THE "CONQUEST OF MEXICO" AS LITERATURE AND AS HISTORY
Regarded simply from the standpoint of literary criticism, the _Conquest
of Mexico_ is Prescott's masterpiece. More than that, it is one of the
most brilliant examples which the English language possesses of literary
art applied to historical narration. Its theme is one which contains all
the elements of the romantic,--the chivalrous daring which boldly
attempts the seemingly impossible, the struggle of the few against
overwhelming odds, the dauntless heroism which never quails in the
presence of defeat, desertion, defiance, or disaster, the spectacle of
the forces of one civilisation arrayed against those of another, the
white man striving for supremacy over the red man, and finally, the True
Faith in arms against a bloody form of paganism. In Prescott's treatment
of this theme we find displayed the conscious skill of the born artist
who subordinates everything to the dramatic development of the central
motive. The style is Prescott's at its best,--not terse and pointed like
Macaulay's, nor yet so intimately persuasive as that of Parkman, but
nevertheless free, flowing, and often stately--the fit instrument of
expression for a sensitive and noble mind. Finally, in this book
Prescott shows a power of depicting character that is far beyond his
wont, so that his heroes are not lay figures but living men. We need
not wonder, then, if the _Conquest of Mexico_ has held its own, as
literature, and if to-day it is as widely read and with the same
breathless interest as in the years when the world first felt the
fascination of so great a literary achievement.
When we come to analyse the structure of the narrative, we find that one
secret of its effectiveness lies in its artistic unity. Prescott had
studied very carefully the manner in which Irving had written the story
of Columbus, and he learned a valuable lesson from the defects of his
contemporary. In a memorandum dated March 21, 1841, he set down some
very shrewd remarks.
"Have been looking over Irving's _Columbus_ also. A beautiful
composition, but fatiguing as a whole to the reader. Why? The fault
is partly in the subject, partly in the manner of treating it. The
discovery of a new world ... is a magnificent theme in itself, full
of sublimity and interest. But it terminates with the discovery;
and, unfortunately, this is made before half of the first volume is
disposed of. All after that event is made up of little
details,--the sailing from one petty island to another, all
inhabited sailing from one petty island to another, all inhabited
by savages, and having the same general character. Nothing can be
more monotonous, and, of course, more likely to involve the writer
in barren repetition.... Irving should have abridged this part of
his story, and instead of four volumes, have brought it into
two.... The conquest of Mexico, though very inferior in the leading
idea which forms its basis to the story of Columbus, is, on the
whole, a far better subject; since the event is sufficiently grand,
and, as the catastrophe is deferred, the interest is kept up
through the whole. Indeed, the perilous adventures and crosses with
which the enterprise was attended, the desperate chances and
reverses and unexpected vicissitudes, all serve to keep the
interest alive. On my plan, I go on with Cortes to his death. But
I must take care not to make this tail-piece too long."
This is a bit of very accurate criticism; and the plan which Prescott
formed was executed in a manner absolutely faultless. Never for a moment
is there a break in the continuity of its narrative. Never for a moment
do we lose sight of the central and inspiring figure of Cortes fighting
his way, as it were, single-handed against the intrigues of his own
countrymen, the half-heartedness of his followers, the obstacles of
nature, and the overwhelming forces of his Indian foes, to a superb and
almost incredible success. Everything in the narrative is subordinated
to this. Every event is made to bear directly upon the development of
this leading motive. The art of Prescott in this book is the art of a
great dramatist who keeps his eye and brain intent upon the true
catastrophe, in the light of which alone the other episodes possess
significance. To the general reader this supreme moment comes when
Cortes makes his second entry into Mexico, returning over "the black and
blasted environs," to avenge the horrors of the _noche triste_, and in
one last tremendous assault upon the capital to destroy forever the
power of the Aztecs and bring Guatemozin into the possession of his
conqueror. What follows after is almost superfluous to one who reads the
story for the pure enjoyment which it gives. It is like the last chapter
of some novels, appended to satisfy the curiosity of those who wish to
know "what happened after." In nothing has Prescott shown his literary
tact more admirably than in compressing this record of the aftermath of
Conquest within the limit of some hundred pages.
