TERRIBLE MASSACRE--TRANQUILLITY RESTORED--REFLECTIONS ON THE
MASSACRE--FURTHER PROCEEDINGS--ENVOYS FROM MONTEZUMA
1519
With the first streak of morning light, Cortés was seen on horseback,
directing the movements of his little band. The strength of his forces
he drew up in the great square or court, surrounded partly by buildings,
as before noticed, and in part by a high wall. There were three gates of
entrance, at each of which he placed a strong guard. The rest of his
troops, with his great guns, he posted without the enclosure, in such a
manner as to command the avenues and secure those within from
interruption in their bloody work. Orders had been sent the night before
to the Tlascalan chiefs to hold themselves ready, at a concerted signal,
to march into the city and join the Spaniards.
The arrangements were hardly completed, before the Cholulan caciques
appeared, leading a body of levies, _tamanes_, even more numerous than
had been demanded. They were marched at once into the square, commanded,
as we have seen, by the Spanish infantry, which was drawn up under the
walls. Cortés then took some of the caciques aside. With a stern air,
he bluntly charged them with the conspiracy, showing that he was well
acquainted with all the particulars. He had visited their city, he said,
at the invitation of their emperor; had come as a friend; had respected
the inhabitants and their property; and, to avoid all cause of umbrage,
had left a great part of his forces without the walls. They had received
him with a show of kindness and hospitality, and, reposing on this, he
had been decoyed into the snare, and found this kindness only a mask to
cover the blackest perfidy.
The Cholulans were thunderstruck at the accusation. An undefined awe
crept over them as they gazed on the mysterious strangers and felt
themselves in the presence of beings who seemed to have the power of
reading the thoughts scarcely formed in their bosoms. There was no use
in prevarication or denial before such judges. They confessed the whole,
and endeavored to excuse themselves by throwing the blame on Montezuma.
Cortés, assuming an air of higher indignation at this, assured them that
the pretence should not serve, since, even if well founded, it would be
no justification; and he would now make such an example of them for
their treachery that the report of it should ring throughout the wide
borders of Anahuac!
The fatal signal, the discharge of an arquebuse, was then given. In an
instant every musket and cross-bow was levelled at the unfortunate
Cholulans in the courtyard, and a frightful volley poured into them as
they stood crowded together like a herd of deer in the centre. They
were taken by surprise, for they had not heard the preceding dialogue
with the chiefs. They made scarcely any resistance to the Spaniards, who
followed up the discharge of their pieces by rushing on them with their
swords; and, as the half-naked bodies of the natives afforded no
protection, they hewed them down with as much ease as the reaper mows
down the ripe corn in harvest-time. Some endeavored to scale the walls,
but only afforded a surer mark to the arquebusiers and archers. Others
threw themselves into the gateways, but were received on the long pikes
of the soldiers who guarded them. Some few had better luck in hiding
themselves under the heaps of slain with which the ground was soon
loaded.
While this work of death was going on, the countrymen of the slaughtered
Indians, drawn together by the noise of the massacre, had commenced a
furious assault on the Spaniards from without. But Cortés had placed his
battery of heavy guns in a position that commanded the avenues, and
swept off the files of the assailants as they rushed on. In the
intervals between the discharges, which, in the imperfect state of the
science in that day, were much longer than in ours, he forced back the
press by charging with the horse into the midst. The steeds, the guns,
the weapons of the Spaniards were all new to the Cholulans.
Notwithstanding the novelty of the terrific spectacle, the flash of
fire-arms mingling with the deafening roar of the artillery as its
thunders reverberated among the buildings, the despairing Indians
pushed on to take the places of their fallen comrades.
While this fierce struggle was going forward, the Tlascalans, hearing
the concerted signal, had advanced with quick pace into the city. They
had bound, by order of Cortés, wreaths of sedge round their heads, that
they might the more surely be distinguished from the Cholulans.[210]
Coming up in the very heat of the engagement, they fell on the
defenceless rear of the townsmen, who, trampled down under the heels of
the Castilian cavalry on one side, and galled by their vindictive
enemies on the other, could no longer maintain their ground. They gave
way, some taking refuge in the nearest buildings, which, being partly of
wood, were speedily set on fire. Others fled to the temples. One strong
party, with a number of priests at its head, got possession of the great
_teocalli_. There was a vulgar tradition, already alluded to, that on
removal of part of the walls the god would send forth an inundation to
overwhelm his enemies. The superstitious Cholulans with great difficulty
succeeded in wrenching away some of the stones in the walls of the
edifice. But dust, not water, followed. Their false god deserted them in
the hour of need. In despair they flung themselves into the wooden
turrets that crowned the temple, and poured down stones, javelins, and
burning arrows on the Spaniards, as they climbed the great staircase
which, by a flight of one hundred and twenty steps, sealed the face of
the pyramid. But the fiery shower fell harmless on the steel bonnets of
the Christians, while they availed themselves of the burning shafts to
set fire to the wooden citadel, which was speedily wrapt in flames.
