2.Works that feature Montezuma’s death prominently or as the pivot to the drama or narrative are far too many to list (after the Meeting, the emperor’s death and the Noche Triste are probably the most common pivot points), but an example of a book-length study built on the theme is Romero Giordano (1986) (also see n10 later in this chapter on Montezuma-themed opera).
3.CCR (1522: f. 20v; 1960: 79; 1971: 132) (Y el dicho Mutezuma, que todavía estaba preso, y un hijo suyo, con otros muchos señores que al principio se habían tomado, dijo que le sacasen a las azoteas de la fortaleza y que él hablaría a los capitanes de aquella gente y les harían que cesase la guerra. Y yo le hice sacar, y en llegando a un pretil que salía fuera de la fortaleza, queriendo hablar a la gente que por allí combatía, le dieron una pedrada los suyos en la cabeza, tan grande, que de allí a tres días murió); same citations for “the fortress” (la fortaleza) in previous paragraph.
4.Ogilby (1670: 89). Similarly, Gemelli had “the Indians” hurling “many stones and arrows,” wounding him “in the Head, Arms, and Legs, whereof he soon after dy’d” (1704: 560). There are scores of discussions of Montezuma’s death, and while I have tried to present one that is based on my reading of primary sources, I have found the following useful in various ways: MacNutt (1909: 266–71); Hassig (2006: 113 has only one paragraph, but 215n21–22 lists a dozen early sources); Johansson (2010); Castañeda de la Paz (2013: 339–43); Graulich (2014: 450–59).
5.Solís (1724: 206–12; quote on 211). The claim that the Aztecs called Montezuma “effeminate [afeminado]” goes back through Torquemada (1614, I: 543–44; Bk. 4, Ch. 70; “bellaco afeminado, nacido para texer, y hilar, essos perros te tienen preso porque eres una gallina”) and Ixtlilxochitl (1985 [c.1630]: 226, 229) to Cervantes de Salazar (1953 [1554]; 1914 [1560s]: 478 [Bk. 4, Ch. CXII], whom Torquemada copied, omitting the insult of “sodomite” [cuilón] and “you are their concubine” [te tienen por su manceba]; op. cit.: 481 [Bk. 4, Ch. 114]: “he was your concubine” [ fué vuestra manceba]); see Castañeda de la Paz (2013: 339–40) and Graulich (2014: 453–54).
6.Escoiquiz (1798: II, 255) (la funesta Piedra; le abrió sangrienta herida). An interesting variant on this argument is by Las Casas, who in a margin note to one of his writings comments that a people cannot be forced to accept a distant lord, which is why the Aztecs stoned Montezuma (LCDT f. 69; 1958: 178–79; margin note in MS B in JCB); this, of course, contradicts his assertions elsewhere that Cortés stole Mexico instead of acquiring by legitimate conquest or donation by Montezuma. Also see “A Lamentable End” at the top of this chapter.
7.Robertson (1777, II: 90–91).
8.Dryden (1668 [1667]: 64); Cervantes de Salazar (1914 [1560s]: 478–79[Bk. 4, Chs. CXII–CXIII]) (ni quiso comer ni ser curado . . . el corazón se me hace pedazos . . . tú no tenías herida para morir della; mueres de pesar y descontento); Herrera (Dec. II, Bk. X, Ch. 10; 1728: I, 476–77); Díaz LXXXVIII–CXXVII (1632: ff. 65–105; with death in CXXVI–CXXVII). To the present: Thomas, for example, concluded that Spanish culpability was “improbable” and that Montezuma “seems either to have refused to be treated, or to have had no wish to live longer” (1993: 402, 404).
9.For a visual example of the presentation of Montezuma on the balcony as an Ecce Homo echo, see scene 32–33 in the 1698 Conquest of Mexico oil and mother-of-pearl paintings by the González brothers: original in the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, and reproduced variously (e.g., Alcalá and Brown 2014: 41). For an art historian’s suggestion that Cuauhtemoc is represented as leading the Aztec stoning of Montezuma in a seventeenth-century biombo (screen painting), see Mundy (2011a: 166–67).
