THE SPANIARDS IN MEXICO.
And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste
their cities.—_Ezekiel_ xix. 7.
How Cortez conquered,—Montezuma fell.—_Montgomery._
Much of a Southern Sea they spake,
And of that glorious city won,
Near the setting of the sun,
Throned in a silver lake:
Of seven kings in chains of gold,
And deeds of death by tongue untold,—
Deeds such as breathed in secret there,
Had shaken the confession-chair!—_Rogers._
Six and twenty years had now elapsed since Columbus arrived in the
New World. During this period the Spaniards had not merely committed
the crimes we have been detailing, but they had considerably extended
their discoveries. Columbus, who first discovered the West Indian
islands, was the first also to discover the mainland of America. He
reached the mouth of the Orinoco; traversed the coasts of Paria and
Cumana; Yanez Pinzon, steering southward, had crossed the line to the
river Amazon; the Portuguese under Alvarez Cabral had by mere accident
made the coast of Brazil; Bastidas and De la Cosa had discovered the
coast of Tierra Firmè; in his fourth voyage, Columbus had reached
Porto Bello in Panama; Pinzon and De Solis discovered Yucatan, and in
a second voyage extended their route southward beyond the Rio de la
Plata; Ponce de Leon had discovered Florida; and Balboa in Darien had
discovered the South Sea. These were grand steps in discovery towards
those mighty kingdoms that were soon to burst upon them. Cordova
discovered the mouth of the river Potonchan, beyond Campeachy; and
finally, Grijalva ranged along the whole coast of Mexico from Tabasco
to the river Panuco. Of their transactions on these coasts during their
progress in discovery, nothing further need be said than that they were
characterized by their usual indifference to the rights and feelings of
the natives, and that, finding them for the most part of a more warlike
disposition, several of these commanders had suffered severely from
them, and some of them lost their lives.
But a strange and astounding epoch was now at hand. The names of
Cortez and Pizarro, Mexico and Peru, are become sounds familiar to all
ears—linked together as in a spell of wild wonder, and stand as the
very embodiment of all that is marvellous, dazzling, and romantic in
history. Here were vast empires, suddenly starting from the veil of
ages into the presence of the European world, with the glitter of a
golden opulence beyond the very extravagance of Arabian fable; populous
as they were affluent; with a new and peculiar civilization; with arts
and a literature unborrowed of other realms, and unlike those of any
other. Here were those fairy and most interesting kingdoms as suddenly
assaulted and subdued by two daring adventurers with a mere handful
of followers; and as suddenly destroyed! Their young civilization,
their fair and growing fabric of policy, ruthlessly dashed down and
utterly annihilated; their princes murdered in cold blood; their wealth
dissipated like a morning dream; and their swarming people crushed into
slaves, or swept from their cities and their fair fields, as a harvest
is swept away by the sickle!
It is difficult, amid the intoxication of the imagination on
contemplating such a spectacle,—for there is nothing like it in the
history of the whole world—it is difficult, dazzled by military
triumph, and seduced by the old sophisms of glory and adventure, to
bring the mind steadily to contemplate the real nature and consequences
of these events. The names of Cortez and Pizarro, indeed, through
all the splendour of that renown with which the acclamations of
their interested cotemporaries, and the false morality of their
historians have surrounded them, still retain the gloom and terror of
their cruelties. But this is derived rather from particular acts of
outrageous atrocity, than from a just estimate of the total villany
and unrighteous nature of their entire undertakings. Their entrance,
assault, and subduction of the kingdoms of Mexico and Peru, were from
first to last, _in limine et in termino_, the acts of daring robbers,
on flame with the thirst of gold, and of a spurious and fanatical
renown,—setting at defiance every sentiment of justice, mercy and
right, and bound by no scruples of honour or conscience, in the pursuit
of their object. It is not to be denied that in the prosecution of
their schemes, they displayed the most chivalrous courage, and Cortez
the most consummate address,—but these are the attributes of the
arch-fiend himself—boundless ambition, gigantic talent, the most
matchless and successful address without one feeling of pity, or one
sentiment of goodness! These surely are not the qualities for which
Christians ought to applaud such men as Cortez and Pizarro! They are
these false and absurd notions, derived from the spirit of gentile
antiquity, that have so long mocked the progress of Christianity, and
held civilization in abeyance. It is to these old sophisms that we owe
all the political evils under which we groan, and under which we have
made all nations that have felt our power groan too. To every truly
enlightened and Christian philosopher can there be a more melancholy
subject of contemplation, than these romantic empires thus barbarously
destroyed by an irruption of worse than Goths and Vandals? But that
melancholy must be tenfold augmented, when we reflect what _would_
have been the fate of these realms if Europe had been not nominally,
but _really_ Christianized at the moment of their discovery. If it
had learned that the “peace on earth and good-will towards men,” with
which the children of heaven heralded the gospel into the world,
was not a mere flourish of rhetoric,—not a mere phrase of eastern
poetry, “beautiful exceedingly;” but actually the promulgation of the
grandest and most pregnant axiom in social philosophy, that had ever
been, or should be made known to mankind, or that it was possible for
heaven itself from the infinitude of its blessedness to send down to
it. That in it lay concentrated the perfection of civil policy, the
beauty of social life, the harmony of nations, and the prosperity
of every mercantile adventure. That it was the triumphant basis, on
which arts and sciences, literature and poetry, should raise their
proudest fabrics, and society from its general adoption, date its
genuine civilization and a new era of glory and enjoyment. Suppose
that to have been the mind and feeling of Europe at that time—and it
is merely to suppose it to be what it pretended to be—in possession
of Christianity—what would have been the simple consequence? To the
wonder that thrilled through Europe at the tidings of such discovered
states, an admiration as lively would have succeeded. Vast kingdoms in
the heart of the new world, with cities and cultivated fields; with
temples and palaces; monarchs of great state and splendour; vessels
of silver and gold in gorgeous abundance; municipal police; national
couriers; and hieroglyphic writing, and records of their own invention!