Still the garrison held out, and though quarter, _it is said_, was
offered, only one Cholulan availed himself of it. The rest threw
themselves headlong from the parapet, or perished miserably in the
flames.[211]
All was now confusion and uproar in the fair city which had so lately
reposed in security and peace. The groans of the dying, the frantic
supplications of the vanquished for mercy, were mingled with the loud
battle-cries of the Spaniards as they rode down their enemy, and with
the shrill whistle of the Tlascalans, who gave full scope to the
long-cherished rancor of ancient rivalry. The tumult was still further
swelled by the incessant rattle of musketry, and the crash of falling
timbers, which sent up a volume of flame that outshone the ruddy light
of morning, making altogether a hideous confusion of sights and sounds
that converted the Holy City into a Pandemonium. As resistance
slackened, the victors broke into the houses and sacred places,
plundering them of whatever valuables they contained, plate, jewels,
which were found in some quantity, wearing-apparel and provisions, the
two last coveted even more than the former by the simple Tlascalans,
thus facilitating a division of the spoil much to the satisfaction of
their Christian confederates. Amidst this universal license, it is
worthy of remark, the commands of Cortés were so far respected that no
violence was offered to women or children, though these, as well as
numbers of the men, were made prisoners to be swept into slavery by the
Tlascalans.[212] These scenes of violence had lasted some hours, when
Cortés, moved by the entreaties of some Cholulan chiefs who had been
reserved from the massacre, backed by the prayers of the Mexican envoys,
consented out of regard, as he said, to the latter, the representatives
of Montezuma, to call off the soldiers, and put a stop, as well as he
could, to further outrage.{*} Two of the caciques were, also, permitted
to go to their countrymen with assurances of pardon and protection to
all who would return to their obedience.
{*} [Andrés de Tápia, who participated in the massacre, says that the
work of destroying the city (“el trabajar por destruir la cibdad”) went
on for two days, before Cortés gave orders for it to cease, and that it
was not till two or three days later that the inhabitants, many of whom
had fled to the mountains and neighboring territory, obtained pardon and
leave to return. Col. de Doc. para la Hist. de México, publicada por
Joaquin García Icazbalceta, tom. ii.--K.]
These measures had their effect. By the joint efforts of Cortés and the
caciques, the tumult was with much difficulty appeased. The assailants,
Spaniards and Indians, gathered under their respective banners, and the
Cholulans, relying on the assurance of their chiefs, gradually returned
to their homes.
The first act of Cortés was to prevail on the Tlascalan chiefs to
liberate their captives.[213] Such was their deference to the Spanish
commander that they acquiesced, though not without murmurs, contenting
themselves, as best they could, with the rich spoil rifled from the
Cholulans, consisting of various luxuries long since unknown in
Tlascala. His next care was to cleanse the city from its loathsome
impurities, particularly from the dead bodies which lay festering in
heaps in the streets and great square. The general, in his letter to
Charles the Fifth, admits three thousand slain, most accounts say six,
and some swell the amount yet higher. As the eldest and principal
cacique was among the number, Cortés assisted the Cholulans in
installing a successor in his place.[214] By these pacific measures
confidence was gradually restored. The people in the environs,
reassured, flocked into the capital to supply the place of the
diminished population. The markets were again opened; and the usual
avocations of an orderly, industrious community were resumed. Still, the
long piles of black and smouldering ruins proclaimed the hurricane which
had so lately swept over the city, and the walls surrounding the scene
of slaughter in the great square, which were standing more than fifty
years after the event, told the sad tale of the Massacre of
Cholula.[215]
This passage in their history is one of those that have left a dark
stain on the memory of the Conquerors. Nor can we contemplate at this
day, without a shudder, the condition of this fair and flourishing
capital thus invaded in its privacy and delivered over to the excesses
of a rude and ruthless soldiery. But, to judge the action fairly, we
must transport ourselves to the age when it happened. The difficulty
that meets us in the outset is, to find a justification of the right of
conquest, at all. But it should be remembered that religious infidelity,
at this period, and till a much later, was regarded--no matter whether
founded on ignorance or education, whether hereditary or acquired,
heretical or pagan--as a sin to be punished with fire and fagot in this
world, and eternal suffering in the next. This doctrine, monstrous as it
is, was the creed of the Romish, in other words, of the Christian
