Humboldt's Cosmos

by Gerard Helferich

  Also like the Inca, the Aztecs had no wheeled vehicles, no metal tools, and no arch. Yet they constructed great temples and palaces, and they were accomplished astronomers. To record the passage of time, they invented two calendars—one of 365 days to mark the solar year and a more important cycle of 260 days (20 weeks of 13 days each) to regulate religious observances. Because the two calendars resynchronized every fifty-two years, that period served as the Aztec “century.” Though the Aztecs had no alphabet, their scribes used glyphs to record histories, genealogies, laws, court records, land deeds, financial accounts, tax rolls, and the myriad other details necessary for the administration of a vast empire extending across central Mexico. In fact, much of our knowledge of Aztec culture is derived from the great books, or codices, that escaped destruction by the Spanish.

  Warfare was also central to Aztec society, the essential means through which the empire was preserved and extended. “War is your task,” each newborn male was traditionally reminded by the midwife, and every boy was schooled in the military arts. The tactics of Aztec warriors have been described as unsophisticated, little more than large-scale one-on-one combat using weapons such as slings, spears, bows, clubs, and obsidian swords. But the empire’s army was large, sometimes reaching as many as two hundred thousand men, and it proved an intimidating, effective instrument against neighboring cities. However, in battle, it was not the death of the enemy that was the tactical aim, but his capture, so that he could be sacrificed at Tenochtitlán.

  Despite their military supremacy, by the reign of Montezuma II the Aztecs’ world had developed troubling fissures. With further expansion frustrated by the Tarascan and the Chichimec peoples in the north and the Maya in the south, the empire had reached the limits of its growth. In addition, various vassal cities, such as Tlaxcala and Cholula, were chafing over the Mexicas’ ever-escalating demands for prisoners and tribute, and rifts had even developed with some longtime allies, such as the city of Texcoco, located just across the lake from Tenochtitlán. Then, beginning about 1502, a series of omens had been observed—a comet, a flood, a fire in the Great Temple—all of which, according to Mexica holy men, warned of looming disaster. Soon afterward, mysterious, white-skinned strangers had been reported in the Caribbean, and a trunk had washed ashore from the Gulf of Mexico containing bizarre clothing and other strange artifacts. Increasingly apprehensive, Montezuma considered constructing a huge new temple to Huitzilopochtl, in the hope of appeasing the insatiable sun god.

  Then, in 1518, these portents seemed to be borne out when sails (or as the words of the Aztec laborer who spotted them were later recorded, “mountains . . . floating in the sea”) were sighted off the eastern coast, near Cape Rojo, in the current Mexican state of Veracruz. Montezuma dispatched emissaries, who met with the strangers, Spanish explorers who had sailed from Cuba under the command of Juan de Grijalva. Establishing the pattern of appeasement that would characterize his dealings with the Spaniards, Montezuma dispatched nobles with lavish gifts of fine cloaks and gold, for which he received some glass beads and hardtack in return. The strangers left, all who had seen them were commanded to silence on pain of death, and the crisis passed. But the following year, 1519, the white men came again. Cortés had landed.

  Hernán Cortés was born around 1485 in the Castilian city of Medellín, the only child of a soldier and a notary’s daughter. The nephew of the conquistador Diego de Velázquez, Cortés traveled first to Hispañola in 1504, then in 1511 joined his uncle in Cuba, where he assisted in the conquest of the island and most likely witnessed the execution of the cacique Hatuey the following year. Though their relationship had turned stormy, in 1518 Velázquez commissioned Cortés to lead an expedition to Mexico. When Velázquez rescinded the orders at the last minute, Cortés sailed anyway, leaving Havana on February 18, 1519. According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who accompanied him, Cortés had “five hundred and eight [Europeans], not counting the ships’ captains, pilots, and sailors, who amounted to a hundred . . . [and] sixteen horses or mares. There were eleven ships, large and small, and one that was a sort of a launch. . . . There were thirty-two bowmen and thirteen musketeers, ten brass guns and four falconets [light cannon], and much powder and shot.” Whatever the complement of crossbows, these few hundred adventurers were an unlikely match for one of the greatest empires the world had ever seen.

