Aztec Rage

by Gary Jennings

  I don’t think anyone made an accurate count of the “army,” nor was it possible to do so because it was like a puddle of water that kept growing. One moment there were a hundred of us . . . then another hundred and another, as men, singly and in small groups, joined the parade. Soon it was a fluid mass of thousands.

  No one took names, gave any instructions, did any training. There was no time and not enough qualified soldiers to train the horde. I suspect the only thing these indios knew was that at some point the padre would point at the enemy and they would go forth and do battle.

  People carried food with them: already-rolled tortillas as well as sacks of maize and beans, and meat that was cooked and salted to keep it edible. I don’t know how many had grabbed a store of provisions kept for emergencies or how much of the food the padre had been hording for this fateful day. Obviously he had been storing supplies because wagons loaded with supplies and pulled by teams of mules suddenly were part of the procession.

  My admiration for this warrior-priest who read Molière, defied his government and church to create wine and silk industries by force of his will, and who had an incredible abundance of love for all, but especially for the downtrodden, soared. I would have thought the two experienced military men, Allende and Aldama, would have planned the logistics of an army, but the padre was a human whirlwind, capable of handling a dozen tasks at the same time and fearless in making decisions. Miguel Hidalgo, small-town parish priest, had taken up the sword as enthusiastically as he once took up the cross.

  From the tone of conversations and body language, I sensed that the military-trained Allende did not want the priest to be in charge, nor did Allende’s fellow officers, but the padre was able to attract large numbers of volunteers, something no one else had so far been capable of. I didn’t know for certain whether or not Padre Hidalgo was aware of Allende’s reluctance, of the officer’s own ambition to be in charge, but if he was, he gave no sign of it. I had been around him enough to know that little escaped his awareness.

  A warrior-priest, I thought. Not one of those “turn-the-other-cheek” conquer-with-love martyrs of the New Testament, but the “eye-for-an-eye” fire-and-brimstone prophet of the Old Testament. The ability to pick up a sword and wield it had been inside him all the time, waiting to be ignited when his frustrations with the injustices that the common people suffered finally burst. The wrongs to his people ate at him until he picked up a sword, just as Moses, Solomon, and David had taken up the sword to defend their people.

  According to Raquel, humans had long engaged in war and religion as if they were two sides of the same coin. The conquest of the New World had been launched in the name of Christianity, or so the avaricious conquistadors shouted as they grabbed indio gold for their own purses. And didn’t Michael take a sword and drive Satan and his fallen angels from Heaven?

  As we marched toward San Miguel, I realized that the rebellion had begun with good omens: the maize was in full ear; there were hacienda pigs and cows aplenty along the way. We would not want for access to food, not at this time, at least.

  I rode beside Raquel and Marina. Looking back at the many women and children accompanying the indios, I asked, “Why do they bring their families? To cook their meals?”

  “What do you think the viceroy’s men will do when they come to Dolores? What will they do to the women left behind in villages when all the able-bodied men have gone to fight?”

  I realized the naiveté of my question. The answer did not take much imagination or even need to be expressed. And I noticed she said “when” they came. I don’t think she realized her slip of the tongue. If the revolution was successful, the viceroy’s men would not be coming to Dolores because there would no longer be a viceroy or a royal army.

  Padre Hidalgo was suddenly beside me. He leaned a little toward me and spoke in a low voice. “So much is happening so fast I have not had a chance to discuss some matters with you. As soon as we are able, I need to talk to you.”

  He was gone as quickly as he had approached. Puzzled, I looked over at Marina.

  “Has it occurred to you,” she said, “that you are the only person in this army who has ever actually fought in a war? Not even the criollo officers have experienced warfare.”

  I almost groaned aloud.

  How was I going to explain to these people that my experience in war was as a reluctant warrior and my main objective had been to stay alive? Did they think I was a leader of the guerrilla warfare against the French? Up to now, I had permitted others to overestimate my experiences and abilities, but I didn’t want to get myself killed or put the padre’s rebellion in jeopardy because of inflated notions of my military experience.