The superiority of the _Conquest of Mexico_ to all the rest of
Prescott's works is sufficiently proved by one unquestioned fact. Though
we read his other books with pleasure and unflagging interest, the
_Conquest of Mexico_ alone stamps upon our minds the memory of certain
episodes which are told so vividly as never to be obliterated. We may
never open the book again; yet certain pages remain part and parcel of
our intellectual possessions. In them Prescott has risen to a height of
true greatness as a story-teller, and masterful word-painter. Of these,
for example, is the account of the burning of the ships,[30] when
Cortes, by destroying his fleet, cuts off from his wavering troops all
hope of a return home except as conquerors, and when, facing them, in
imminent peril of death at their hands, his manly eloquence so kindles
their imagination and stirs their fighting blood as to make them shout,
"To Mexico! To Mexico!" Another striking passage is that which tells of
what happened in Cholula, where the little army of Spaniards, after
being received with a show of cordial hospitality, learn that the
treacherous Aztecs have laid a plot for their extermination.[31]
"That night was one of deep anxiety to the army. The ground they
stood on seemed loosening beneath their feet, and any moment might
be the one marked for their destruction. Their vigilant general
took all possible precautions for their safety, increasing the
number of sentinels, and posting his guns in such a manner as to
protect the approaches to the camp. His eyes, it may well be
believed, did not close during the night. Indeed, every Spaniard
lay down in his arms, and every horse stood saddled and bridled,
ready for instant service. But no assault was meditated by the
Indians, and the stillness of the hour was undisturbed except by
the occasional sounds heard in a populous city, even when buried in
slumber, and by the hoarse cries of the priests from the turrets of
the _teocallis_, proclaiming through their trumpets the watches of
the night."[32]
Here is true literary art used to excite in the reader the same
fearfulness and apprehension which the Spaniards themselves experienced.
The last sentence has a peculiar and indescribable effect upon the
nerves, so that in the following chapter we feel something of the
exultation of the Castilian soldier when morning breaks, and Cortes
receives the Cholulan chiefs, astounds them by revealing that he knows
their plot, and then, before they can recover from their thunderstruck
amazement, orders a general attack upon the Indians who have stealthily
gathered to destroy the white men. The battle-scene which follows and of
which a part is quoted here, is unsurpassed by any other to be found in
modern history.
"Cortes 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 Cortes, wreaths of sedge round
their heads, that they might the more surely be distinguished from
the Cholulans. 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,
scaled 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.
"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 rancour 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."
This spirited description, which deserves comparison with Livy's picture
of the rout at Cannae, shows Prescott at his best. In it he has shaken
off every trace of formalism and of leisurely repose. His blood is up.
The short, nervous sentences, the hurry of the narrative, the rapid
onrush of events, rouse the reader and fill him with the true
battle-spirit. Of an entirely different _genre_ is the account of the
entrance of the Spanish army into Mexico as Montezuma's guest, and of
the splendid city which they beheld,--the broad streets coated with a
hard cement, the intersecting canals, the inner lake darkened by
thousands of canoes, the great market-places, the long vista of snowy
mansions, their inner porticoes embellished with porphyry and jasper,
and the fountains of crystal water leaping up and glittering in the
sunlight. Memorable, too, is the scene of the humiliation of Montezuma
when, having come as a friend to the quarters of the Spaniards, he is
fettered like a slave; and that other scene, no less painful, where the
fallen monarch appears upon the walls and begs his people to desist from
violence, only to be greeted with taunts and insults, and a shower of
stones.
But most impressive of all and most unforgettable is the story of the
_noche triste_--the Spanish army and their Indian allies stealing
silently and at dead of night out of the city which but a short time
before they had entered with so brave a show.
"The night was cloudy, and a drizzling rain, which fell without
intermission, added to the obscurity. The great square before the
palace was deserted, as, indeed, it had been since the fall of
Montezuma. Steadily, and as noiselessly as possible, the Spaniards
held their way along the great street of Tlacopan, which so lately
had resounded with the tumult of battle. All was now hushed in
silence; and they were only reminded of the past by the occasional
presence of some solitary corpse, or a dark heap of the slain,
which too plainly told where the strife had been hottest. As they
passed along the lanes and alleys which opened into the great
street, or looked down the canals, whose polished surface gleamed
with a sort of ebon lustre through the obscurity of night, they
easily fancied that they discerned the shadowy forms of their foe
lurking in ambush and ready to spring on them. But it was only
fancy; and the city slept undisturbed even by the prolonged echoes
of the tramp of the horses and the hoarse rumbling of the artillery
and baggage-trains. At length, a lighter space beyond the dusky
line of buildings showed the van of the army that it was emerging
on the open causeway. They might well have congratulated themselves
on having thus escaped the dangers of an assault in the city
itself, and that a brief time would place them in comparative
safety on the opposite shore. But the Mexicans were not all asleep.
"As the Spaniards drew near the spot where the street opened on the
causeway, and were preparing to lay the portable bridge across the
uncovered breach, which now met their eyes, several Indian
sentinels, who had been stationed at this, as at the other
approaches to the city, took the alarm, and fled, rousing their
countrymen by their cries. The priests, keeping their night-watch
on the summit of the _teocallis_, instantly caught the tidings and
sounded their shells, while the huge drum in the desolate temple of
the war-god sent forth those solemn tones, which, heard only in
seasons of calamity, vibrated through every corner of the capital.
