When Montezuma Met Cortes

by Matthew Restall

  33.Díaz CCXIII (1908–16, V: 306; 2005, I: 833) (diesen liçençia para que de los indios mexicanos y naturales de los pueblos que se avian alçado y muerto españoles, que si los tornásemos a requerir tres vezes que vengan de paz, y que si no quisieren venir y diesen guerra, que le pudiésemos hazer esclavos, y echar un hierro en la cara que fue una ‘g’ como esta).

  34.On Garrido, see Restall (2003: 44, 55–63) (on his illicit sale of a Nahua slave in Spain, see van Deusen 2015b: 289–92).

  35.“Bondage”: Reséndez’s phrase, used variously (e.g., 2016); also see Seijas (2014: 215–21); Stone (2014); van Deusen (2015b: 296).

  36.“Complexion” and “climate”: quoted in Earle (2014: 143–44). When Sandoval died of a sudden illness shortly after landing in Spain in 1528, among his property were two “Indians,” two enslaved indigenous men who were freed in Sandoval’s will. No mention is made of providing for them, so presumably they were set loose, penniless, in southern Spain—the ultimate displacement (AGI Justicia 1005, no. 2, ramo 2; Scholes 1969: 189).

  37.Francisco Manuel: case in AGI Justicia 1007, no. 1, ramo 1; and Justicia 1022, no. 1, ramo 2; but expertly summarized by van Deusen (2015b: 298–300).

  38.Melgarejo: ENE, VIII, #s447, 454, 461, 478: 128–30, 145–46, 182–84, 245–46; also see VI: 120–23, 208–9; VII: 270–72; IX: 102–6; Reséndez (2016: 72–74) (ni he podido abogar por los que tienen indios por esclavos y bastaría aunque esto cesara para no venir a mí la gran enemistad común que me han tenido . . . mi odioso trabajo . . . de peor condición que los dichos indios esclavos que se han libertado).

  39.AGI Santo Domingo 99, ramo 1, no. 17 (I thank Scott Cave for sharing and transcribing this document with me) (de la mucha cantidad de yndios que se sacaron en las armadas que para ello se hizieron que quando esta ysla muy despoblada y ansi mismo rrescivio mucho daño . . . a otras algunas personas eçesivos repartimientos . . . todos los demas vecinos de la ysla y se fueron muchos della de la nueva españa llevando consigo muchas de las naburias y yndios que les fueron encomendados e los demas vendian e barataban).

  40.Maltreatment: CCR (1971: 57–58). Ávila: DC, I: 170–209 (quote on 201) (los españoles truequen con los indios caribes los indios que traen de las entradas pos gallinas e por otras cosas, e este testigo ha visto trocar muchos de los dichos indios publicamente a los españoles).

  41.AGI Patronato 2, caja 1, legajo 1, no. 1, ramo 13; ENE, II, #107: 127–31; WWC: 170–71. On accusations of Velázquez abusing the rules on indigenous slaves, Justicia 49, e.g., 1, 1: ff.98–127. On slave markets in Mexico, e.g., RC; AGI Justicia 222, no. 3: ff. 61–68 (indigenous slaves sold at twenty to thirty pesos each); also see various items in ENE, I–III; there are also fleeting textual and visual references to indigenous slaves in early colonial Mexico in codices such as the Azcatitlan and Vaticano A (see Castañeda de la Paz and Oudijk 2012: 74–76).

  42.ENE, VII, #391: 183–84 (letter of 1554, original in Simancas, not accessed by me) (en tiempos pasados se llevaron muchos de los naturales de aquella provincial a las islas y otras partes y con lo que le dan en tributo no se puede sustentar por ser de poco provecho). Also see ENE, I, #78: 153–66, a 1529 request to ship indigenous slaves from Mexico to the islands in order to exchange them for horses and other livestock.