  After making friendly contact with Indians on the island of Cozumel, off the Yucatán Peninsula, Cortés cruised the eastern coast, where he encountered resistance at Champotón and Cintla. At the city of Cempoala, he persuaded the Totonac people to rebel against Tenochtitlán and added two thousand Indian warriors to his ranks. Reboarding their ships, the Spaniards continued up the coast until Holy Thursday 1519, when they landed near the present-day city of Veracruz. On Easter Sunday, an emissary of Montezuma arrived. “He took out of a petaca—which is a sort of chest,” Díaz wrote, “—many golden objects beautifully and richly worked, and then sent for ten bales of white cloth made of cotton and feathers—a marvelous sight. There were . . . quantities of food—fowls, fruit, and baked fish. Cortés received all this with gracious smiles, and gave them in return some beads of twisted glass . . . , begging them to send to their towns and summon the people to trade with us, since he had plenty of these beads to exchange for gold.”

  In Tenochtitlán, hearing descriptions of the strangers and their outlandish clothes, food, animals, and weapons, Montezuma panicked. His first impulse was to flee the capital, but cooler-headed advisers managed to dissuade him. Most unnerving was the uncertainty concerning the interlopers’ identity. Were they ambassadors of a powerful and distant king, as they claimed, or invaders bent on destruction? Were they previously unknown deities, or exiled gods returning to reclaim their birthrights? If the latter, their leader might well be Quetzalcoatl (“Feathered Serpent”), the generally beneficent god who had introduced agriculture, science, the arts, and other hallmarks of civilization. According to one legend, Quetzalcoatl had been expelled from Tula, the capital of the Aztecs’ precursors the Toltecs, after which he had sailed from the eastern coast on a raft of serpents, vowing to return.

  Recent scholarship has cast into doubt the traditional explanation that the Aztecs considered Cortés a god. However, besides the place of their landing, several other coincidences could have suggested that the strangers’ leader was indeed the Feathered Serpent. For one thing, Quetzalcoatl was generally depicted in vaguely human form with pale skin and was sometimes shown wearing a beard. Also, the newcomers’ leader, on hearing of the Aztecs’ predilection for human sacrifice, had spoken out against the practice, which Quetzalcoatl was known to staunchly oppose. In recent years, the Aztecs had increasingly given themselves over to murderous offerings to Huitzilopochtli. Could Quetzalcoatl have returned to put an end to the sacrifices and to seek his due? Paralyzed by indecision, Montezuma plied the newcomers with gifts in an effort to appease them, just as he had hoped to satisfy Huitzilopochtli with ever-escalating orgies of bloodletting.

  At Veracruz, Cortés became aware of grumbling among some of his men who were loyal to Velásquez. With their provisions gone, thirty-five men already wounded in skirmishes with local tribes, untold thousands of Indian warriors before them, and not even any legal authority to undertake the expedition, the dissenters, in Díaz’s words, “were sighing to go home.” Faced with the threat of mutiny, Cortés made his famous, audacious gambit of dismantling his ships on the beach (the vessels weren’t burned, as is often claimed). Afterward, according to Díaz, the commander “made a speech to the effect that we now understood what work lay before us, and with the help of our lord Jesus Christ must conquer in all battles and engagements. We must be properly prepared, he said, for each one of them, because if we were at any time defeated, which God forbid, we should not be able to raise our heads again, being so few. He added that we could look for no help or assistance except from God, for now we had no ships in which to return to Cuba. Therefore we must rely on our own good s
words and stout hearts.”

  In mid-August, the Spaniards began their march to Tenochtitlan, swelling their ranks with Indian allies, especially the Tlascans. Ever more agitated, Montezuma several times sent ambassadors to meet the advancing host, plying the white men with rich gifts and offers of friendship, while at the same time discouraging them from entering the capital. But the Spanish were not to be deterred. As they approached the great lake of Texcoco, the invaders were awed by the Indian cities through which they passed. “And when we saw all those cities and villages built in the water, and other great towns on dry land, and that straight and level causeway leading to Mexico, we were astounded,” Díaz wrote. “These great towns and cues and buildings rising from the water, all made of stone, seemed like an enchanted vision. . . . Indeed, some of our soldiers asked whether it was not all a dream. . . . It was all so wonderful that I do not know how to describe this first glimpse of things never heard of, seen, or dreamed of before.”