Church,--the basis of the Inquisition, and of those other species of
religious persecutions which have stained the annals, at some time or
other, of nearly every nation in Christendom.[216] Under this code, the
territory of the heathen, wherever found, was regarded as a sort of
religious waif, which, in default of a legal proprietor, was claimed
and taken possession of by the Holy See, and as such was freely given
away by the head of the Church, to any temporal potentate whom he
pleased, that would assume the burden of conquest.[217] Thus, Alexander
the Sixth generously granted a large portion of the Western hemisphere
to the Spaniards, and of the Eastern to the Portuguese. These lofty
pretensions of the successors of the humble fisherman of Galilee, far
from being nominal, were acknowledged and appealed to as conclusive in
controversies between nations.[218]
With the right of conquest, thus conferred, came also the obligation, on
which it may be said to have been founded, to retrieve the nations
sitting in darkness from eternal perdition. This obligation was
acknowledged by the best and the bravest, the gownsman in his closet,
the missionary, and the warrior in the crusade. However much it may
have been debased by temporal motives and mixed up with worldly
considerations of ambition and avarice, it was still active in the mind
of the Christian conqueror. We have seen how far paramount it was to
every calculation of personal interest in the breast of Cortés. The
concession of the Pope, then, founded on, and enforcing, the imperative
duty of conversion,[219] was the assumed basis--and, in the apprehension
of that age, a sound one--of the right of conquest.[220]
This right could not, indeed, be construed to authorize any unnecessary
act of violence to the natives. The present expedition, up to the period
of its history at which we are now arrived, had probably been stained
with fewer of such acts than almost any similar enterprise of the
Spanish discoverers in the New World. Throughout the campaigns, Cortés
had prohibited all wanton injuries to the natives in person or property,
and had punished the perpetrators of them with exemplary severity. He
had been faithful to his friends, and, with perhaps a single exception,
not unmerciful to his foes. Whether from policy or principle, it should
be recorded to his credit; though, like every sagacious mind, he may
have felt that principle and policy go together.
He had entered Cholula as a friend, at the invitation of the Indian
emperor, who had a real, if not avowed, control over the state. He had
been received as a friend, with every demonstration of good will; when,
without any offence of his own or his followers, he found they were to
be the victims of an insidious plot,--that they were standing on a mine
which might be sprung at any moment and bury them all in its ruins. His
safety, as he truly considered, left no alternative but to anticipate
the blow of his enemies. Yet who can doubt that the punishment thus
inflicted was excessive,--that the same end might have been attained by
directing the blow against the guilty chiefs, instead of letting it fall
on the ignorant rabble who but obeyed the commands of their masters? But
when was it ever seen that fear, armed with power, was scrupulous in the
exercise of it? or that the passions of a fierce soldiery, inflamed by
conscious injuries, could be regulated in the moment of explosion?
We shall, perhaps, pronounce more impartially on the conduct of the
Conquerors if we compare it with that of our own contemporaries under
somewhat similar circumstances. The atrocities at Cholula were not so
bad as those inflicted on the descendants of these very Spaniards, in
the late war of the Peninsula, by the most polished nations of our time;
by the British at Badajoz, for example,--at Tarragona, and a hundred
other places, by the French. The wanton butchery, the ruin of property,
and, above all, those outrages worse than death, from which the female
part of the population were protected at Cholula, show a catalogue of
enormities quite as black as those imputed to the Spaniards, and without
the same apology for resentment,--with no apology, indeed, but that
afforded by a brave and patriotic resistance. The consideration of these
events, which, from their familiarity, make little impression on our
senses, should render us more lenient in our judgments of the past,
showing, as they do, that man in a state of excitement, savage or
civilized, is much the same in every age. It may teach us--it is one of
the best lessons of history--that, since such are the _inevitable_ evils
of war, even among the most polished people, those who hold the
destinies of nations in their hands, whether rulers or legislators,
should submit to every sacrifice, save that of honor, before authorizing
an appeal to arms. The extreme solicitude to avoid these calamities, by
the aid of peaceful congresses and impartial mediation, is, on the
whole, the strongest evidence, stronger than that afforded by the
progress of science and art, of our boasted advance in civilization.