  43.From the king himself down to the humblest conquistador-settler, Spaniards believed that “the king’s gold and treasure” (el oro del rey; todo el oro e joyas de Su Majestad; etc.), worth tens of thousands of pesos (equivalent to millions of dollars), had been lost during the Noche Triste. The rumors were fueled for decades by claims by conquistadors like Vásquez de Tapia that specific sums were secreted out of Tenochtitlan by certain Cortés cronies; in turn, Cortés loyalists insisted that Montezuma had revealed in 1520 “the secrets of the land,” and its “many riches of diverse kinds, especially the silver mines” (los secretos de la tierra . . . muchas riquezas de diversas maneras, especialmente las minas de plata): DC, I: 114–28, 156–63 (quote on 156); Conway (1943); hundreds of testimonies in RC (Cortés residencia: RC; AGI Justicia 220–225; DC, II: 29, 43, 46, 48, 51, 56, numerous in 145–362) (e.g., in response to question #47 of the residencia: Vásquez de Tapia claimed Alvarado had buried in three or four places near the city “a million and more of the treasure that was Montezuma’s [un millón e más el thesoro que huvo de Motezuma]”).

  44.Mira Caballos (1997: 288–89); van Deusen (2015a; 2015b); Reséndez (2016: 50–51).

  45.Hoig (2013: 4, 21). Also see Goldwert (1983); Alves (1996: 213–31).

  46.González: Schwaller and Nader (2014: 179). Vásquez: DCM: #1102; Schwaller and Nader (2014: 176–77). Suárez: DCM: #1025; Schwaller and Nader (2014: 210–11); AGN Inquisición 37: f. 1; Díaz CCV (1916, V: 233–34).

  47.Sopuerta: DCM: #969; WWC: 237; Schwaller and Nader (2014: 196). Granada: DCM: #414; WWC: 64; Schwaller and Nader (2014: 188–89). Sedeño: DCM: #991; Schwaller and Nader (2014: 213).

  48.Gutiérrez: DCM: #434; Schwaller and Nader (2014: 214). Galingo: DCM: #972; Schwaller and Nader (2014: 215). Sánchez: ENE, XV, #842; DCM: #959; Schwaller and Nader (2014: 216–17). Pérez: DCM: #793; Schwaller and Nader (2014: 235–36).

  49.“Infect”: Cervantes de Salazar (1914 [1560s]: 98 [Bk. 2, Ch. XVI]) (Decían sus amigos que eran las bubas, porque siempre fué amigo de mujeres, y las indias mucho más que las españolas inficionan a los que las tratan). “Pain”: DC, I: 439–49 (quote on 449; letter of 1527 written in Tenochtitlan to Saavedra Cerón) (los naturales de aquellas partes son muy celosos e de ninguna cosa reciben mayor pena que de tratarles con sus mujeres).

  50.Díaz CXL, CXLII, CXLIV, CXLVI, CLXII, CLXXV, CLXXVIII, CLXXXIV (1912, IV: 25, 50, 51, 67, 69, 90, 265; 1916, V: 12, 38, 41, 42, 66–67; 2005, I: 407, 422, 433, 434, 448, 561, 639, 655, 657, 658, 675) (en buscar una buena india o aver algún despojo; muy buenas pieças de indias; aqui se ovieron muy buenas indias e despojo; dimos muy de presto en la casa y prendimos tres indios y dos mugeres moças y hermosas para ser indias y una vieja; treinta gallinas y melones de la tierra . . . y apañamos . . . tres mugeres, y tuvimos buena Pasqua; le enbiaron muchas indias y gente menuda). Note that the Díaz citations in this and adjacent notes are by no means a comprehensive list of such references.

  51.Díaz CXLIII, CXLVI (1912, IV: 54–55, 90; 2005, I: 424–25, 448) (para capitanes, y si heran hermosas y buenas indias las que metiamos a herrar las hurtavan de noche del montón; qual tratavan bien a las indias y naborias que tenian, o qual as tratava mal; de presto les desaparesçian y no las vian mas).

  52.CA: f.42v (using translation in Lockhart 1993: 274–75).

  53.FC, XII: 248–49; Annals of Tlatelolco in Lockhart (1993: 268–69) (ninguna cosa otra tomauan sino el oro y las mugeres moças hermosas).

