Conquistador

by Buddy Levy

  On Cortés rode. On the outskirts of a large city called Cacamulco, the Spaniards met fierce resistance. The attacks came from all sides, and the horses struggled to maneuver in the boulder-pocked terrain. Cortés reined up and called for a retreat. As he rode away, two hurled stones struck him squarely in the head, the injuries severe enough to require immediate bandaging.

  The Spaniards were forced back out onto the flinty and esker-ridged chaparral. That night they camped in the open and tended their wounds and cooked and ate one of their slain horses. The animal sustained the famished men and provided their first meat since Tenochtitlán. “We ate it,” remembered Cortés, “leaving neither the skin nor any other part of it. For we were very hungry and had eaten nothing since we left the great city save boiled and roasted maize—and there was not always enough of that—and herbs which we picked from the fields.”32

  Nearly a week of eastward wandering and fighting led Cortés and his bloodstained entourage to the Ápam plains, near Otumba, where they halted to rest. But the respite was short-lived, for soon a few of Cortés’s scouts arrived with a frightening report. Ahead in the Valley of Otumba an enormous Aztec army had assembled. The new Aztec warlord Cuitláhuac, it seemed, was not content to let the Spaniards escape and was determined to finish them once and for all. Cortés realized that the nipping and heeling by small Aztec bands had actually been designed to herd them to this place, where a great force of Aztecs and their allies, including bands of Otomis, lay in wait. At the head of the army Cuitláhuac placed his brother Matlatzincatzin, who proudly took the role of cihuacoatl, equivalent to captain-general. He, along with his other chiefs and elite warriors, wore resplendent headdress, ornately jeweled. Matlatzincatzin bore on his shoulder the regal war standard—the Quetzaltonatiuh—“a Sun of Gold symbol encircled by quetzal feathers.”33

  Hernán Cortés certainly did not like what he saw as he crested a rise and looked down into the Valley of Otumba. “There came to meet us,” he said, “such a multitude of Indians that the fields all around were so full of them that nothing else could be seen.”34 Stretching to the far horizon all Cortés and his men could see were the bobbing shields and spears of warriors, the fluttering plumed helmets with black and white and green tail feathers. Given the dire condition of the men and their scant numbers, many of the Spaniards, including Cortés, believed that they faced their final hour. He addressed his troops, most of them hard men who had been on mainland Mexico since their arrival, tough and battle-steeled veterans. Once again he appealed to their sense of honor and duty, to their love of crown and cross, and gave last-minute military instructions. They were nearly out of powder, so the harquebuses would hardly play a role. The fighting would be up to footmen with pikes, swords, and lances and the few cavalry that remained operational. He hoped that the Spanish steeds could still run.

  He commanded the horsemen to “charge and return at a hard gallop, and [they] were not to stop to spear the enemy but to keep their lances aimed at their faces until they broke up their squadrons.”35 Whatever happened, order and organization must be maintained. Then all knelt and prayed, crossing themselves and looking at the mountains beyond, the great volcano Popocatépetl to the south still spewing fumes and ash and steam.

  The Aztecs closed for battle, charging with an array of screams and wails and high-pitched yips, and within moments the opposing ranks collided. “We could hardly distinguish between ourselves and them,” said Cortés of the encounter, “so fiercely and closely did they fight us.”36 The Spaniards maintained a solid defensive rectangle, as commanded by Cortés, for the flatness of the plain allowed the rested Iberian stallions to do their work, charging at a gallop, their riders low-slung, crashing headlong into confused warrior ranks in a clatter of lance on shield, scattering the Aztecs. In the center of the combat the swordsmen swung and hacked and parried, sidestepping the slashing two-sided obsidian blades of their enemy. From early morning until nearly noon the battle raged, and Cortés and his men hung on by lance-tip and sword-blade. As bravely as they fought, without the added firepower of cannons, falconets, and harquebuses, the Spaniards appeared doomed by their numerical inferiority. The Aztecs were squeezing them in a pincer.37

  But Cortés noticed that the cavalry was causing havoc and disorder among the Aztec and Otomi ranks. The galloping charges, while not killing great numbers of the enemy, were disrupting their formations. Each well-timed cavalry charge plowed a huge gap in the enemy lines; Cortés was quick to move in afoot to exploit and maintain those gaps.38 The prized horses, whose iron-shod hooves had skittered and slipped on the slick streets of Tenochtitlán, now found their natural footing and gait on the open plain, which more resembled their native Iberia. They seemed to gain strength and speed with each thundering pass. Some of the Otomis dispersed, fleeing under the devastating rush of the horses and the fury of the war hounds.