Why, what interesting intelligence to every lover of philosophy, of
literature, and of the study of human nature! Genuine intelligence, and
enlightened curiosity would have flocked thither to look and admire;
genuine philanthropy, to give fresh strength and guidance to this
germinating civilization,—and Christian spirits would have glowed
with delight at the thought of shewing, in the elevated virtues, the
justice, generosity and magnanimity derived by them from their faith,
the benefits which it could confer on these growing states.
But to have expected anything of this kind from the Spaniards,
would have been the height of folly. They had no more notion of
what Christianity is, than the Great Mogul had. They knew no more
than what Rome chose to tell them. They were not distinguished by
one Christian virtue,—for they had been instructed in none. They
were not more barbarous to the Americans, than they were faithless,
jealous, malignant, and quarrelsome amongst each other. Disorderly and
insubordinate as soldiers, nothing but the terrors of their destructive
arms, and the fatal paralysis of mind which singular prophesies had
cast on the Americans, could have prevented them from being speedily
swept away in the midst of their riot and contention. The idea which
the Spaniards had of Christianity, is best seen in the form of
proclamation which Ojeda made to the inhabitants of Tierra Firmè, and
which became the Spanish model in all future usurpations of the kind.
After stating that the popes, as the successors of St. Peter, were
the possessors of the world, it thus went on: “One of these pontiffs,
as lord of the world, hath made a grant of these islands, and of
Tierra Firmè of the ocean sea, to the Catholic kings of Castile, Don
Ferdinand and Donna Isabella of glorious memory, and their successors,
our sovereigns, with all they contain, as is more fully expressed in
certain deeds passed upon that occasion, which you may see if you
desire it, (Indians, who neither knew Latin, Spanish, nor the art of
reading!). Thus his majesty is king and lord of these islands, and
of the continent, in virtue of this donation; and as king and lord
aforesaid, most of the islands to which his title hath been notified,
have recognised his majesty, and now yield obedience and subjection to
him as their lord, _voluntarily and without resistance_! and instantly,
as soon as they received information (from the sword and musket!) they
obeyed the religious men sent by the king to preach to them, and _to
instruct them in our holy faith_!... You are _bound and obliged_ (true
enough!) to act in the same manner.... If you do this, you act well,
and perform that to which you are bound and obliged; his majesty, and
I in his name, _will receive you with love and kindness_, and _will
leave you and your children free and exempt from servitude, and in the
enjoyment of all you possess, in the same manner as the inhabitants
of the islands_! (ay, love and kindness, _such_ as they had shewn to
the islanders. Satan’s genuine glozing—“lies like truth, and yet most
truly lies.”) Besides this, his majesty _will bestow upon you many
privileges, exemptions, and rewards_! (Ay, such as they had bestowed on
the islanders—but here begins the simple truth.) But if you will not
comply, or maliciously delay to obey my injunctions, then, _with the
help of God_, I will enter your country by force; I will carry on war
against you with the utmost violence; I will subject you to the yoke
of the church and the king; I will take your wives and children, and
will make slaves of them, and sell or dispose of them according to his
majesty’s pleasure; I will seize your goods, and do all the mischief
in my power to you as rebellious subjects, who will not acknowledge or
submit to their lawful sovereign. And I protest that all the bloodshed
and calamities which shall follow are to be imputed to you, and not
to his majesty, or to me, or to the gentlemen who serve under me,
etc.”—_Herrera._
Here then we have the romance stripped away from such ruffians as
Cortez and Pizarro. We have here the very warrant under which they
acted—a tissue of such most impudent fictions, and vindictive
truths, as could only issue from that great office of delusion and
oppression which corrupted all Europe with its abominable doctrine. The
last sentence, however, betrays the inward feeling and consciousness
of those who used it, that blood-guiltiness was not perfectly
removed to their satisfaction, and is a miserable attempt at further
self-delusion. These apostles of the sword, before whose proclamation
our sarcasms against Mahomet and his sword-creed, fall to the ground,
knew only too well that all their talk of love and kindness to the
islanders was the grossest falsehood. The Pope’s bull could not blind
them to that; and though the misery they inflicted is past, Europe
still needs the warning of their deeds, to open its eyes to the nature
of much of its own morality.
Cortez commenced his career against Mexico with breach of faith to his
employer. It was villain using villain, and with the ordinary results.
Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, who had sent out Grijalva, roused by
the description of the new and beautiful country which he had coasted,
now sought for a man, so humble in his pretensions and so destitute
of alliance, that he might trust him with a fleet and force for the
acquisition of it. Such a man he believed he had found in Hernando
Cortez,—a man, like many other men in Spain, of noble blood, but very
ignoble fortune—poor, proud, so hot and overbearing in his disposition
and so dissipated in his habits, that his father was glad to send him
out as an adventurer. Ovando, governor of Hispaniola, the notorious
betrayer of Anacoana, and murderer of her chiefs, was his relation,
and received him with open arms as a fit instrument in such work as
he had to do. Cortez attended Velasquez in that expedition to Cuba in
which the cazique Hatuey was burnt at the stake for his resistance to
their invasion, and died bearing that memorable testimony to Spanish
Christianity. Velasquez, who had acted the traitor towards Diego
Columbus, whose deputy in the government of Cuba he was, had however
scarcely sent out Cortez, when he conceived a suspicion that he would
show no better faith than he himself had done. Scarcely had Cortez
sailed for Trinidad, when Velasquez sent instructions after him, to
deprive him of his commission. Cortez eluded this by hastening to the
Havanna, where an express also to arrest him was forwarded. Cortez,
fully justified the suspicions of Velasquez; for, from the moment
that he found himself at the head of a fleet, he abandoned every idea
of acknowledging the authority which had put it into his command. He
boldly avowed his intentions to his fellow adventurers, and as their
views, like his own, were plunder and dominion, he received their
applause and their vows of adherence. Thus supported in his schemes of
ambition, he set sail for the Mexican coast, with eleven vessels of
various burdens and characters. His own, or admiral’s ship, was of a
hundred tons, three of seventy or eighty tons, and the others were open
boats. He carried with him six hundred and seventeen men; amongst whom
were to be found only thirteen muskets, thirty-two cross-bows, sixteen
horses, ten small field-pieces, and four falconets. Behold Cortez and
his comrades thus on their way to conquer the great kingdom of Mexico,
bearing on their great banner the figure of a large cross, and this
inscription,—LET US FOLLOW THE CROSS, FOR UNDER THIS SIGN WE SHALL
CONQUER!
“So powerfully,” says Robertson,—to whose curious remarks I shall
occasionally draw the attention of my readers,—“were Cortez and his
followers animated with both these passions (religion and avarice)
that no less eager to plunder the opulent country whither they were
bound, than _zealous to propagate the Christian faith (!)_ among its
inhabitants, they set out, not with the solicitude natural to men
going upon dangerous services, but with that confidence which arises
from security of success, and certainty of the divine protection.” No
doubt they believed the cross which they followed was the cross of
Christ, but every one now will be quite as well satisfied that it was
the cross of one of the two thieves, a most fitting ensign for such
an expedition. Cortez, indeed, was a fiery zealot, and frequently
endangered the success of his enterprise by his assault on the gods and
temples of the natives, just as Mahomet or Omar would have done; for
there was not a pin to choose between the faith in which he had been
educated, and that of the prophet of Mecca. One followed the cross, the
other the crescent, but their faith alike was—the sword.[6]
After touching at different spots, to remind the natives of the
Christian faith by “routing them with great slaughter,” and carrying
off provisions, cotton garments, gold, and twenty female slaves, one of
whom was the celebrated woman, called by the Spaniards Donna Marina,
who rendered them such services as interpreter, they entered, on the
2nd of April 1519, the harbour of St. Juan de Ulua. Here we are told
by the Spanish historians, that the natives came on board in the most
friendly and unsuspicious manner. Two of them were officers from the
local government, sent to inquire what was the object of Cortez in
coming thither, and offering any assistance that might be necessary
to enable him to proceed in his voyage. Cortez assured them that _he
came with the most friendly intentions_, to seek an interview with
the king, of great importance to the welfare of their country; and
next morning, in proof of the sincerity and friendliness of his views,
landed his troops and ammunition, and began a fortification. This
brought Teutile and Pilpatoe, as Robertson calls them, or Teuhtlile
and Cuitlalpita, according to Clavigero, himself a Mexican, the local
governors, into the camp with a numerous attendance. Montezuma, the
emperor, had been alarmed, as well he might, by the former appearance
of the Spaniards on his coast, and these officers urged Cortez to take
his departure. He persisted, however, that he must see Montezuma,
being come as an ambassador from the king of Spain to him, and charged
with communications that could be opened to no one else—falsehoods
worthy of a robber, for he not only had no commission from the king
of Spain, but was in open rebellion to the Spanish government at the
moment. To induce him to depart, these simple people resorted to the
same unlucky policy as our ancestors the Saxons did with the Danes,
and presented him with a present of ten loads of fine cotton cloth,
plumes of various colours, and articles in gold and silver of rich and
curious workmanship, besides a quantity of provisions. These not only
inflamed his cupidity to the utmost, but another circumstance served
to convince him that he had stumbled upon a different country to what
any of his countrymen had yet found in America; and stimulated equally
his ambition to conquer it. He observed painters at work in the train
of Teuhtlile and Pitalpatoe,[7] sketching on cotton cloth, himself,
his men, his horses, ships and artillery. To give more effect to these
drawings, he sounded his trumpets, threw his army into battle array,
put it through a variety of striking military movements, and tore up
the neighbouring woods with the discharge of his cannon. The Mexicans,
struck with terror and admiration at these exhibitions, dispatched
speedy information of all these particulars by the couriers, and in
seven days received the answer of the emperor, though his capital was
one hundred and eighty miles off, that Cortez must instantly depart
the country. But had he had the slightest intention of the kind, the
unlucky courtesy of the emperor would have changed his resolve. To
render his command the more palatable, he sent an ambassador of rank,
with a hundred men of burden carrying presents, and they again poured
out before Cortez such a flood of treasures, as astonished him and his
greedy followers.