10.Sessions (1965: 446–71, quotes on 450, 465–66, 471). Completed in 1962, with libretto by Borgese and music by Sessions, the opera debuted in Berlin in 1964. It was part of a sporadic modern return of opera to the Cortés and Montezuma theme, after the great run of such operas from Vivaldi (1733, in Italian) through works (in chronological order) by Karl Heinrich Graun (in German), Francisco di Majo (in Italian), Agustín Cordero (in Spanish), Josef Mysliveček (a Czech; libretto by an Italian), Giovanni Paisiello (in Italian), Antonio María Gasparo Sacchini (in Italian), Nicola Antonio Zingarelli (in Italian), Fermín del Rey (two operas, both in Spanish), Giuseppe Giordani (in Italian), Mariano de Bustos (in Spanish), Marcos Antonio Portugal (a Portuguese writing in Italian), Gaspare Spontini (in French; see 1809), Henry Rowley Bishop (in English), Ignaz Xavier Seyfried (in German), Giovanni Pacini (in Italian), Ignacio Ovejero (1848, in Spanish). This list is, I suspect, a small percentage of the operas written on this theme during those years. For details on some of them, see Subirá in EC: 105–26.
11.Acosta (2002 [1590]: 3); Durán LXXVI (1994 [1581]: 545); Tovar (1878 [1585]: 144–45) (y no faltó quien dijo que porque no le viesen herida le habian metido una espada por la parte baja); Ixtlilxochitl (1985 [c.1630]: Ch. 88); Thevet (1676: 77, “brains”); Chimalpahin (1997: 158–59). “At night”: quoted by Johansson (2010). Codex Moctezuma: the tiny image in this sixteenth-century codex, with Nahuatl text (in the Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City), has been interpreted as illustrating Montezuma’s strangulation or—in reference to the loin-clothed Aztec dying on the ground—his death stab from a Spanish sword. While that verdict on how the emperor died may be correct, the drawing was more likely intended to convey his status as a prisoner of the Spaniards (just as similar images in other colonial-era illustrated manuscripts—such as the Lienzo de Tlaxcala—showed a Spaniard holding Montezuma by a rope or chain, while the Aztec ruler spoke from the rooftop).
12.Chavero in footnote to Muñoz Camargo (1892 [1592]: 217 [Bk. II, Ch. VI]) (no es cierto que Moteczuma muriera de la pedrada: está bien comprobado que lo mandó matar Cortés); Romerovargas Iturbide (1964: 20) (fue asesinado por los españoles).
13.See the “Burned” images from FC in the Gallery; Johansson (2010).
14.The “Burned” images in the Gallery are from FC, XII: ff. 40r, 41r; Magaloni Kerpel (2003: 34–42). The Montezuma-Christ association evokes yet another twist: the question of whether the emperor “was baptized and died a Christian” or not—as Muñoz Camargo put it four centuries ago (1892 [1592]: 217 [Bk. II, Ch. VI]) (fué bautizado y murió cristiano). It is almost certainly apocryphal, as has been argued from Torquemada (1614, I: 544; Bk. 4, Ch. 70) to MacNutt (1909: 270) to Castañeda de la Paz (2013: 341–42), yet the question will no doubt continue to remain a topic of speculation.
15.These murders are discussed in numerous places, but, e.g., LCHI Bk. 3, Ch. 25; Lamana (2008: 92–95); Restall and Fernández-Armesto (2012: 23).