The Spaniards saw that no time was to be lost.... Before they had
time to defile across the narrow passage, a gathering sound was
heard, like that of a mighty forest agitated by the winds. It grew
louder and louder, while on the dark waters of the lake was heard a
plashing noise, as of many oars. Then came a few stones and arrows
striking at random among the hurrying troops. They fell every
moment faster and more furious, till they thickened into a terrible
tempest, while the very heavens were rent with the yells and
warcries of myriads of combatants, who seemed all at once to be
swarming over land and lake!"
What reader of this passage can forget the ominous, melancholy note of
that great war drum? It is one of the most haunting things in all
literature--like the blood-stained hands of the guilty queen in
_Macbeth_, or the footprint on the sand in _Robinson Crusoe_, or the
chill, mirthless laughter of the madwoman in _Jane Eyre_.
One other splendidly vital passage is that which recounts the last great
agony on the retreat from Mexico. The shattered remnants of the army of
Cortes are toiling slowly onward to the coast, faint with famine and
fatigue, deprived of the arms which in their flight they had thrown
away, and harassed by their dusky enemies, who hover about them, calling
out in tones of menace, "Hasten on! You will soon find yourselves where
you cannot escape!"
"As the army was climbing the mountain steeps which shut in the
Valley of Otompan, the vedettes came in with the intelligence that
a powerful body was encamped on the other side, apparently awaiting
their approach. The intelligence was soon confirmed by their own
eyes, as they turned the crest of the sierra, and saw spread out,
below, a mighty host, filling up the whole depth of the valley, and
giving to it the appearance, from the white cotton mail of the
warriors, of being covered with snow.... As far as the eye could
reach, were to be seen shields and waving banners, fantastic
helmets, forests of shining spears, the bright feather-mail of the
chief, and the coarse cotton panoply of his follower, all mingled
together in wild confusion and tossing to and fro like the billows
of a troubled ocean. It was a sight to fill the stoutest heart
among the Christians with dismay, heightened by the previous
expectation of soon reaching the friendly land which was to
terminate their wearisome pilgrimage. Even Cortes, as he
contrasted the tremendous array before him with his own diminished
squadrons, wasted by disease and enfeebled by hunger and fatigue,
could not escape the conviction that his last hour had
arrived."[33]
But it is not merely in vivid narration and description of events that
the _Conquest of Mexico_ attains so rare a degree of excellence. Here,
as nowhere else, has Prescott succeeded in delineating character. All
the chief actors of his great historic drama not only live and breathe,
but they are as distinctly differentiated as they must have been in
life. Cortes and his lieutenants are persons whom we actually come to
know in the pages of Prescott, just as in the pages of Xenophon we come
to know Clearchus and the adventurous generals who, like Cortes, made
their way into the heart of a great empire and faced barbarians in
battle. The comparison between Xenophon and Prescott is, indeed, a very
natural one, and it was made quite early after the appearance of the
_Ferdinand and Isabella_ by an English admirer, Mr. Thomas Grenville.
Calling upon this gentleman one day, Mr. Everett found him in his
library reading Xenophon's _Anabasis_ in the original Greek. Mr. Everett
made some casual remark upon the merits of that book, whereupon Mr.
Grenville holding up a volume of _Ferdinand and Isabella_ said, "Here is
one far superior."[34]
Xenophon's character-drawing was done in his own way, briefly and in
dry-point; yet Clearchus, Proxenus, and Menon are not more subtly
distinguished from each other than are Cortes, Sandoval, and Alvarado.
Cortes is very real,--a bold, martial figure, the ideal man of action,
gallant in bearing and powerful of physique, tireless, confident, and
exerting a magnetic influence over all who come into his presence;
gifted also with a truly Spanish craft, and not without a touch of
Spanish cruelty. Sandoval is the true knight,--loyal, devoted to his
chief, wise, and worthy of all trust. Alvarado is the reckless
man-at-arms,--daring to desperation, hot-tempered, fickle, and
passionate, yet with all his faults a man to extort one's liking, even
as he compelled the Aztecs to admire him for his intrepidity and
frankness. Over against these three brilliant figures stands the
melancholy form of Montezuma, around whom, even from the first, one
feels gathering the darkness of his coming fate. He reminds one of some
hero of Greek tragedy, doomed to destruction and intensely conscious of
it, yet striving in vain against the decree of an inexorable destiny.
One recalls him as he is described when the head of a Spanish soldier
had been cut off and sent to him.