There were boxes full of pearls and precious stones; gold in its
native state, and gold wrought into the richest trinkets; two wheels,
the one of gold, the other of silver. That of gold, representing the
Mexican century, had the image of the sun engraved in the middle,
round which were different figures in bass-relief. Bernal Diaz says
the circumference was thirty palms of Toledo, and the value of it ten
thousand sequins. The one of silver, in which the Mexican year was
represented, was still larger, with a moon in the middle, surrounded
also with figures in bass-relief.[8] Thirty loads or bales of cotton
cloths of the most exquisite fineness, and pictures in feather-work of
surprising brilliancy and art. These were all opened out on mats in the
most tempting manner; and besides these, was a vizor, which Cortez had
desired at the last interview might be filled with gold dust, telling
the officer most truly—that “the Spaniards had a disease of the heart
which could only be cured by gold.”
Cortez took the presents, and coolly assured the ambassador that he
should not quit the country till he had seen the emperor. A third
message, accompanied by a third and more peremptory order for his
departure, producing no greater effect, the officers left the camp in
displeasure, and Cortez prepared to march into the country.
But before he commenced his expedition there were a few measures to be
taken. He was a traitor to the governor of Cuba who had sent him out;
and the governor had still adherents in the army, who objected to what
appeared to them this rash enterprise against so powerful and populous
an empire. It was necessary to silence these people, and his mode of
doing this reminds one of the solemn artifices of Oliver Cromwell.
He held out to the soldiers such prospects of booty as secured them
to his interests, and on the discontented remonstrating with him, he
appeared to fall in with their views, and gave instant orders for
the return home, at the same time sending his emissaries amongst the
soldiers to exasperate them against the return. When the order for
re-embarkation the next day was therefore issued, the whole army seemed
in a fury against it, and Cortez feigning to have believed the order
for the return was their own desire, now declared that he was ready
to lead them forwards. But this was not sufficient. Knowing that he
was a traitor to the trust reposed in him, he resorted to one of those
grave farces by which usurpers often attempt to give an appearance of
title to their power, though they know well enough the emptiness of
it. He laid out the plan of a town,—named it Villa Rica de la Vera
Cruz, or the Rich Town of the True Cross, established magistrates and
a municipal council, and then appeared before them and resigned his
command into their hands, having taken good care that the magistrates
were so much his creatures as instantly to re-invest him with it.
Assuming now this command, not as flowing from the governor of Cuba,
but from the constituted authorities under the crown, and therefore
from the crown itself, he immediately seized on the officers who had
murmured at his breach of faith, clapped them in chains, and sent them
aboard the fleet! So far so good; but the reflection still came, how
would all these deeds sound at home? and Cortez therefore took the
only means that could secure him in that quarter. He collected all the
gold that could be procured by any means, and sent it by the hand of
two of the mock magistrates of Vera Cruz to the King of Spain, giving a
plausible colouring to their assumption of power independent of Cuba,
and soliciting a confirmation of it.
These were the measures of an adventurer not more daring than artful;
yet a single circumstance shewed him still his insecurity. At the
moment that his magistrates were about to sail for Spain, he discovered
that a conspiracy was in existence to seize one of the vessels in
the harbour, and to sail to Cuba, and give the alarm to Velasquez.
This startling fact determined him to put the _coup de grace_ to his
measures,—to destroy his fleet, and let his followers see that there
was no longer any resource but to follow him boldly in his attack upon
Mexico, or perish. He had the address to bring his men to commit this
act themselves: they dragged the vessels ashore—stripped them of
sails, rigging, iron-work—whatever might be useful, and then broke
them up. A more daring and politic action is not upon record. Cortez,
in fact, had nothing to hope from his fleet, and had cast his life and
fortune on the conquest of this great and wealthy realm.
When we contemplate him at this juncture, we are however not more
struck with his daring and determined policy, than as Christians we
are indignant at the real nature of the act that he meditated. This
was no other than to ravage this young and growing empire, to plunder
it of its gold, and consume its millions of inhabitants in mines and
plantations, by the sword and by the lash, as his countrymen had
consumed the wealth and the people of the islands,—and all this on
pretence of planting the Cross! It was the cool speculation of a daring
robber, hardened by a false faith, and by witnessing deeds of blood and
outrage, to a total insensibility to every feeling but the diseased
overgrowth of selfish ambition.