  On the outskirts of the capital, Montezuma came out to greet them, and Díaz recorded the Europeans’ first glimpse of the Aztec emperor. “The great Montezuma descended from his litter, and these other great Caciques supported him beneath a marvelously rich canopy of green feathers, decorated with gold work, silver, pearls. . . . It was a marvelous sight. The great Montezuma was magnificently clad, in their fashion, and wore sandals . . . the soles of which were of gold and the upper parts ornamented with precious stones. . . .” In addition, “There were . . . many more lords who walked before the great Montezuma, sweeping the ground on which he was to tread, and laying down cloaks so that his feet should not touch the earth. Not one of these chieftains dared to look him in the face.”

  Cortés dismounted, and the two leaders bowed deeply to each other. The Spaniard presented Montezuma with a necklace of colored glass beads strung with gold, which he placed around the emperor’s neck. Through interpreters, the two men exchanged friendly speeches, and the Spaniards joined the procession into the city. “Who could now count the multitude of men, women, and boys in the streets, on the rooftops, and in canoes on the waterways, who had come out to see us?” Díaz asked. “It was a wonderful sight and, as I write, it all comes before my eyes as if it had happened only yesterday. . . . So, with luck on our side, we boldly entered the city of Tenochtitlán or Mexico on 8 November in the year of our Lord 1519.”

  Though the Spanish were treated as honored guests, they soon began to fear that they had stumbled into a trap. Surrounded by thousands of Montezuma’s soldiers, cut off from their Indian allies, they realized that their continued existence depended totally on the mercy of their hosts. Rather than risk their safety to what they supposed to be the Aztecs’ fickleness, Cortés and his lieutenants—as Pizarro later would do in Peru—elected to make a bold play and seize the emperor prisoner. Listing the slights supposedly suffered at the hands of the Mexicas, Cortés told Montezuma, “I have no desire to start a war on this account, or to destroy this city. Everything will be forgiven, provided you will now come quietly with us to our quarters, and make no protest. You will be as well served and attended there as in your own palace. But if you cry out, or raise any commotion, you will immediately be killed. . . .” Thus was the lord of the Aztecs made a captive in his own city.

  With Montezuma in the Spaniards’ power, the Aztecs hesitated to take any action that might put the emperor in jeopardy. But eventually, unable to tolerate the stalemate any longer, the Indians besieged the Spanish in their compound. When Montezuma climbed onto the roof and ordered his warriors to quit the attack, Díaz reports, he was told by one of his own captains, “O lord, our great lord, we are indeed sorry for your misfortune and the disaster that has overtaken you and your family. But we must tell you that we have chosen a kinsman of yours as our new lord [Cuitlahuac].” They said moreover “that the war must be carried on, and that they had promised their idols not to give up until we were all dead. They said they prayed every day . . . to keep him free and safe from our power, and that if things ended as they hoped, they would undoubtedly hold him in greater regard as their lord than they had done before. And they begged for his forgiveness.”

  No sooner was this reply given than the attack resumed in a shower of stones and spears. The Spanish soldiers guarding Montezuma were taken unawares, and the emperor fell, mortally wounded in the head, arm, and leg. He died soon after, surrounded by Cortés and the other Spaniards, who, Díaz said, wept for him “as though he were our father.” Learning of Montezuma’s death, the Aztecs pressed their assault with renewed fury, and Cortés concluded that the only hope of survival was to break out of the city. This was achieved on la Noche Triste, “the Sad Night,” of June 30 to July 1, 1520, when the Spanish suffered heavy casualties in savage fighting over the city’s causeways.

  Retreating around the north shore of Lake Texcoco, the remnants of Cortés’s army sought refuge in the friendly city of Tlaxcala. Nearly a year later, having received both Spanish and Indian reinforcements, Cortés marched again on Tenochtitlán and, after a siege of ninety-three days, finally succeeded in capturing the city, and with it the Aztec Empire, on August 15, 1521. By then, the once-great capital was in ruins. According to Díaz, “All the houses and stockades in the lake were full of heads and corpses. . . . It was the same in the streets and courts. . . . We could not walk without treading on the bodies and heads of dead Indians. I have read about the destruction of Jerusalem, but I do not think the mortality was greater there than here in Mexico, where most of the warriors who had crowded in from all the provinces and subject towns had died. . . . The dry land and the stockades were piled with corpses. Indeed, the stench was so bad that no one could endure it. . . .” Historians have variously estimated the number of Aztec dead from 40,000 to 250,000. Of 1,800 Spaniards landing in Mexico between 1519 and 1521, it is thought that 1,000 never returned.