  54.Díaz CLXXX (1916, V: 51–52; 2005, I: 664) (las mugeres tomadas; a rogar a Cortés; çiertas joyezuelas de oro; todos los indios de aquel pueblo; dan una buen mano de vara y piedra y flecha a Cortés y a sus soldados, de manera que hirieron al mismo Cortés en la cara y a otros doze de sus soldados).

  55.Díaz LI, LII (1908–16, I: 185, 191; 2005, I: 124, 127).

  56.DC, IV: 401. To place the fate of indigenous women slaves in a larger context, see van Deusen (2012).

  57.Motolinía quote by Reséndez (2016: 62); residencia charge in DC, II: 114 (don Hernando Cortés, con la gente que con él iba, mató muchos indios e fizo herrar a más de quinientas animas por esclavos).

  58.“Handful” quotes: Maudslay, in Díaz (1942: xv); the great J. H. Plumb in Johnson (1975: xii); Ballentine in Ixtlilxochitl (1969: ix). Also see the quotes and citations in the Prologue; and Restall (2003: Ch. 1).

  59.My discussion of conquistador totals is drawn from the numbers in Hassig (2006: 58, 62, 71, 74, 76–77, 84, 86, 93, 100, 104, 107, 111–12, 119–20, 122, 124, 135, 165, 175, 176), checked against comments made by Aguilar, Cortés, Díaz (e.g., CCX; 1916, V: 274–75 gives numbers totaling over three thousand), Durán, Gómara, and Sahagún. Of the original 450 men, 35 were killed by Mayas at Potonch
an (dying later of wounds and infections). The surviving 415 were supplemented by a dozen or so new arrivals in the summer (1519), but a comparable number left on the ship sent to Spain. In August, 300 marched to Tlaxcallan, leaving very approximately 100 in Vera Cruz. The Tlaxcalteca killed 50 or more, so only 250 reached Tenochtitlan in November (with numbers in Vera Cruz also falling due to battle, illness, and perhaps flight). The end of 1519 was thus the first numerical low point. A trickle of new arrivals in the early months of 1520 brought Spanish numbers in Tenochtitlan to about 350 by the time Narváez landed on the coast in April with 1,100. By June there were thus some 1,500 Spaniards in the capital city (the war’s numerical high point), but perhaps 900 were soon killed in the city and another hundred or so died in the march back to Tlaxcallan; the second low point was thus late summer 1520, when numbers dropped below 500, perhaps as low as the original number of 450. Hundreds more arrived in 1521, perhaps 500 or 600, so that even with Spanish mortality during the siege at over a hundred men, there were close to a thousand in the valley when Tenochtitlan fell in August.

  60.“Secret”: Bourn (2005). Formula: Hassig comments in ibid. (also 2006 [1994]).

  61.Brooks (1993: 1–12); Hassig (2006: 123–25, 187–89); Sandine (2015: 153–59).

  62.Motolinía (1950: 38); point made by Brooks (1993: 8–10, 22–23) and Sandine (2015: 156). “In large part”: McNeill (1979: 192), quoted by Brooks (op. cit.: 8).

  63.Brooks (1993: 15–29); Hassig (2006 [1994]: 125); Sandine (2015: 153–59).

  64.Both numbers from Luis de Cárdenas, in a denunciation of Cortés made in Madrid in 1528 (hence my assumption of exaggeration), in AGI Patronato 1, 1, 2; CDII, XL: 370; and DC, III: 19 (así hizo capitán a Pedro de Alvarado de los cincuenta mil indios, cuando fue sobre Francisco de Garay y le mató los trescientos cristianos en una noche, por mandado de Hernando Cortés).

  65.Between 1512 and 1519, the power balance between the two Triple Alliances had shifted in favor of the Aztecs, with the Tlaxcalteca losing one of its three partners, Huexotzinco, for much of 1512–16, and then briefly Cholollan too. This magnified the impact of the pendulum swing toward the Tlaxcalteca in 1519–21. On this, and the Flower Wars, see the various treatments in Carrasco (1999) and Hassig (1988; 2006 [1994]). I use “total warfare”—a highly debated concept applicable primarily to the twentieth century—loosely and somewhat rhetorically.