The attempt to subdue a kingdom stretching from the Atlantic to the
Pacific Ocean in a breadth of above five hundred leagues from east to
west, and of upwards of two hundred from north to south—a kingdom
populous, fertile, and of a warlike reputation; and that with a force
of not seven hundred men, appears at first view an act of madness: but
Cortez was too well acquainted with American warfare to know that it
was not impracticable. In the first place, he knew that the weapons
of the natives had very little effect upon the quilted cotton dress
which the Spaniards adopted on these expeditions, and that by the
terror of their fire-arms and their union of movement, they could in
almost all cases and situations keep them at that distance which took
away even that little effect, while it left them open to the full play
of the European missives. He knew the terror that the natives had of
the Spanish horses, dogs, and artillery; and moreover he had speedily
discovered, through the means of one of the women slaves brought from
Darien who proved to be a Mexican by birth, that Mexico was a kingdom
newly cemented by the arms of Montezuma and his immediate predecessors,
and therefore full of provinces still smarting under the sense of their
subjugation, and ready to seize on an occasion of revenge. In fact, he
had speedily practical evidence of this, for the cazique of Chempoalla,
a neighbouring town, sent an embassy to him soliciting his friendship,
and offering to join him in his designs against Montezuma, whom he
represented as a haughty and exacting tyrant to the provinces. Cortez
of course caught gladly at this alliance, and removing his settlement,
planted it at Quiabislan, near Chempoalla. The hint was given him of
the real condition of the empire, and he was too crafty to neglect it.
He immediately gave himself out as the champion of the aggrieved and
oppressed, come to redress all their wrongs, and restore them to their
liberties!
But there was another and most singular cause which gave Cortez a
fair prospect of success. Throughout the American kingdoms ancient
prophecies prevailed,—that a new race was to come in, and seize
upon the reins of power, and before it the American tribes were to
quail and give place. In the islands, in Mexico, in Peru,—far and
wide,—this mysterious tradition prevailed. Everywhere these terrible
people were expected to come from towards the rising of the sun: they
were to be completely clad, and to lay waste every country before
them;—circumstances so entirely verified in the Spaniards, that the
spirit of the American natives died within them at the rumour of their
approach, as the natives of Canaan did at that of the Israelites coming
with the irresistible power and the awful miracles of God. For ages
these prophecies had weighed on the public mind, and had been sung
with loud lamentations at their solemn festivals. Cazziva, a great
cazique, declared that in a supernatural interview with one of the
Zemi, this terrible event had been revealed to him. “The demons which
they worshipped,” says Acosta, “in this instance, told them true.”
Montezuma therefore, though naturally haughty, warlike, and commanding,
on so appalling an event as the fulfilment of these ancient prophecies,
lost his courage, his decision, his very power of mind, and exhibited
nothing but the most utter vacillation and weakness, while Cortez was
advancing towards his capital in defiance of his orders.
Having strengthened himself by the alliance of the Chempoallans, and
others of the Totonacas, and chastised the Tlascalans, a fierce people
who gave no credit to his pretences, he advanced to Cholula, a place
of great importance, consisting, according to Cortez’s account, of
forty thousand houses and many populous suburban villages. Montezuma
had now consented to his reception, and he was received in this city
by his orders. It was a sacred city,—“the Rome of Anahuac or Mexico,”
says Clavigero, full of temples, and visited by hosts of pilgrims.
Here, suspecting treachery, he determined to strike terror into both
the emperor and the people. “For this purpose,” says Robertson, “the
Spaniards and Zempoallans were drawn up in a large court which had
been allotted for their quarters near the centre of the town. The
Tlascalans had orders to advance; the magistrates, and several of the
chief citizens, were sent for, under various pretences, and seized.
On a signal given, the troops rushed out, and fell upon the multitude
destitute of leaders, and so much astonished, that the weapons
dropping from their hands, they stood motionless and incapable of
defence. While the Spaniards pressed them in front, the Tlascalans
attacked them in the rear. The streets were filled with bloodshed
and death; the temples, which afforded a retreat to the priests and
some of the leading men, were set on fire, and they perished in the
flames. This scene of horror continued two days, during which the
wretched inhabitants suffered all that the destructive rage of the
Spaniards, or the implacable revenge of their Indian allies, could
inflict. At length the carnage ceased, after the slaughter of six
thousand Cholulans, without the loss of a single Spaniard! Cortez
then released the magistrates, and reproaching them bitterly for
their intended treachery, declared that as justice was now appeased
he forgave the offence, but required them to recall the citizens who
had fled, and reestablish order in the town. Such was the ascendant
which the Spaniards had acquired over this superstitious race of men,
and so deeply were they impressed with an opinion of their superior
discernment, as well as power, that in obedience to this command,
the city was in a few days again filled with people, who amidst
the ruins of their sacred buildings, yielded respectful service to
men whose hands were stained with the blood of their relatives and
fellow-citizens.
“From Cholula,” adds Robertson, “Cortez marched directly towards
Mexico, which was only twenty leagues distant:”—and that is all the
remark that he makes on this brutal butchery of an innocent people,
by a man on his march to plant the cross! A Christian historian sees
only in this most savage and infernal action, a piece of necessary
policy—so obtuse become the perceptions of men through the ordinary
principles of historic judgment. But the Christian mind asks what
business Cortez had there at all? The people were meditating his
destruction? True;—and it was natural and national that they should
get rid of so audacious and lawless an enemy, who entered their country
with the intentions of a robber, set at defiance the commands of their
king, and stirred up rebellion at every step he took. The Mexicans
would have been less than men if they had not resolved to cut him off.