It is far from my intention to vindicate the cruel deeds of the old
Conquerors. Let them lie heavy on their heads. They were an iron race,
who perilled life and fortune in the cause; and, as they made little
account of danger and suffering for themselves, they had little sympathy
to spare for their unfortunate enemies. But, to judge them fairly, we
must not do it by the lights of our own age. We must carry ourselves
back to theirs, and take the point of view afforded by the civilization
of their time. Thus only can we arrive at impartial criticism in
reviewing the generations that are past. We must extend to them the same
justice which we shall have occasion to ask from posterity, when, by the
light of a higher civilization, it surveys the dark or doubtful passages
in our own history, which hardly arrest the eye of the contemporary.{*}
{*} [The “massacre” at Cholula _was_ a military necessity to one warring
as Cortés was. Having discovered the existence of a plot to exterminate
his forces, he simply struck first. The Cholulans had taken measures to
annihilate the invaders, which must have proved successful against
ordinary foes. Not only the Spanish historians but the native
chroniclers testify to this fact. The Mexican story is told in the
Indian paintings still preserved at San Juan Cuauhtlautzinco. The
Cholulans did not regard the Spaniards as gods. They went to work to
trap them and starve them like ordinary human beings. They cut off their
supplies. They shut them up in the great Tecpan. The Tlascalans knew all
the while that treachery was planned. They knew also (what the Spaniards
did not know, because of their ignorance of Indian governmental
institutions) that any oaths the Cholulan chiefs might take would be
binding upon the tribe only if the tribe had commissioned its
representatives to take them. The embassy was only a decoy. The
Spaniards thought that the perfuming with incense indicated submission
to themselves. They did not know that prisoners of war, destined for
sacrifice, were perfumed in the same way. But the slaughter could not
have been by any means as great as is ordinarily supposed. In the first
place, there were not as many inhabitants in the city as Cortés
imagined; and, in the second place, three of the wards of the city were
not involved either in the plot or the killing. The great crowd which
attended the Spaniards as they passed through the streets was always the
same crowd. It made a prodigious noise, and the invaders naturally
imagined it to betoken an immense population. But Bandelier’s estimate
of 30,000 inhabitants is probably correct. Cortés, in his first report,
writes, with apparent complacency, that “3000 muriéron en dos horas.”
This would imply a most astounding killing capacity on the part of the
less than 500 Spaniards and their allies. The fire-arms of course made
awful havoc, yet we must remember that it was a matter of time to load
and fire the muskets and cannons of that age. No women and children were
killed, not only because the soldiers were ordered to spare all women
and children, but also because all non-combatants had been sent away
some time before. Armed men fought and killed armed men. Moreover, the
Tlascalan allies were more eager to plunder and to capture prisoners
than to kill. Bandelier, recalling the fact that the battle was fought
on a space not a quarter of a mile in length, questions whether more
than five hundred men fell. His estimate is probably too small. The
killing was stopped by Cortés five hours after the first shot was fired.
Andrés de Tápia, who wrote some time after the affair, says the
pillaging, etc., went on for two days. Bernal Diaz, writing fifty years
afterward, says it ended the second «lay. But Cortés, writing the next
year, says the place was full of women and children the next day. The
“smoking ruins” must be dismissed as a creation of the imagination.
Adobe and stone walls, and roof timbers covered with a thick coating of
earth, do not afford good material for a conflagration. The 20,000
warriors from Mexico mentioned on p. 194 could not have been present. It
would have been impossible for so large a body to have been sent from
that city, and Cortés would have learned of its approach, through his
Tlascalan allies, long before. Bandelier treats the massacre very
lucidly in his “Gilded Man,” pp. 258-282.--M.]
But, whatever be thought of this transaction in a moral view, as a
stroke of policy it was unquestionable. The nations of Anahuac had
beheld, with admiration mingled with awe, the little band of Christian
warriors steadily advancing along the plateau in face of every obstacle,
overturning army after army with as much ease, apparently, as the good
ship throws off the angry billows from her bows, or rather like the
lava, which, rolling from their own volcanoes, holds on its course
unchecked by obstacles, rock, tree, or building, bearing them along, or
crushing and consuming them in its fiery path. The prowess of the
Spaniards--“the white gods,” as they were often called[221]--made them
to be thought invincible. But it was not till their arrival at Cholula
that the natives learned how terrible was their vengeance; and they
trembled!
None trembled more than the Aztec emperor on his throne among the
mountains. He read in these events the dark characters traced by the
finger of Destiny.[222] He felt his empire melting away like a morning
mist. He might well feel so. Some of the most important cities in the
neighborhood of Cholula, intimidated by the fate of that capital, new
sent their envoys to the Castilian camp, tendering their allegiance, and
propitiating the favor of the strangers by rich presents of gold and
slaves.[223] Montezuma, alarmed at these signs of defection, took
counsel again of his impotent deities; but, although the altars smoked
with fresh hecatombs of human victims, he obtained no cheering response.