16.AGI Patronato 55, no. 3, ramo 4; PRT: 104–9. Block quote above is f. 4r (PRT: 108) (los truxo e guyo e amparó por todos los camynos por do benyeron, hasta entrar en esta çibdad de Mexico con muchas astuçias e maneras para que no los mataron los pueblos que estaban por los camynos, los quales estaban alborotados con la venida de los dichos cristianos). Villella (2016: 83–84) led me to this particular document in PRT (his is a book-length study of the persistence of Aztec dynastic marriage traditions through the eighteenth century); op. cit.: 84, 94, 153 on Itztlolinqui; the 1556 letter to the king is in ENE, XVI: 64–66 and PRT: 199–200 (húmilmente suplicamos V.M. nos señale al Obispo de Chyappa don fray Bartholomé de las Casas para que tome este cargo de ser nuestro protector . . . por los muchos agravios y molestias que reçebimos de los españoles por estar entre nosotros y nosotros entre ellos). Note that there is a portrait of Itztlolinqui in the lost, possibly fraudulent Codex Cardona (Bauer 2009: 91).
17.AGI Patronato 55, no. 3, ramo 4: f. 19v; PRT: 104 (como a esclavos . . . muchos açotes, palos y coçes y teniendonos en cárceles, çepos y cadenas como a los mayores captivos del mundo); the brief was technically a probanza de mérito (proof of merit) for Quauhpopocatl, with testimony (información) (ff. 3–18), to support Itztlolinqui’s petition (ff. 1–2, 19).
18.Quauhpopocatl, called Quauhpopoca (or Quaupupuca) in colonial-era sources, has been confused
with Qualpopoca (who was burned alive in Tenochtitlan during the Phoney Captivity, as we shall see); see Pagden in Cortés (1971: 469n43). On Cacama: Ix13: 21; Hassig (2006: 100). On Ixtlilxochitl’s journey: Ixtlilxochitl (1985 [c.1630]: LXXX).
19.AGI Patronato 55, no. 3, ramo 4: ff. 6r, 9r, 13v–14r, 16v, 11v–12r; PRT: 110, 113, 118, 120, 115–16 (I changed Tlilançi to Tlilantzin: los puso en salbo en esta dicha ciudad de Mexico sin peligro ni riesgo nynguno y esto que lo sabe porque lo bido; Atenpenecatl: ques la mytad del camino desde la Beracruz a esta çibdad . . . el dicho Quaupupuca traya a los dichos cristianos por buenos caminos y los guardón hasta metelos en salvo en esta dicha çibdad; I changed Gueytecoçi to Hueytecotzin: muchas flores . . . quando el dicho Quaupupuca entró a ver el dicho Monteqsuma le echó las dichas flores delante. I changed Guytecotle to Cuitecotle: presente a la plática . . . sus mantas . . . le dio un collar de margaritas).
20.My comments on Nahua perceptions of the Spaniards are indebted to Lockhart (1993: 16–21).
21.Clendinnen (1991b: 63).
22.CCR (1522; 1960: 39; 1971: 62) (maté mucha gente; . . . en otro pueblo tan grande, que se ha hallado en él, por visitación que yo hice hacer, más de veinte mil casas, y como los tomé de sobresalto, salían desarmados, y las mujeres y niños desnudos por las calles, y comencé a hacerles algún daño).
23.On Tlaxcalteca political factionalism, see Hassig (2001b), and on the Triple Alliance, see Hassig (1988), Carrasco (1999), and Lee (2014); for an example of the argument that “the Aztec Empire existed in name only” and was “largely a creation of Hernán Cortés and of the historiography he inspired” (“So, ‘Mexica Empire’—or house of cards?. . . . there might one day have been an empire worthy of the name”), see Gruzinski (2014: 14–16).
24.My discussion of the events of September–October relies largely on Hassig (2006 [1994]: 128–40) and Ixtlilxochitl (1985 [c.1630]: 248–59 [LXXXV–LXXXVII], “invention” quote on 251) (fue invención de los tlaxcaltecas y de algunos de los españoles). Conquistador accounts include Tapia and Aguilar (see Fuentes 1963: 33–37, 143). Early examples of the traditional narrative of the expedition through to the Meeting are Díaz VIII–LXXXVII (1632: ff. 6–65) and Torquemada (1614, Bk. 4).
25.See Chapter 4 for full quotes and citations on the zoo as “hell.”