"It was uncommonly large and covered with hair; and, as Montezuma
gazed on the ferocious features, rendered more horrible by death,
he seemed to read in them the dark lineaments of the destined
destroyers of his house. He turned from it with a shudder, and
commanded that it should be taken from the city, and not offered at
the shrine of any of his gods."[35]
The contrast between this dreamy, superstitious, half-hearted, and
almost womanish prince and his successor Guatemozin is splendidly worked
out. Guatemozin's fierce patriotism, his hatred of the Spaniards, his
ferocity in battle, and his stubborn unwillingness to yield are
displayed with consummate art, yet in such a way as to win one's
sympathy for him without estranging it from those who conquered him. A
touch of sentiment is delicately infused into the whole narrative of the
Conquest by the manner in which Prescott has treated the relations of
Cortes and the Indian girl, Marina. Here we find interesting evidence of
Prescott's innate purity of mind and thought, for he undoubtedly
idealised this girl and suppressed, or at any rate passed over very
lightly, the truth which Bernal Diaz, on the other hand, sets forth with
the blunt coarseness of a foul-mouthed old soldier.[36] No one would
gather from Prescott's pages that Marina had been the mistress of other
men before Cortes. Nor do we get any hint from him that Cortes wearied
of her in the end, and thrust her off upon one of his captains whom he
made drunk in order to render him willing to go through the forms of
marriage with her. In Prescott's narrative she is lovely, graceful,
generous, and true; and the only hint that is given of her former life
is found in the statement that "she had her errors."[37] To his readers
she is, after a fashion, the heroine of the Conquest,--the tender,
affectionate companion of the Conqueror, sharing his dangers or averting
them, and not seldom mitigating by her influence the sternness of his
character. Another instance of Prescott's delicacy of mind is found in
the way in which he glides swiftly over the whole topic of the position
which women occupied among the Aztecs, although his Spanish sources were
brutally explicit on this point. There were some things, therefore,
from which Prescott shrank instinctively and in which he allowed his
sensitive modesty to soften and refine upon the truth.
The mention of this circumstance leads one to consider the much-mooted
question as to how far the _Conquest of Mexico_ may be accepted as
veracious history. Is it history at all or is it, as some have said,
historical romance? Are we to classify it with such books as those of
Ranke and Parkman, whose brilliancy of style is wholly compatible with
scrupulous fidelity to historic fact, or must we think of it as verging
upon the category of romances built up around the material which history
affords--with books like _Ivanhoe_ and _Harold_ and _Salammbo_? In the
years immediately following its publication, Prescott's great work was
accepted as indubitably accurate. His imposing array of foot-notes, his
thorough acquaintance with the Spanish chronicles, and the unstinted
approval given to him by contemporary historians inspired in the public
an implicit faith. Then, here and there, a sceptic began to raise his
head, and to question, not the good faith of Prescott, but rather the
value of the very sources upon which Prescott's history had been built.
As a matter of fact, long before Prescott's time, the reports and
narratives of the conquerors had in parts been doubted. As early as the
eighteenth century Lafitau, the Jesuit missionary, in a treatise
published in 1723,[38] had discussed with great acuteness some questions
of American ethnology in a spirit of scientific criticism; and later in
the same century, James Adair had gathered valuable material in the same
department of knowledge.[39] Even earlier, the Spanish Jesuit, Jose de
Acosta, had published a treatise which exhibits traces of a critical
method.[40] Again, Robertson, in his _History of America_ (a book, by
the way, which Prescott had studied very carefully), shows an
independence of attitude and an acumen which find expression in a
definite disagreement with much that had been set down by the Spanish
chroniclers. Such criticism as these and other isolated writers had
brought to bear was directed against that part of the accepted tradition
which relates to the Aztec civilisation. Prescott, following the notices
of Las Casas, Herrera, Bernal Diaz, Oviedo, Cortes himself, and the
writer who is known as the _conquistador anonimo_, had simply weighed
the assertions of one as against those of another, striving to reconcile
their discrepancies of statement and following one rather than the
other, according to the apparent preponderance of probability. He did
not, however, perceive in these discrepancies the clue which might have
guided him, as it subsequently did others, to a clearer understanding of
the actual facts. Therefore, he has painted for us the Mexico of
Montezuma in gorgeous colours, seeing in it a great Empire, possessed of
a civilisation no less splendid than that of Western Europe, and
exhibiting a political and social system comparable with that which
Europeans knew. The magnificence and wealth of this fancied Empire gave,
indeed, the necessary background to his story of the Conquest. It was a
stage setting which raised the exploits of the conquerors to a lofty
and almost epic altitude.