  66.“Ordinary men”: The phrase is a reference to the title of Browning (1998), whose “ordinary men” are German policemen drawn into committing mass murder in Poland in the early 1940s. I am grateful to Garrett Fagan for introducing me to Browning’s work.

  67.Archival references to González: RC; AGI Justicia 223: f. 22ff; Justicia 237; Patronato 2, caja 1, legajo 1; DC, II: 195, 285; ENE, II, #81: 6–8; VII, #369: 31–36. Translations of his 1530 commendation in ENE, II, #81 are mine (la provincia de Tepeaca donde pasastes muchos peligros y trabajos peleando muchas veces con los indios), as is the quote from the letter in ENE, VII, #369 but also see Stabler and Kicza (1986); the final word in the quote (“elsewhere”) is actually a missing word due to document damage (Paso y Troncoso imagines “Italia”; ENE op. cit.). Also Grunberg (2001: 208–10) (la guerra y conquista deste rreynos no parezca ta Reuirosa y sin razon, como algunos con sus pocas letras lo afirmaban y prueban que esta gente era barbara ydolatrica sacrificadora, matadora de ynoçentes, comedora de carne humana, expurçissima y nefanda sodomia, y si me quiere dezir que tales y tantos pecados diños son de guerra y de perdamjo de rreyno, mas que en la guerra se tuvo modo eçesivo y grandes ynadvertençias y notables desordenes y pecados y ansi lo creo, paguenlo los que los cometieron, y no todos; castiguen a aquellos, y no perdamos nosotros o que tan bien y con tanto trabajo y en sevicio de dios y de V. Mag. Ganamos y a la verdad despues que la Guerra se comiença aunque sea muy justa y en gente muy xriana no creo que podra ser menos que desordenes, como consta de la guerras de francia y rroma e . . . ).

  68.Todorov (1999 [1982]: 145).

  69.Las Casas (2003 [1552]); Gardiner (1961) (on Sandoval); Butterfield (1955) (on Aguilar); Anonymous (1999 [1826]: 119) (I consulted only this fine English edition of the novel, first published in Philadelphia but in Spanish and almost certainly by a Mexican; op. cit.: 1–2).

  70.Martínez’s comments in Bourn (2005).

  71.Mendieta (1870 [1596]: 177) (tanta multitud de enemigos, unos claros y otros ocultos . . . tan pocos compañeros . . . tan cobdiciosos del oro . . . Y aunque él mismo pronunciase la sentencia de muerte en causa no justificada, diciendo: ahorquen á tal indio, quemen á este otro, den tormento á fulano, porque en dos palabras le traian hecha la informacion, que era un tal por cual, que hizo matar españoles, que conspiró, que amotinó, que intentó, y otras cosas semejantes, que aunque él muchas veces sintiese que no iban muy justificadas, habia de condescender con la compañia y con los amigos, porque no se le hiciesen enemigos y lo dejasen solo).

  72.Robertson (1777, II: 48).

  73.Ibid.; Prescott (1994 [1843]); MacNutt (1909: 168). Also Thomas (1993: 434–39) is a good summary of the 1520 massacres. Grotius quoted by Carr (2003: 78–79).

  74.“Minds”: Myers (2015: 124). “Traitors”: Isabel Sánchez de García speaking c.2006 to Myers (op. cit.). “Forgive” and “things happen”: Hersh (2015: quotes on 56, 59).

  75.DCM: #41; #44; WWC: 5–12; Schwaller and Nader (2014: 160–62).

  76.DCM: #141; WWC: 170–71; Díaz CLX (1912, IV: 240–41); Thomas (1993: 99, 358, 360, 377–78, 437, 450, 554); Schwaller and Nader (2014: 169–70).

  77.DCM: #820; RC; AGI Justicia, 223: f. 18; NCDHM, II: 217–19. Schwaller and Nader (2014: 196) speculate that Portillo may have been the “Diego Enos” who signed the 1519 First Letter in Vera Cruz. Díaz (CCV; 1916, V: 243) claimed “he performed miracles, and he was almost a saint”—that is, in Maudslay’s translation; the original reads fue de santa bida (“he lived a holy life”) (2005, I: 788).

  78.Scholar of the Holocaust: Browning (1998: 160).