He determined, therefore, to send another embassy to the Spaniards,
disavowing any participation in the conspiracy of Cholula.
Meanwhile Cortés was passing his time in that capital. He thought that
the impression produced by the late scenes, and by the present
restoration of tranquillity, offered a fair opportunity for the good
work of conversion. He accordingly urged the citizens to embrace the
Cross and abandon the false guardians who had abandoned them in their
extremity. But the traditions of centuries rested on the Holy City,
shedding a halo of glory around it as “the sanctuary of the gods,” the
religious capital of Anahuac. It was too much to expect that the people
would willingly resign this pre-eminence and descend to the level of an
ordinary community. Still Cortés might have pressed the matter, however
unpalatable, but for the renewed interposition of the wise Olmedo, who
persuaded him to postpone it till after the reduction of the whole
country.[224]
The Spanish general, however, had the satisfaction to break open the
cages in which the victims for sacrifice were confined, and to dismiss
the trembling inmates to liberty and life. He also seized upon the great
_teocalli_, and devoted that portion of the building which, being of
stone, had escaped the fury of the flames, to the purposes of a
Christian church; while a crucifix of stone and lime, of gigantic
dimensions, spreading out its arms above the city, proclaimed that the
population below was under the protection of the Cross. On the same spot
now stands a temple overshadowed by dark cypresses of unknown antiquity,
and dedicated to Our Lady _de los Remedios_. An image of the Virgin
presides over it, _said_ to have been left by the Conqueror
himself;[225] and an Indian ecclesiastic, a descendant of the ancient
Cholulans, performs the peaceful services of the Roman Catholic
communion on the spot where his ancestors celebrated the sanguinary
rites of the mystic Quetzalcoatl.[226]
During the occurrence of these events, envoys arrived from Mexico. They
were charged, as usual, with a rich present of plate and ornaments of
gold, among others, artificial birds in imitation of turkeys, with
plumes of the same precious metal. To these were added fifteen hundred
cotton dresses of delicate fabric. The emperor even expressed his
regret at the catastrophe of Cholula, vindicated himself from any share
in the conspiracy which he said had brought deserved retribution on the
heads of its authors, and explained the existence of an Aztec force in
the neighborhood by the necessity of repressing some disorders
there.[227]
One cannot contemplate this pusillanimous conduct of Montezuma without
mingled feelings of pity and contempt. It is not easy to reconcile his
assumed innocence of the plot with many circumstances connected with it.
But it must be remembered here, and always, that his history is to be
collected solely from Spanish writers and such of the natives as
flourished after the Conquest, when the country had become a colony of
Spain. Not an Aztec record of the primitive age survives, in a form
capable of interpretation.[228] It is the hard fate of this unfortunate
monarch to be wholly indebted for his portraiture to the pencil of his
enemies.
More than a fortnight had elapsed since the entrance of the Spaniards
into Cholula, and Cortés now resolved without loss of time to resume his
march towards the capital. His rigorous reprisals had so far intimidated
the Cholulans that he felt assured he should no longer leave an active
enemy in his rear, to annoy him in case of retreat. He had the
satisfaction, before his departure, to heal the feud--in outward
appearance, at least--that had so long subsisted between the Holy City
and Tlascala, and which, under the revolution which so soon changed the
destinies of the country, never revived.
It was with some disquietude that he now received an application from
his Cempoallan allies to be allowed to withdraw from the expedition and
return to their own homes. They had incurred too deeply the resentment
of the Aztec emperor, by their insults to his collectors, and by their
co-operation with the Spaniards, to care to trust themselves in his
capital. It was in vain Cortés endeavored to reassure them by promised
of his protection. Their habitual distrust and dread of “the great
Montezuma” were not to be overcome. The general learned their
determination with regret, for they had been of infinite service to the
cause by their stanch fidelity and courage. All this made it the more
difficult for him to resist their reasonable demand. Liberally
recompensing their services, therefore, from the rich wardrobe and
treasures of the emperor, he took leave of his faithful followers,
before his own departure from Cholula. He availed himself of their
return to send letters to Juan de Escalante, his lieutenant at Vera
Cruz, acquainting him with the successful progress of the expedition. He
enjoined on that officer to strengthen the fortifications of the place,
so as the better to resist any hostile interference from Cuba,--an event
for which Cortés was ever on the watch,--and to keep down revolt among
the natives. He especially commended the Totonacs to his protection, as
allies whose fidelity to the Spaniards exposed them, in no slight
degree, to the vengeance of the Aztecs.[229]