The first serious attempt directly to discredit the accuracy of this
description was made by an American writer, Mr. Robert A. Wilson. Wilson
was an enthusiastic amateur who took a particular interest in the
ethnology of the American Indians. He had travelled in Mexico. He knew
something of the Indians of our Western territory, and he had read the
Spanish chroniclers. The result of his observations was a thorough
disbelief in the traditional picture of Aztec civilisation. He,
therefore, set out to demolish it and to offer in its place a substitute
based upon such facts as he had gathered and such theories as he had
formed. After publishing a preliminary treatise which attracted some
attention, he wrote a bulky volume entitled _A New History of the
Conquest of Mexico_.[41] In the introduction to this book he declares
that his visit to Mexico had shaken his belief "in those Spanish
historic romances upon which Mr. Prescott has founded his magnificent
tale of the conquest of Mexico." He adds that the despatches of Cortes
are the only valuable written authority, and that these consist of two
distinct parts,--first, "an accurate detail of adventures consistent
throughout with the topography of the region in which they occurred";
and second, "a mass of foreign material, apparently borrowed from fables
of the Moorish era, for effect in Spain." "It was not in great battles,
but in a rapid succession of skirmishes, that he distinguished himself
and won the character ... of an adroit leader in Indian war." Wilson
endeavours to show, in the first place, that the Aztecs were simply a
branch of the American Indian race; that their manners and customs were
essentially those of the more northern tribes; that the origin of the
whole race was Phoenician; and that the Spanish account of early
Mexico is almost wholly fabulous. Writing of the different historians of
the Conquest, he mentions Prescott in the following words:--
"A more delicate duty remains,--to speak freely of an American
whose success in the field of literature has raised him to the
highest rank. His talents have not only immortalised himself--they
have added a new charm to the subject of his histories. He showed
his faith by the expenditure of a fortune at the commencement of
his enterprise, in the purchase of books and Mss. relating to
'America of the Spaniards.' These were the materials out of which
he framed his two histories of the two aboriginal empires, Mexico
and Peru. At the time these works were written he could not have
had the remotest idea of the circumstances under which his Spanish
authorities had been produced, or of the external pressure that
gave them their peculiar form and character. He could hardly
understand that peculiar organisation of Spanish society through
which one set of opinions might be uniformly expressed in public,
while the intellectual classes in secret entertain entirely
opposite ones. He acted throughout in the most perfect good faith;
and if, on a subsequent scrutiny, his authorities have proved to be
the fabulous creations of Spanish-Arabian fancy, he is not in
fault. They were the standards when he made use of them--a
sufficient justification of his acts. 'This beautiful world we
inhabit,' said an East Indian philosopher, 'rests on the back of a
mighty elephant; the elephant stands on the back of a monster
turtle; the turtle rests upon a serpent; and the serpent on
nothing.' Thus stand the literary monuments Mr. Prescott has
constructed. They are castles resting upon a cloud which reflects
an eastern sunrise upon a western horizon."
This book appeared in the year of Prescott's death, and he himself made
no published comment on it. A very sharp notice, however, was written
by some one who did not sign his name, but who was undoubtedly very near
to Prescott.[42] The writer of this notice had little difficulty in
showing that Wilson was a very slipshod investigator; that he was in
many respects ignorant of the very authorities whom he attempted to
refute; and that as a writer he was very crude indeed. Some portions of
this paper may be quoted, mainly because they sum up such of Mr.
Wilson's points as were in reality important. The first paragraph has
also a somewhat personal interest.
"Directly and knowingly, as we shall hereafter show, he has availed
himself of Mr. Prescott's labours to an extent which demanded the
most ample 'acknowledgment.' No such acknowledgment is made. But we
beg to ask Mr. Wilson whether there were not other reasons why he
should have spoken of this eminent writer, if not with deference,
at least with respect. He himself informs us that 'most kindly
relations' existed between them. If we are not misinformed, Mr.
Wilson opened the correspondence by modestly requesting the loan of
Mr. Prescott's collection of works relating to Mexican history, for
the purpose of enabling him to write a refutation of the latter's
History of the Conquest. That the replies which he received were
courteous and kindly, we need hardly say. He was informed, that,
although the constant use made of the collection by its possessor
for the correction of his own work must prevent a full compliance
with this request, yet any particular books which he might
designate should be sent to him, and, if he were disposed to make a
visit to Boston, the fullest opportunities should be granted him
for the prosecution of his researches. This invitation Mr. Wilson
did not think fit to accept. Books which were got in readiness for
transmission to him he failed to send for. He had, in the meantime,
discovered that 'the American standpoint' did not require any
examination of 'authorities.' We regret that it should also have
rendered superfluous an acquaintance with the customs of civilised
society. The tone in which he speaks of his distinguished
predecessor is sometimes amusing from the conceit which it
displays, sometimes disgusting from its impudence and coarseness.
He concedes Mr. Prescott's good faith in the use of his materials.