  Another Mexica song commemorated the Aztec subjugation:

  It was called the jaguar sun.

  Then it happened

  That the sky was crushed.

  The sun did not follow its course.

  When the sun arrived at noon,

  Immediately it was dark;

  And when it became dark

  Jaguars ate the people. . . .

  The giants greeted each other thus:

  “Do not fall down, for whoever falls

  Falls forever.”

  Eschewing Tenochtitlán after the slaughter, Cortés established his government at nearby Cuauhnáhuac (present-day Cuernavaca), and the ruined capital became virtually deserted. Though the fighting had ceased, the surviving Aztecs, suffering from famine and smallpox, continued to die long afterward. For his part, Cortés found it “more difficult to contend against my own countrymen than against the Aztecs.” At the urging of his uncle Velásquez, a commissioner was named to investigate Cortés for malfeasance, cruelty, and nepotism, but he was acquitted of any wrongdoing and named captain-general and governor of New Spain. Then in 1526, another commissioner was appointed to investigate him, and Cortés was stripped of the governorship, though he was named a marqués and retained his title of captain-general. In 1540, he returned to Spain to reclaim what he considered his just reward from the Crown, but having fallen out of royal favor, the conqueror of Mexico was studiously ignored for seven years. He died of dysentery in Seville in 1547, as he was preparing to return to Mexico.

  IT was Cortés who had named the conquered land New Spain. As he had written his king in the first flush of discovery, “From what I have seen and understood concerning the similarity between this country and Spain, in its fertility, its size, its climate, and in many other features of it, it seemed to me the most suitable name for this country would be New Spain of the Ocean Sea, and this in the name of Your Majesty I have christened it.” But by 1800, the earlier name for the country, Mexico, was enjoying a new wave of popularity as the powerful Creoles became increasingly disenchanted with the government of Old Spain.

  The Spaniards had occupied Mexico
City since 1521, when Cortés had founded it as his new capital. Like Tenochtitlán before it, Mexico City was by the time of Humboldt’s arrival one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of perhaps 250,000 at a time when New York had only 60,000 and Philadelphia, the largest city in the United States, could boast just 70,000. Mexico City was also one of the most opulent metropolises in the world, with broad streets, impressive public buildings, fine parks and plazas, and lavish mansions. Joel Poinsett, first U.S. ambassador to Mexico, from 1825 to 1829 (and namesake of the Poinsettia flower, which he introduced to the United States), wrote, “The streets . . . are all well-paved and have sidewalks of flat stones. The public squares are spacious and surrounded by buildings of hewed stone, and of very good architecture. The public edifices are vast and splendid . . . and have an air of solidity and even magnificence. . . . There is an air of grandeur in the aspect of this place. . . .”

  To Humboldt, the capital was “the City of Palaces.” At its heart was the vast central square, the Zócalo, that had once been the Aztec ceremonial center. Along the west side, the viceroy’s palace occupied the former site of Montezuma II’s residence, and on the northern side, the baroque cathedral had been built over the site of a rack where thousands of sacrificial skulls were once displayed. Thus in the Spanish epoch, even as in Montezuma’s day, the square, like the capital around it, symbolized the marriage of ecclesiastical and political authority. Though the Aztec pantheon had been supplanted by the Trinity, religion still played a predominant role in Mexican life and government. (To this day Mexico remains one of the most devoutly Catholic countries in the world.) At the time, Mexico City boasted more than a hundred churches, twenty-three monasteries, and fifteen convents, all reflecting the tremendous wealth and power of the Church, which controlled huge tracts of land, collected tremendous revenues, and operated outside the scope of secular law. To Humboldt, the difference between the old religion and the new was largely superficial, at least as far as the Indians were concerned. “It is not a dogma which has replaced another,” he observed, “but one set of ceremonies which has been substituted for another. The natives know nothing of religion but the outward forms of worship. . . . The feast days of the Church, the fireworks that go with them, the processions interspersed with dances and oddly costumed marchers are for the poorer Indians a rich source of entertainment.”