  “Don’t worry,” Marina said, “I’m sure the padre thinks of you as more of a bandido than a soldier.”

  “Stop reading my mind,” I snapped.

  EIGHTY-THREE

  LATE THAT DAY we arrived at the small, unarmed village of Atotonilco near San Miguel. A large church complex dominated the settlement.

  I was riding near the front of the line when the padre told Allende that they would stop and rest the men and the stock, that we shouldn’t attempt to immediately enter San Miguel. “I wish to surprise them by entering at nightfall,” he said.

  The padre was clearly in charge. He had spoken quietly, but his manner brooked no disagreement. He had simply stated a fact.

  Allende agreed with the strategy. How could he disagree? We had left Dolores with hundreds of men. Now our forces were an oceanic tide, our Aztecs alone numbering in the thousands. Before we had stopped, Allende rode down the line, estimating five thousand indios, but by the time he rode to the end and back the number had swelled.

  At the church in Atotonilco, other priests greeted the padre. He went inside and soon reappeared with a banner blazoning the Virgin of Guadalupe.

  “Give me your lance, cavalryman,” he told a vaquero.

  The padre attached the Virgin’s banner to the tip of the lance and remounted his horse. He rode among the indios, holding the banner high.

  “The Virgin is on our side!” he shouted. “Long Live the Virgin of Guadalupe! Death to evil government!”

  Thousands of voices resounded. The shouts of the Aztecs shook the earth. Raquel and Marina roared with the multitude. Allende and his fellow criollos grinned with joy.

  It had been a brilliant move by a master showman, a stroke of genius on the padre’s part. The Virgin of Guadalupe was the patron saint of the indios in the area. Everyone in New Spain had heard the story in church hundreds of times.

  Nearly three hundred years ago, in 1531, ten years after the Conquest, an Aztec convert named Juan Diego claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary as he plowed his field. He reported his sighting to the religious authorities, but nobody believed him. Diego claimed that on another occasion the Virgin ordered him to climb a hill. He obeyed and found flowers blooming on the summit in the midst of winter. He picked the flowers and carried them to the church in his serape. After he’d strewn flowers across the floor, a sweet fragrance filled the room. Imprinted on his serape was an image of the Virgin.

  News of the miracle spread like a firestorm among New Spain’s indios. Following the Conquest, the indios were in a spiritual vacuum. The priests who followed the conquistadors destroyed every remnant of their pagan religion. That the Spaniards had tread upon the Aztec gods and survived—and thrived—threw the indios into a spiritual abyss.

  Most of the indios didn’t fathom or even roundly reject the teachings of the priests. But Juan Diego’s miracle changed all that: the indios suddenly had a spiritual figure to venerate. The conversions following the miracle numbered in the millions. A papal bull later made the Virgin of Guadalupe the patroness and protector of New Spain.

  The image of the Virgin Mary painted on the cloth banner that Father Hidalgo displayed for the masses of indios was, of course, said to be identical to the one on Juan Diego’s serape.

  The padre had turned the war into a rel
igious crusade. With one sacred banner, he allied his Aztecs with God.

  Marina was so overwhelmed she burst into tears. I kept a tight smile on my lips. Was I the only one who had noticed? When the padre shouted “Death to evil government” thousands of voices had responded “Death to the gachupines.”

  The padre passed the Virgin’s banner to a young man who held it high as he walked ahead of the army: Diego Rayu, the novice priest had brought his own Aztec thunder to the revolution.

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  BEFORE WE LEFT Atotonilco, more cloth paintings of the Virgin of Guadalupe were mounted on lances. Now there were three warrior priests taking the lead, marching in the front of the huge horde, carrying high the banners of the Virgin.

  What courage these men of God had! I knew how to fight with a sword and pistol, but these priests had nothing but their faith and courage.