It was only his ignorance and want of the proper qualifications
that prevented him from using them aright 'His non-acquaintance
with Indian character is much to be regretted.' Mr. Wilson himself
enjoys, as he tells us, the inestimable advantage of being the son
of an adopted member of the Iroquois tribe. Nay, 'his ancestors,
for several generations, dwelt near the Indian agency at Cherry
Valley, on Wilson's Patent, though in Cooperstown village was he
born.' We perceive the author's fondness for the inverted style in
composition,--acquired, perhaps, in the course of his long study of
aboriginal oratory. Even without such proofs, and without his own
assertion of the fact, it would not have been difficult, we think,
to conjecture his familiarity with the forms of speech common among
barbarous nations....
"Mr. Wilson ... has found, from his own observation,--the only
source of knowledge, if such it can be called, on which he is
willing to place much reliance,--that the Ojibways and Iroquois are
savages, and he rightly argues that their ancestors must have been
savages. From these premises, without any process of reasoning, he
leaps at once to the conclusion, that in no part of America could
the aboriginal inhabitants ever have lived in any other than a
savage state. Hence he tells us, that, in all statements regarding
them, everything 'must be rejected that is inconsistent with
well-established Indian traits.' The ancient Mexican empire was,
according to his showing, nothing more than one of those
confederacies of tribes with which the reader of early New England
history is perfectly familiar. The far-famed city of Mexico was 'an
Indian village of the first class,'--such, we may hope, as that
which the author saw on his visit to the Massasaugus, where, to his
immense astonishment, he found the people 'clothed, and in their
right minds.' The Aztecs, he argues, could not have built temples,
for the Iroquois do not build temples. The Aztecs could not have
been idolaters or offered up human sacrifices, for the Iroquois are
not idolaters and do not offer up human sacrifices. The Aztecs
could not have been addicted to cannibalism, for the Iroquois never
eat human flesh, unless driven to it by hunger. This is what Mr.
Wilson means by the 'American standpoint'; and those who adopt his
views may consider the whole question settled without any debate."
...
"If, at Mr. Wilson's summons, we reject as improbable a series of
events supported by far stronger evidence than can be adduced for
the conquests of Alexander, the Crusades, or the Norman conquest of
England, what is it, we may ask, that he calls upon us to believe?
His scepticism, as so often happens, affords the measure of his
credulity. He contends that Cortes, the greatest Spaniard of the
sixteenth century, a man little acquainted with books, but endowed
with a gigantic genius and with all the qualities requisite for
success in warlike enterprises and an adventurous career, had his
brain so filled with the romances of chivalry, and so preoccupied
with reminiscences of the Spanish contests with the Moslems, that
he saw in the New World nothing but duplicates of those
contests,--that his heated imagination turned wigwams into palaces,
Indian villages into cities like Granada, swamps into lakes, a
tribe of savages into an empire of civilised men,--that, in the
midst of embarrassments and dangers which, even on Mr. Wilson's
showing, must have taxed all his faculties to the utmost, he
employed himself chiefly in coining lies with which to deceive his
imperial master and all the inhabitants of Christendom,--that,
although he had a host of powerful enemies among his countrymen,
enemies who were in a position to discover the truth, his
statements passed unchallenged and uncontradicted by them,--that
the numerous adventurers and explorers who followed in his track,
instead of exposing the falsity of his relations and descriptions,
found their interest in embellishing the narrative."
Of course Wilson's book was unscientific to a degree, with its
Phoenician theories, its estimate of Spanish sources of information,
and its assorted ignorance of many things. Its author, had, however,
stumbled upon a bit of truth which no ridicule could shake, and which
proved fruitful in suggestion to a very different kind of investigator.
This was Mr. Lewis Henry Morgan, an important name in the history of
American ethnological study. As a young man Morgan had felt an interest
in the American Indian, which developed into a very unusual enthusiasm.
It led him ultimately to spend a long time among the Iroquois, studying
their tribal organisation and social phenomena. He embodied the
knowledge so obtained in a book entitled _The League of the
Iroquois_,[43] a truly epoch-making work, though the author himself was
at the time wholly unaware of its far-reaching importance. This book
described the forms of government, the social organisation, the manners
and the customs of the Iroquois, with great accuracy and thoroughness.
Seven years later, Morgan happened to fall in with a camp of Ojibway
Indians, and found to his astonishment that their tribal customs were
practically identical with those of the Iroquois. While this coincidence
was fresh in his mind, Morgan read Wilson's iconoclastic book on Mexico.
The suggestion made by Wilson that the Aztec civilisation was
essentially the same as that of the northern tribes of Red Indians did
much to crystallise the hypothesis which has now been definitely
established as a fact.