What right had he there? What right to disturb the tranquillity of
their country, and shed the blood of its people? These are questions
that cannot be answered on any Christian principles, or on any
principles but those of the bandit and the murderer. _Six thousand
people butchered in cold blood—two days employed in hewing down
trembling wretches, too fearful to even raise a single weapon against
the murderers!_ Heavens! are these the deeds that we admire as heroic
and as breathing of romance? Yet, says Clavigero, “He ordered the great
temple to be cleaned from the gore of his murdered victims; and raised
there the standard of the cross; _after giving the Cholulans, as he did
all the other people among whom he stopped_,” SOME IDEA OF THE CHRISTIAN
RELIGION!!! What _idea_ had the Abbé Don Francesco Saverio Clavigero of
Christianity himself?
But Cortez had plunged headlong into the enterprise—he had set his
life and that of his followers at stake on the conquest of Mexico, and
there was no action, however desperate, that he was not prepared to
commit. And sure enough his hands became well filled with treachery
and blood. It is not my business to dwell particularly upon these
atrocities, but merely to recall the memory of them; yet it may be
as well to give, in the words of Robertson, the manner in which the
Spaniards were received into the capital, because it contrasts
strongly with the manner in which the Christians behaved in this same
city, and to this same monarch.
“In descending from the mountains of Chalco,[9] across which the
road lay, the vast plain of Mexico opened gradually to their view.
When they first beheld this prospect, one of the most striking and
beautiful on the face of the earth—when they observed fertile and
cultivated fields stretching further than the eye could reach—when
they saw a lake resembling the sea in extent, encompassed with large
towns; and discovered the capital city, rising upon an island in the
middle, adorned with its temples and turrets—the scene so far exceeded
their imagination, that some believed the fanciful dreams of romance
were realized, and that its enchanted palaces and gilded domes were
presented to their sight. Others could hardly persuade themselves
that this wonderful spectacle was anything more than a dream. As they
advanced, their doubts were removed; but their amazement increased.
They were now fully satisfied that the country was rich beyond any
conception which they had formed of it, and flattered themselves that
at length they should obtain an ample recompense for all their services
and sufferings.
“When they drew near the city, about a thousand persons, who appeared
to be of distinction, came forth to meet them, adorned with plumes,
and clad in mantles of fine cotton. Each of these, in his order,
passed by Cortez, and saluted him according to the mode deemed most
respectful and submissive in their country. They announced the approach
of Montezuma himself, and soon after his harbingers came in sight.
There appeared first, two hundred persons in an uniform dress, with
large plumes of feathers alike in fashion, marching two and two in deep
silence, barefooted, with their eyes fixed on the ground. These were
followed by a company of higher rank, in their most showy apparel;
in the midst of whom was Montezuma, in a chair or litter, richly
ornamented with gold and feathers of various colours. Four of his
principal favourites carried him on their shoulders; others supported
a canopy of curious workmanship over his head. Before him marched
three officers with rods of gold in their hands, which they lifted up
on high at certain intervals, and at that signal all the people bowed
their heads, and hid their faces, as unworthy to look on so great a
monarch. When he drew near, Cortez dismounted, advancing towards him
with officious haste, and in a respectful posture. At the same time
Montezuma alighted from his chair, and leaning on the arms of two
of his near relatives, approached with a slow and stately pace, his
attendants covering the street with cotton cloths that he might not
touch the ground. Cortez accosted him with profound reverence after the
European fashion. He returned the salutation according to the mode of
his country, by touching the earth with his hand, and then kissing it.
This ceremony, the customary expression of veneration from inferiors
towards those who were above them in rank, appeared such amazing
condescension in a proud monarch, who scarcely deigned to consider
the rest of mankind as of the same species with himself, that all his
subjects firmly believed those persons before whom he humbled himself
in this manner, to be something more than human. Accordingly, as they
marched through the crowd, the Spaniards frequently, and with much
satisfaction, heard themselves denominated _Teules_, or divinities.
Montezuma conducted Cortez to the quarter which he had prepared for his
reception, and immediately took leave of him, with a politeness not
unworthy of a court more refined. ‘You are now,’ says he, ‘with your
brothers in your own house; refresh yourselves after your fatigue; and
be happy till I return.’”
The Spanish historians give some picturesque particulars of this
interview, which Robertson has not copied. The dress of Montezuma is
thus described: As he rode in his litter, a parasol of green feathers
embroidered with fancy-work of gold was held over him. He wore hanging
from his shoulders a mantle adorned with the richest jewels of gold
and precious stones; on his head a thin crown of the same metal; and
upon his feet shoes of gold, tied with strings of leather worked
with gold and gems. The persons on whom he leaned, were the king of
Tezcuco and the lord of Iztapalapan. Cortez put on Montezuma’s neck
a thin cord of gold strung with glass beads, and would have embraced
him, but was prevented by the two lords on whom the king leaned. In
return for this paltry necklace, Montezuma gave Cortez two of beautiful
mother-of-pearl, from which hung some large cray-fish of gold in
imitation of nature.
Here, then, to their own wonder and admiration, were this handful of
Spanish adventurers in the “glorious city,”
Near the setting of the sun,
Throned in a silver lake.