  79.Paz: AGI Justicia 1018, no. 1, ramos 1 and 2 (lawsuits by Paz’s family members, including details of Paz being racked, waterboarded, and foot-burned; e.g., “many kinds of torture by cords, garrotte, water, and hot bricks [muchos generos de tormentos de cordeles, garrotes, de agua, fuego de ladrillos]” in Justicia 1018, no. 1, ramo 1: f.2); the account in Díaz CLXXXV (1916, V: 77–78) barely begins to convey the horror of Paz’s slow death. García de Llerena: A veteran of the Spanish-Aztec War and Cortesian loyalist, he acted as one of Cortés’s legal representatives in the late 1520s and in 1529 mounted the first defense in Tenochtitlan against the accusations of the residencia inquiry. In retaliation, the royal judges arrested him and a priest who had helped him hide; the latter was hanged and quartered, while García de Llerena was given a hundred lashes and condemned to have a foot severed (Martínez in DC, I: 80–81). Foot severing was actually the removal of some toes—so the victim could still walk, but with a humiliating limp—and was a standard “punishment” among Spaniards; Cortés allegedly had Gonzalo de Umbría likewise maimed for Velazquista plotting (DC, II: 42; Díaz LVI).

  80.“Numbed”: Browning (1998: 160).

  81.Recent studies: e.g., Woolford, Benvenuto, and Laban Hinton (2014); Madley (2015; 2016). “Government policy”: Browning (1998: 161). For discussion of definitions of genocide that underpin my suggestion that we can usefully see genocide in effect and micro-genocidal moments in the Spanish-Aztec War and its aftermath, see Woolford, Benvenuto, and Laban Hinton (2014: 2), and Madley (2016: 4–5). The 150 readings in Meierhenrich (2014) show that debates over the definition and applicability of concepts of genocide have only served to fuel the dynamism of the field of genocide studies since the 1990s; it will be to the benefit of “Conquest” studies if the arguments made by Todorov (1999 [1982]: 127–45), Stannard (1993), Madley, and others remain debated, and if the relevance of the term to European colonization in the Americas continues to be “an empirically contested question” (Meierhenrich 2014: 30).

  EPIL
OGUE: HALLS OF THE MONTEZUMAS

  1.Epigraph sources, in sequence: Thomas (1857: 47–48 [Act III, Sc. 3]); Navarra, aka Pedro de Albret, a humanist bishop from Navarre, in Martínez (2016: 84), whose translation I adjusted very slightly, using his transcription; Matos Moctezuma (1987: 199), writing about how Aztecs understood their Great Temple; MacNutt (1909: 173); Grafton, V Is for Vengeance (New York: G. P. Putnam, 2011: 432) (not included in Bibliography).

  2.On the life of Malintzin’s son, Martín, see the excellent Lanyon (2003); also Townsend (2006: 151–52, 188–213). On Prince Philip’s youth and education, see Parker (2014: 8–31).

  3.Letter of April 1, 1562 (AGI Patronato 182, ramo 2; partially transcribed in Romerovargas Iturbide 1964, II: 229–30).

  4.Trueba y Cosio (1829: 342).

  5.Modern historian: Butterfield (1955: 1). The claim by historians that the “Conquest of Mexico” seems more like “an epic poem or chivalric romance” goes back to the early nineteenth century (here I’m quoting Chevalier 1846: 83), repeated scores of time since then, and is often found beside expressions of wonder over the “miraculous” and “stupendous” achievement of “a handful of adventurers” (see Restall 2003: Ch. 1; and discussion in the Prologue and Chapter 8).

  6.“Misrepresented”: Lane (2010: ix).

  7.Brooks (1995: 149) calculated the twenty-seven years and twenty-seven days.

  8.Díaz CCXIII (1919, V: 301–11; 2005, I: 830–36).

  9.Op. cit.: block quote: 308; 834; “pride”: 310; 836 (nos preçiamos de aver hecho tan buena obra).

  10.On Aztec victory tradition: Mundy (2015: 95).

  11.Nahuatl original and English translation in Sell and Burkhart (2004: quote on 124–25) (also discussed in Chapter 2).