26.There are excellent Wikipedia pages in English and French detailing the origins of “Phoney War” (or “Phony War”) and drôle de guerre (literally, “funny war,” as a French journalist misunderstood “phoney” as “funny”). No doubt the phrase has since the 1940s been applied elsewhere, but I am not aware of it being yet applied to this interlude in the Spanish-Aztec War.
27.Vásquez de Tapia (1546 in J. Díaz et al. 1988: 143) (Otro día, entramos en México y estuvimos en él ocho meses, poco más o menos, hasta la venida de Pánfilo de Narváez, en el cual tiempo pasaron grandes cosas que, por no alargar, las dejo).
28.CCR (1522; 1960: 32; 1971: 50) (lo habría, preso o muerto, o subdito a la corona real de vuestra majestad). Cortés said he would capture Montezuma because it was standard practice for conquistadors to seize indigenous rulers and hold them hostage; that fact misled me in the past into accepting not only that the Spanish captains expected to do it, but that they therefore did it in Tenochtitlan (Restall 2003: 25).
29.Abnett (2007: 6–7).
30.CCR (1522; 1960: 60; 1971: 99) (todos juntos y cada uno por sí prometían, y prometieron, de hacer y cumplir todo aquello que con el real nombre de vuestra majestad les fuese mandado; acudir con todos los tributos y servicios que antes al dicho Mutezuma hacían y eran obligados; lo cual todo pasó ante un escribano público y lo asentó por auto en forma).
31.Gómara (1578: 231). Allen (2015) argues persuasively that Montezuma’s tears cannot simply be seen as evidence of the stereotype (which I have called Montezuma the Coward in Chapter 2), and that both Aztec and Spanish cultures had more complex interpretations of the significance of tears in religious, political, and ritual contexts. Note that the European (but not Mesoamerican) culture of weeping and tears has been studied extensively in the last two decades. Engraved: “Montezuma Surrenders Sovereignty,” in the Gallery, includes the traditional narrative’s detail of astonished and tearful Aztec nobles—lending an apparent ring of truth to a scene that was most likely invented. This image, and variants on it, accompanied many editions of Conquest accounts, from the seventeenth through twentieth centuries (this particular one is from Solís 1733: 313 facing). Visual dramatizations of this fictional moment became increasingly popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; one of the most widely reproduced today is the oil painting of the scene in the Museo de América.
32.CCR (1522; 1960: 65; 1971: 107) (yo . . . sabría las cosas que debían tener y creer mejor que no ellos; que se las dijese e hiciese entender, que ellos harían los que yo les dijese que era lo mejor); Brooks (1995: 155); my analysis in this section owes as much to Brooks’s article as it does to my rereading of the primary sources.
33.Ab initio is a Latin term meaning “from the beginning,” used to lend Cortés’s imagined mass surrender a further touch of legal weight; CCR (1522; 1960: 69; 1971: 113) (muchos secretos de las tierras del señorío de este Mutezuma; . . . y todo con tanta voluntad y contentamiento del dicho Mutezuma y de todos los naturales de las dichas tierras, como si de ab initio hubieran conocido a vuestra sacra majestad por su rey y señor natural); Cervantes de Salazar (1914 [1560s]: 479); Brooks (1995: 160).
34.“Convergence”: Krauze (2010: 69; see chapter-opening epigraph). Stockholm: relevance of the syndrome suggested to me by Kris Lane (personal communication, August 14, 2016). Eighteenth century: Dilworth (1759: 72–79, 122; 1801: 104–10, 158); Campe (1800: 170). For studies suggesting that early modern Spanish understandings of concepts like betrothal and concord influenced painted depictions of the Cortés-Montezuma relationship—beginning with the Meeting—see Cuadriello (2001) and Hernández-Durán (2007).
35.Thevet (1676: 76).
36.Sigüenza y Góngora (1928 [1680]: 130) (I have glossed hacer merced as “do favors” but it more literally means “show favor” in the sense of kings or bishops dispensing patronage) (Era este Rey con los Castellanos tan affable, y amoroso, que jamás pasó dia en que no hiziesse merced á alguno); Filgueira Valverde (1960: 108) (Hubo días casi felices en que el señor azteca y el capitán español, convivieron familiarmente, entre mutuos servicios y pruebas de amistad, y horas alegradas por los azares del juego, los lances de la caza, los finos cánticos y el grato humor del rey preso, siempre generoso con sus guardas y servidores).