Generous minds would have rejoiced in the glory of such a discovery,
and have exulted in the mutual benefits to be derived from an
honourable intercourse between their own country and this new and
beautiful one,—but Cortez and his men were merely gazing on the
novel splendour of this interesting city with the greedy eyes of
robbers, and thinking how they might best seize upon its power, and
clutch its wealth. Who is not familiar with their rapid career of
audacious villany, in this fairy capital? Scarcely were they received
as guests,[10] when they seized on the monarch, and that at the very
moment that he gave to Cortez his own daughter, and heaped on him other
favours—and compelled him, under menaces of instantly stabbing him to
the heart, to quit his palace, and take up his residence in their own
quarters. The astonished and distressed king, now a puppet in their
hands, was made to command every thing which they desired to be done;
and they were by no means scrupulous in their exercise of this power,
knowing that the people looked on the person of the monarch as sacred,
and would not for a moment refuse to obey his least word, though in
the hands of his enemies. The very first thing which they required him
to do, was to order to be delivered up to them Qualpopoca, one of his
generals, who had been employed in quelling one of the insurrections
that the Spaniards had raised near Villa Rica, and who being attacked
by the Spanish officer Escalante, left in command there, had killed
him, with seven of his men, and taken one other alive. The order was
obeyed, and the brave general, his son, and five of his principal
officers, were burnt alive by these Christian heroes! To add to the
cruelty and indignity of the deed, Montezuma himself was put into irons
during the transaction, accompanied by threats of a darker kind.
The simplicity of Robertson’s remarks on this affair are singular: “In
these transactions, as represented by the Spanish historians, we search
in vain for the qualities which distinguish other parts of Cortez’s
conduct.” What qualities? “To usurp a jurisdiction which could not
belong to a stranger, who assumed no higher character than that of an
ambassador from a foreign prince, and under colour of it, to inflict
a capital punishment on men whose conduct entitled them to esteem,
appears an act of barbarous cruelty.”
Why, the whole of Cortez’s conduct, from the moment that he entered
with arms the kingdom of Mexico, was a usurpation that “could not
belong to a stranger assuming merely the title of an ambassador.” What
ambassador comes with armed troops; or when the monarch orders him to
quit his realm, marches further into it; or foments rebellion as he
goes along; or massacres the inhabitants by wholesale? Was the butchery
of six thousand people at Cholula, no act of barbarous cruelty?
Well, by what Robertson complacently terms “the fortunate temerity in
seizing Montezuma,” the Spaniards had suddenly usurped the sovereign
power, and they did not pause here. They sent out some of their number
to survey the whole kingdom; to spy out its wealth, and pitch on
fitting stations for colonies. They put down such native officers as
were too honest or able for them; they compelled Montezuma, though with
tears and groans, to acknowledge himself the vassal of the Spanish
crown. They divided the Mexican treasures amongst them; and finally
drove the Mexicans to desperation.
The arrival of the armament from Cuba under Narvaez, sent by Velasquez
to punish Cortez for his treason, and his victory over Narvaez, and the
union of those troops with his own, belong to the general historian—my
task is to exhibit his treatment to the natives; and his next exploit,
is that of exposing Montezuma to the view of his exasperated subjects
from the battlements of his house, in the hope that his royal puppet
might have authority enough to appease them; a scheme which proved
the death of the emperor—for his own subjects, indignant at his tame
submission to the Spaniards, let fly their arrows at him. The fury of
the Mexicans on this catastrophe, the terrible nocturnal retreat of
Cortez from the city, still called amongst the inhabitants of Mexico,
_La Noche Triste_, the sorrowful night,—the strange battle of Otumba,
where Cortez, felling the standard-bearer of the army, dispersed in
a moment tens of thousands like a mist,—the flight to Tlascala, and
the return again to the siege,—the eight thousand _Tamenes_, or
servile Indians, bearing through the hostile country to the lake the
brigantines in parts, ready to put together on their arrival,—Father
Olmedo blessing the brigantines as they were launched on the lake in
the presence of wondering multitudes,—and the desperate siege and
assault themselves, all are full of the most stirring interest, and
display a sort of satanic grandeur in the man, amidst the horrors into
which his ambitious guilt had plunged him, that are only to be compared
to that of Napoleon in Russia, beset, in his extremity, by the
vengeful warriors of the north. But the crowning disgrace of Cortez,
is that of putting to the torture the new emperor, Guatimotzin, the
nephew and son-in-law of Montezuma, whom the Mexicans, in admiration
of his virtues and talents, had placed on the throne. The bravery with
which Guatimotzin had defended his city, the frankness with which he
yielded himself when taken, would have made his person sacred in the
eyes of a generous conqueror; but Guatimotzin had committed the crime,
unpardonable in the eyes of a Spaniard, of casting the treasures for
which the Spaniards harassed his country into the lake,—and Cortez had
him put to the severest torture to force from him the avowal of where
they lay. Even _he_ is said at length to have been ashamed of so base
and horrid a business; yet he afterwards put him to death, and the
manner in which this, and other barbarities are related by Robertson,
is worthy of observation.