Those who do not care to read a long series of monographs and several
large volumes in order to arrive at a knowledge of what recent
ethnologists hold as true of Ancient Mexico may find the essence of
accepted doctrine somewhat divertingly set forth in a paper written by
Mr. Morgan in criticism of H. H. Bancroft's _Native Races of the Pacific
States_. Mr. Morgan's paper is entitled "Montezuma's Dinner."[44] In it
the statement is briefly made that the Aztecs were simply one branch of
the same Red Race which extended all over the American Continent; that
their forms of government, their usages, and their occupations were not
in kind different from those of the Iroquois, the Ojibways, or any other
of the North American Indian tribes. These institutions and customs
found no analogues among civilised nations, and could not, in their day,
be explained in terms intelligible to contemporary Europeans. Hence,
when the Spaniards under Cortes discovered in Mexico a definite and
fully developed form of civilisation, instead of studying it on the
assumption that it might be different from their own, they described it,
as Mr. A. F. Bandelier has well said, "in terms of comparison selected
from types accessible to the limited knowledge of the times."[45] Thus,
they beheld in Montezuma an "emperor" surrounded by "kings," "princes,"
"nobles," and "generals." His residence was to them an imperial palace.
His mode of life showed the magnificent and stately etiquette of a
European monarch, with lords-in-waiting, court jesters, pages,
secretaries, and household guards. In narrating all these things, the
first Spanish observers were wholly honest, although in their enthusiasm
they added many a touch of literary colour. Their records are
paralleled by those of the English explorers who, in New England,
thought they had found "kings" among the Pequods and Narragansetts, and
who, in Virginia, viewed Powhatan as an "emperor" and Pocahontas as a
"princess." That the Spaniards, like the English, wrote in ignorant good
faith, rather than with a desire to deceive, is shown by the fact that
they actually did record circumstances which even then, if critically
studied, would have shown the falsity of their general belief. Thus, as
Mr. Bandelier points out, the Spaniards tell of the Aztecs that they had
great wealth, reared great palaces, and acquired both scientific
knowledge and skill in art, while in mechanical appliances they remained
on the level of the savage, using stone and flint for tools and weapons,
making pottery without the potter's wheel, and weaving intricate
patterns with the hand-loom only. Equally inconsistent are the
statements that the Aztecs were mild, gentle, virtuous, and kind, and
yet that they sacrificed their prisoners with the most savage rites,
made war that they might secure more sacrificial victims, viewed
marriage as a barter, and regarded chastity as a restraint.[46] Still
further inconsistencies are to be found in the Spanish accounts of the
Aztec government. Montezuma, for instance, is picturesquely held to have
been an absolute ruler, one whose very name aroused awe and veneration
throughout the whole extent of his vast dominions; and yet it is
recorded that while still alive he was superseded by Guatemozin; and
even Acosta notes that there was a council without whose consent nothing
of importance could be done. In fact, under the solvent of Mr. Morgan's
criticism, the gorgeous Aztec empire of Cortes and Prescott shrinks to
very modest proportions. Montezuma is transformed from an hereditary
monarch into an elective war-chief. His dominions become a territory of
about the size of the state of Rhode Island. His capital appears as a
stronghold built amid marshes and surrounded by flat-roofed houses of
_adobe_; while his "palace" is a huge communal-house, built of stone and
lime, and inhabited by his gentile kindred, united in one household. The
magnificent feast which the Spaniards describe so lusciously,--the
throned king served by beautiful women and by stewards who knelt before
him without daring to lift their eyes, the dishes of gold and silver,
the red and black Cholulan jars filled with foaming chocolate, the
"ancient lords" attending at a distance, the orchestra of flutes, reeds,
horns, and kettle-drums, and the three thousand guards without--all this
is converted by Morgan into a sort of barbaric buffet-luncheon, with
Montezuma squatting on the floor, surrounded by his relatives in
breech-clouts, and eating a meal prepared in a common cook-house,
divided at a common kettle, and eaten out of an earthen bowl.
One need not, however, lend himself to so complete a disillusionment as
Mr. Morgan in this paper seeks to thrust upon us. Still more recent
investigations, such as those of Brinton, McGee, and Bandelier, have
restored some of the prestige which Cortes and his followers attached to
the early Mexicans. While the Aztecs were very far from possessing a
monarchical form of government, and while their society was constituted
far differently from that of any European community, and while they are
to be studied simply as one division of the Red Indian race, they were
scarcely so primitive as Mr. Morgan would have us think. They differed
from their more northern kindred not, to be sure, in kind, but very
greatly in degree. Though we have to substitute the communal-house for
the palace, the war-chief for the king, and the tribal organisation for
the feudal system, there still remains a great and interesting people,
fully organised, rich, warlike, and highly skilled in their own arts. In
architecture, weaving, gold and silver work, and pottery, they achieved
artistic wonders. Their instinct for the decorative produced results
which justified the admiration of their conquerors. Their capital,
though it was not the immense city which the Spaniards saw, teeming with
a vast population, was, nevertheless, an imposing collection of
mansions, great and small, whose snowy whiteness, standing out against
the greenery and diversified by glimpses of water, might well impress
the imagination of European strangers. If the communal-houses lacked the
"golden cupolas" of Disraeli's Oriental fancy, neither were they the
"mud huts" which Wilson tells of. If Montezuma was not precisely an
occidental Charles the Fifth, neither is he to be regarded as an earlier
Sitting Bull.