37.“Romance”: Gruzinski (2014: 88). Díaz’s story XCVII (1910, II: 105; 1942 [1632]: 137; 2005, I: 256–57): “Sometimes Montezuma and Cortés would play at totoloque, which is the name they give to a game played with some very smooth small pellets made of gold for this game”; a nephew of the emperor’s kept score for him, Alvarado doing the same for Cortés, “but Alvarado always marked one point more than Cortés gained, and when Montezuma saw this he said courteously and laughingly that he did not like Tonatiuh (for so they called Pedro de Alvarado) to keep score for Cortés because he made so much yxoxol in what he marked down, which in their language means to say that he cheated”; at that point Cortés and all the conquistadors there laughed, as they knew Alvarado’s “temperament.”
38.Thomas (1993: 312, quote on 315).
39.Brooks is similarly skeptical of the Spanish spin on the Qualpopoca execution; both it and the Cacama story “are studded with absurdities” (1995: 165); see later in this chapter for a different version from the Nahuatl-language Annals of Tlatelolco.
40.“Kings”: from the early English edition of Gómara (1578: 230). On Cacama affair: Brooks (1995: 165–66) is as skeptical as I am; also see Hassig (2006: 106–7).
41.MacNutt (1909: 441).
42.“Right”: Brooks (1995: 161). “Myth”: Thomas (1993: 284). “Difficult”: Durán (1967 [1581]: 293–94; also quoted by Brooks op. cit.: 177).
43
.AGI México 203, 5: ff. 1–4; AGI Patronato 73, 1, 2: ff. 46, 63; DC, II: 331–48; DCM: #s311, 549, 1009, 1060, 1102; WWC: 55–58, 123, 135–36; Schwaller and Nader (2014: 171, 177, 182, 219, 226).
44.There have survived documents written by Spaniards in the Indies during the months of the Phoney Captivity, including some in Mexico (e.g., DC, I: 105–8), but none have survived (if indeed they were written) from Tenochtitlan.
45.“Appearances”: MacNutt (1909: 204). “Free” and “liberty”: Brooks (1995: 176, 163); CCR (1522; 1960: 55–56; 1971: 90–92) (vinieron muchos señores; cuando menos con él iban pasaba de tres mil hombres que los más de ellos eran señores y personas principales); Díaz XCVI, XCVII (1910, II: 96, 108–14; 2005, I: 250–51, 259).
46.Gómara (1964: 174).
47.Abbott (1904 [1856]: 194) remarked that Montezuma “was magnificently imprisoned,” but the same might more accurately be said of the Spaniards. Conquistador descriptions of the city’s palace complexes suggest that they and their slaves and servants were easily accommodated; these “beautiful and excellent houses of their lords were so large and had so many rooms, apartments, and gardens” that the so-called Anonymous Conquistador “went inside one of the houses of the great lord more than four times just to look at it, and each time I walked so far that I became tired, yet I never managed to see all of it” (Anonymous [n.d. (1556)]; CDHM, I: 395; Bustamante 1986: 151) (muy bellas y buenas casas señoriales, tan grandes y con tantas estancias, aposentos y jardines . . . yo entré más de cuatro veces en una casa del gran señor no para otra cosa sino verla, y cada vez caminé tanto por ella que me cansé, y nunca la acabé de ver completa). Although some sources state (and some historians assume) that the 250 or so Spaniards kept their Tlaxcalteca allies with them (e.g., Cervantes de Salazar stated that six thousand “Indian allies from the towns they had pacified” [indios amigos de los pueblos que habia pacificado] entered the city too; 1914 [1560s]: 272 [Bk. 3, Ch. LXIII]), it is unsupported by evidence and highly unlikely.
When Montezuma Met Cortes Page 54