  The criollos evaporated before us: some vaqueros joined our cavalry from the haciendas we passed along the way, but the criollo owners and majordomos fled from what they regarded as an army of rabble. And it must have looked that way; our ranks swelled with Aztecs every foot of the way toward San Miguel de Grande. The pond that kept increasing was now a long river of humanity fed by streams and trickles of indios coming from every direction.

  I found it amazing that the Aztecs didn’t question the leaders or even ask where they were going. Abandoning their fields, they fell in line and marched, as did the mestizos, although in smaller numbers only because they were a smaller proportion of the colony’s population. From the appearance of the mestizos’ clothing, I could see they were poor peons, not small tradesmen or rancheros.

  Many times I saw men on horseback between us and San Miguel pause and watch us, then wheel their horses and ride back toward the city as if the devil was breathing down their necks. And he was. I could only imagine their faces when they rushed through the city streets shouting that thousands of bloodthirsty Aztecs were advancing toward their homes.

  I fell back to where Raquel and Marina were riding in line. They didn’t discuss or care about the terrified looks of the gachupines and criollos but focused on the expressions of the Aztecs.

  “Look at their faces,” Marina said. “They’re bright and full of hope. I can’t remember a time when I’ve seen a man of our people laugh or even grin. They’ve been morose, full of sadness, humiliated and oppressed for so long, they’ve lost their sense of identity. Even their women were taken from them by the conquerors. As they march to redeem their honor, you can see the pride on their faces.”

  She was right. I had rarely seen a happy indio, except when he had a belly full of pulque.

  “They’re happy,” I said, “because they’re on a crusade. They’re on their way to Méjico City, the Holy Land of New Spain.”

  They didn’t understand that they might all be dead tomorrow.

  “A children’s crusade,” Raquel said, “that’s what we look like, not brutal knights in armor but innocents with hope and courage shining in our eyes because only children can be so ingenuous, so lacking in fear.”

  “A children’s crusade?” Marina asked.

  “Europe saw two such movements. Back in the Middle Ages, two boys each set out in Europe with other children following them, intent upon going to the Holy Land and reclaiming it for Christ. Both boys claimed to have had visions in which they were instructed to lead an army of children to reclaim the Holy Land from the infidel. Thousands of them marched across Europe.”

  “They marched to their doom,” I added. “Tens of thousands with no place to go. Many were tricked onto boats and sold to the infidels as slaves by Christian ship captains.” I grinned at Raquel, pleased at myself. I had heard the story from her many years before.

  “Well, it won’t happen here,” Marina said. “We’re not children, and our leader isn’t on a crusade but simply wants recognition of the rights of all people. Someday you’ll see indios dressed in the same clothes as everyone else, and you won’t know the difference.”

  One of the criollo officers, a friend of Allende’s, overheard Marina’s remark as he trotted by on his horse. “A monkey dressed in silk is still a monkey,” he sneered.

  I pursed my lips as I watched the man’s back. My nose itched for a fight. “It’s too bad he’s on our side . . . or I would teach him the meaning of social justice with my boot up his backside.”

  Raquel shook her head and muttered, “Once a bad hombre, always a bad one. We must all learn to get along together as brothers and sisters.”

  Marina and I exchanged looks. Raquel was an idealist. Neither Marina nor I were under any illusion that the criollos would give up their dominance of the lower classes until the peons won their freedom on the battlefield.

  I rode to a higher point so I could view both the city of San Miguel and the horde descending upon it. Our puddle had swelled to an allengulfing sea.

  The priests led the way with their banner of the Virgin held high. Father Hidalgo and Allende followed next on horseback, with an honor guard of Allende’s soldiers.

  I’m not a man who has known God. Actually, I have spent most of my life avoiding Him in the hopes that He wouldn’t notice me and hold me accountable for my sins. But as I watched the procession, for the first time in my life, I felt the power and passion of the Lord.