“It was not, however, without difficulty that the Mexican empire could
be entirely reduced to the form of a Spanish province. Enraged and
rendered desperate by oppression, the natives forgot the superiority
of their enemies, and ran to arms in defence of their liberties. In
every contest, however, the European valour and discipline prevailed.
But fatally for the honour of their country, the Spaniards sullied
the glory redounding from these repeated victories, by their mode
of treating the vanquished people. After taking Guatimotzin, and
becoming masters of his capital, they supposed that the king of Castile
entered on possession of all the rights of the captive monarch, and
affected to consider every effort of the Mexicans to assert their own
independence, as the rebellion of vassals against their sovereign,
or the mutiny of slaves against their master. Under the sanction of
these ill-founded maxims, they violated every right that should be
held sacred between hostile nations. After each insurrection, they
reduced the common people, in the provinces which they subdued, to
the most humiliating of all conditions, that of personal servitude.
Their chiefs, supposed to be more criminal, were punished with greater
severity, and put to death in the most ignominious or the most
excruciating mode that the insolence or the cruelty of their conquerors
could devise. In almost every district of the Mexican empire, the
progress of the Spanish arms is marked with blood, and with deeds so
atrocious, as disgrace the enterprising valour that conducted them to
success. In the country of Panuco, sixty caziques, or leaders, and four
hundred nobles were burnt at one time. Nor was this shocking barbarity
perpetrated in any sudden sally of rage, or by a commander of inferior
note. It was the act of Sandoval, an officer whose name is entitled to
the second rank in the annals of New Spain; and executed after a solemn
consultation with Cortez; and to complete the horror of the scene, the
children and relatives of the wretched victims were assembled, and
compelled to be spectators of their dying agonies.
“It seems hardly possible to exceed in horror this dreadful example of
severity; but it was followed by another, which affected the Mexicans
still more sensibly, as it gave them a more feeling proof of their
own degradation, and of the small regard which their haughty masters
retained for the ancient dignity and splendour of their state. On
a slight suspicion, confirmed by a very imperfect evidence, that
Guatimotzin had formed a scheme to shake off the yoke, and to excite
his former subjects to take arms, Cortez, without the formality of
a trial, ordered the unhappy monarch, together with the caziques of
Tezeuco and Tacuba, the two persons of the greatest eminence in the
empire, to be hanged; and the Mexicans, with astonishment and horror,
beheld this disgraceful punishment inflicted upon persons to whom they
were accustomed to look up with reverence hardly inferior to that
which they paid to the gods themselves. The example of Cortez and his
principal officers, encouraged and justified persons of subordinate
rank to venture upon committing greater excesses.”
It is not easy to see how Cortez and his men “sullied the glory of
their repeated victories,” by these actions—for these very victories
were gained over a people who had no chance against European arms,—and
were infamous in themselves, being violations of every sacred right of
humanity. What, indeed, could sully the reputation of the man after
the butchery of six thousand Cholulas in cold blood? The notions of
glory with which Robertson, in common with many other historians, was
infected, are mere remnants of that corrupted morality which Popery
disseminated, and which created the Cortezes and Pizarros of those
days, and the Napoleons of our own. No truth can be plainer to the
sound sense of a real Christian, than that true glory can only be the
result of great deeds done in a just cause. But Cortez’s whole career
was one perpetual union of perfidy and blood. His words were not to be
relied on for a moment. His promises of kindness and of restoration
to both Montezuma and Guatimotzin, were followed only by fetters,
tortures, and hanging.
Such were the horrors of the siege of Mexico, that Bernal Diaz says,
they can be compared to nothing but those of the destruction of
Jerusalem. According to Bernal Diaz, the slain exceeded one hundred
thousand; and those who died of famine, bad food and water, and
infection, Cortez himself asserts, were more than fifty thousand.
Cortez, on gaining possession of the city, ordered all the Mexicans
out of it; and Bernal Diaz, an eye-witness, says, that “for three days
and three nights, all the three roads leading from the city, were seen
full of men, women, and children; feeble, emaciated, and forlorn,
seeking refuge where they could find it. The fetid smell which so many
thousands of putrid bodies emitted was intolerable, and occasioned some
illness to the general of the conquerors. The houses, streets, and
canals, were full of disfigured carcases; the ground of the city was in
some places dug up by the citizens in search of roots to feed on; and
many trees stripped of bark for the same purpose. The general caused
the dead bodies to be buried, and large quantities of wood to be burnt
through all the city, as much in order to purify the infected air, as
to celebrate his victory.”
But Providence failed not to visit the deeds of Cortez on himself, as
he had done on Columbus. Bernal Diaz says, that “after the death of
Guatimotzin, he became gloomy and restless; rising continually from
his bed, and wandering about in the dark.” That “nothing prospered
with him, and that it was ascribed to the curses he was loaded with.”
His government was acknowledged late by the crown, and soon divided
with other authorities. He returned, like Columbus, to Europe to
seek redress of wrongs heaped on _him_; like him, not obtaining this
redress, he sought to amuse his mind by fresh discoveries, and added
California to the known regions; but the attempt to soothe his uneasy
spirit was vain. Neglected, and even insulted by the crown, to which he
had thus guiltily added vast dominions, he ended his days in the same
fruitless and heart-wearing solicitation of the court which Columbus
had done before.