was never closed. Nothing remained but to submit. They
selected four principal caciques, whom they intrusted with a mission to
the Christian camp. They were to assure the strangers of a free passage
through the country, and a friendly reception in the capital. The
proffered friendship of the Spaniards was cordially embraced, with many
awkward excuses for the past. The envoys were to touch at the Tlascalan
camp on their way, and inform Xicotencatl of their proceedings. They
were to require him, at the same time, to abstain from all further
hostilities and to furnish the white men with an ample supply of
provisions.
But the Tlascalan deputies, on arriving at the quarters of that chief,
did not find him in the humor to comply with these instructions. His
repeated collisions with the Spaniards, or, it may be, his
constitutional courage, left him inaccessible to the vulgar terrors of
his countrymen. He regarded the strangers not as supernatural beings,
but as men like himself. The animosity of a warrior had rankled into a
deadly hatred from the mortifications he had endured at their hands, and
his head teemed with plans for recovering his fallen honors and for
taking vengeance on the invaders of his country. He refused to disband
any of the force, still formidable, under his command, or to send
supplies to the enemy’s camp. He further induced the ambassadors to
remain in his quarters and relinquish their visit to the Spaniards. The
latter, in consequence, were kept in ignorance of the movements in their
favor which had taken place in the Tlascalan capital.[153]
The conduct of Xicotencatl is condemned by Castilian writers as that of
a ferocious and sanguinary barbarian. It is natural they should so
regard it. But those who have no national prejudice to warp their
judgments may come to a different conclusion. They may find much to
admire in that high, unconquerable spirit, like some proud column
standing alone in its majesty amidst the fragments and ruins around it.
They may see evidences of a clear-sighted sagacity, which, piercing the
thin veil of insidious friendship proffered by the Spaniards, and
penetrating the future, discerned the coming miseries of his country;
the noble patriotism of one who would rescue that country at any cost,
and, amidst the gathering darkness, would infuse his own intrepid spirit
into the hearts of his nation, to animate them to a last struggle for
independence.