  EIGHTY-FIVE

  SAN MIGUEL DE Grande was Allende’s place of birth. They knew him well as a young caballero, a man who romanced their daughters and braved bulls in the ring. He was admired, even emulated. Now he came home at the head of an invading army.

  We quickly learned that most Spaniards had left the city. The ones who stayed behind had taken cover in the city’s government building. Colonel Canal, in charge of the city’s defenses, knew he could not win. Another officer, Major Camuñez, tried to mount a resistance, but the men and their officers all knew Allende and admired him. Almost the entire command, over a hundred men, joined us.

  I listened quietly as the padre negotiated with Colonel Canal for the surrender of the gachupines barricaded in the municipal building.

  The stalemate was broken when Allende said, “Inform the gachupines that if they surrender peacefully, I will place them under my personal protection. No harm will come to them.”

  As I bit off the end of my cigarro, I looked back at the mass of Aztecs, a tidal wave descending on the city. Eh, even if the indios listen to orders, how would they ever hear them? Or understand them?

  I didn’t think Allende had even thought it out; most of the indios spoke Spanish poorly or didn’t speak it at all. Not to mention that they distrusted Allende, who, dressed in his flamboyant officer’s uniform, was a symbol of tyranny in their eyes. The only thing Allende had going for him was approval of the padre, a man whom the Aztecs revered as a saint.

  None of which would help the padre command an army of this size. How could his orders be heard? Who would enforce them without a chain of command enforced by lieutenants, sergeants, and corporals? How would soldiers with no training know how to obey the orders? Who in the lower ranks would pass on the orders?

  It wasn’t an army but a mob.

  The pandemonium started after dark. At first, our indios broke into pulque taverns, which had closed their doors in expectation of a siege. One group of indios went to the jail, opened the cells, and indiscriminately released murderers and thieves along with political prisoners, anyone who pretended they wanted to join the insurrection. But the march to the city had been a long one for most of the indios, and soon they went to sleep.

  All hell broke loose at sunrise.

  Bands of Aztecs broke into the homes of both criollos and gachupines. They pillaged and destroyed, setting houses afire. Soon thousands of indios rampaged, smashing windows, breaking down doors of homes and merchant buildings. Loot was carried out by the armful.

  Cries of “Death to the gachupines!” rang through the day. People of light-colored skin—criollos and gachupines who had not already fled the city, even light-colored
mestizos—were dragged out of their houses and stores and beaten.

  A throng of indios attempted to hang a criollo merchant. They had torn most of his clothes off when Allende and his officers on horseback charged into the crowd, with me behind them. The padre was not with us. I knew he spent most of the night checking seized foodstuffs and munitions. The army was in dire need of money; men had to be paid or how else would they support their families?

  Allende tried to reason with the would-be hangmen, but they shouted insults back; he wasn’t the priest they loved and trusted but just another Spaniard in a military uniform. He surged into them, knocking indios down with his horse, striking them with the flat of his sword, wielding it as a club rather than a lethal blade. The rest of us followed suit, finally breaking and scattering the indios. I hated to battle our own people, but the indios were out of control.

  After routing the would-be hangmen, we rode down the finest, wealthiest street in the city. Mobs had attacked the luxurious homes and broken down doors. Allende’s own house was on one side of the main square and his brother’s on the other.

  Joined by Allende’s uniformed soldiers, we broke up the savagery and the looting with death threats and brute force, but dealing with the horde of Aztecs was like trying to grasp a fistful of water. No one was in charge.

  When the padre finally arrived, he was a calming influence on their raging passions, but not even he could get them to settle down quickly.

  Allende confronted him as soon as we had restored order. The criollo officer was red in the face from exertion and anger. “We cannot have this disorder, we’ll lose the support of the criollos in the colony.”

  “What happened is a terrible thing,” Padre Hidalgo concurred.

  I could see from his face that he was conscience-stricken by the atrocities.

  “But the Spaniard,” the padre said, “has raped and robbed these indios for their entire lives. We can’t expect the slaves to confront their brutal masters with equanimity.”