So far, then, as we have to modify Prescott's chapters which describe
the Mexico of Cortes, this modification consists largely in a mere
change of terminology. Following the Spanish records, he has accurately
reproduced just what the Spaniards saw, or thought they saw, in old
Tenochtitlan. He has looked at all things through their eyes; and such
errors as he made were the same errors which they had made while they
were standing in the great _pueblo_ which was to them the scene of so
much suffering and of so great a final triumph. When Prescott wrote,
there lived no man who could have gainsaid him. His story represents the
most accurate information which was then attainable. As Mr. Thorpe has
well expressed it: "No historian is responsible for not using
undiscovered evidence. Prescott wrote from the archives of Europe ...
from the European side. If one cares to know how the Old World first
understood the New, he will read Prescott." Even Morgan, who goes
further in his destructive criticism than any other authoritative
writer, admits that Prescott and his sources "may be trusted in whatever
relates to the acts of the Spaniards, and to the acts and personal
characteristics of the Indians; in whatever relates to their weapons,
implements and utensils, fabrics, food and raiment, and things of a
similar character." Only in what relates to their government, social
relations, and plan of life does the narrative need to be in part
rewritten. It is but fair to note that Prescott himself, in his
preliminary chapters on the Aztecs, is far from dogmatising. His
statements are made with a distinct reserve, and he acknowledges alike
the difficulty of the subject and his doubts as to the finality of what
he tells. Even in his descriptive passages, he is solicitous lest the
warm imagination of the Spanish chroniclers may have led them to throw
too high a light on what they saw. Thus, after ending his account of
Montezuma's household and the Aztec "court," drawn from the pages of
Bernal Diaz, Toribio, and Oviedo, he qualifies its gorgeousness in the
following sentence:[47]
"Such is the picture of Montezuma's domestic establishment and way
of living as delineated by the Conquerors and their immediate
followers, who had the best means of information; too highly
coloured, it may be, by the proneness to exaggerate which was
natural to those who first witnessed a spectacle so striking to the
imagination, so new and unexpected."
And in a foot-note on the same page he expressly warns the student of
history against the fanciful chapters of the Spaniards who wrote a
generation later, comparing their accounts with the stories in the
_Arabian Nights_.
Putting aside, then, the single topic of Aztec ethnology and tribal
organisation, it remains to see how far the rest of Prescott's history
of the Conquest has stood the test of recent criticism. Here one finds
himself on firmer ground, and it may be asserted with entire confidence
that Prescott's accuracy cannot be impeached in aught that is essential
to the truth of history. His careful use of his authorities, and his
excellent judgment in checking the evidence of one by the evidence of
another, remain unquestioned. In one respect alone has fault been found
with him. His desire to avail himself of every possible aid caused him
to procure, often with great difficulty and at great expense, documents,
or copies of documents, which had hitherto been inaccessible to the
investigator. So far he was acting in the spirit of the truly scientific
scholar. But sometimes the very rarity of these new sources led him to
attach an undue value to them. Here and there he has followed them as
against the more accessible authorities, even when the latter were
altogether trustworthy. In this we find something of the passion of the
collector; and now and then in minor matters it has led him into
error.[48] Thus, in certain passages relating to the voyage of Cortes
from Havana, Prescott has misstated the course followed by the pilot, as
again with regard to the expedition from Santiago de Cuba[49]; and he
errs because he has followed a manuscript copy of Juan Diaz, overlooking
the obviously correct and consistent accounts of Bernal Diaz and other
standard chroniclers. There are similar though equally unimportant slips
elsewhere in his narrative, arising from the same cause. None of them,
however, affects the essential accuracy of his text. His masterpiece
stands to-day still fundamentally unshaken, a faithful and brilliant
panorama of a wonderful episode in history. Those who are inclined to
question its veracity do so, not because they can give substantial
reasons for their doubt, but because, perhaps, of the romantic colouring
which Prescott has infused into his whole narrative, because it is as
entertaining as a novel, and because he had the art to transmute the
acquisitions of laborious research into an enduring monument of pure
literature.