  Then Cortés caught sight of the Aztec cihuacoatl, his garb gleaming in full glory. Wheeling his horse, he called for captains Sandoval, Olid, Alvarado, Salamanca, and Ávila to ride with him and attack the chieftains, all those wearing “golden plumes and rich armor and devices.”39 Riding with great purpose, Cortés galloped ahead, swung in, and bowled the commander to the ground, knocking his standard loose. Juan de Salamanca impaled the cihuacoatl with his sharp lance, swooping up his head-plume and the sun-standard as spoils.*38 40

  Cortés and Salamanca had severed the head from the giant, and the body would soon wither. The loss of the principal military leader caused disruption among the Aztec warriors; perhaps worse, the all-important standard had fallen. The standard provided location and direction for troop movements and order, and without it the Aztec ranks grew hesitant and confused, many losing their morale, inciting a mass retreat.41

  Cortés set more cavalry and hounds upon the withdrawing enemy, and the Aztecs and Otomis trampled one another as they fled. A short time later the Battle of Otumba was finished. Miraculously, the Spaniards had not only survived but prevailed. Despite apparently insurmountable odds, the swift and skilled warhorses and the strict defensive discipline of the Spaniards had won the day, which Spaniards remember as one of Hernán Cortés’s greatest military achievements.

  The Aztec command, including Cuitláhuac, had not reckoned on the power of the Iberian horses and could only look back on the day as a devastatingly squandered opportunity. Whether they realized it or not, they had been only minutes away from annihilating Cortés and his men and sending the Tlaxcalans running for home or hauling them away to the sacrificial stones.

  Three days later, on July 11, 1520, Hernán Cortés led his men and small allied force into the outskirts of Tlaxcala, to a place called Hueyotlipan. There he slumped to the ground, requiring immediate medical attention. His skull was fractured in two places, two of his fingers had been crushed, and one knee throbbed, swollen violet and bulbous. As he lay semiconscious and writhing with the onset of fever, one of his surgeons operated on his left hand, staunching the blood flow by cauterizing the mangled stubs with searing oil, then picking shards of stone and bone fragments from his crevassed skull.42 Cortés was carried to the home of a chief named Maxixcatzin and laid on a wattle bed. There was little more anyone could do but wait and pray that he recovered.

  With Malinche and his concerned captains huddled anxiously about him, Hernán Cortés fell into a coma.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Fortune Favors the Bold”

  FOR SEVERAL DAYS HERNÁN CORTÉS lay dead still, sweat dampening his reed pallet as his body purged the fever and infection. Throughout his ordeal Malinche sat beside him, cooling him with dampened rags and coaxing droplets of water into the cracked corners of his mouth. She washed and cleaned his wounds, applied compresses to his bruises, and changed his blood-tainted dressings. After nearly a week he roused, his initial utterings like infantile babbling, incomprehensible and imbecilic, but in time he revived, sat up, and began to walk about hesitantly.1 He awoke to find his troops in dire condition, a number having
died, others nearly dead, their wounds septic and suppurating.

  Cortés’s host, Maxixcatzin, was pleased to see the captain-general ambulatory and improving, but he grew despondent about the flight from Tenochtitlán. He wept to learn that his daughter, whom he had gifted to Captain Juan Velázquez de León (the Spaniards had subsequently baptized her and christened her Doña Elvira), had perished on the causeway, as had Velázquez de León.2

  Cortés and his men remained in Tlaxcala for twenty days; four men died during that time, while others recovered by slow degrees, aided by the dry, temperate climate. They were well fed and cared for, although their presence in the Tlaxcalan capital was not without controversy. Xicotenga the Younger still harbored ill will toward the Spaniards in general and hatred toward Cortés specifically. He had recently received Aztec emissaries, sent by Cuitláhuac, bearing salt and cotton and quetzal plumes, who urged the Tlaxcalans not to assist Cortés and his men. Seeing the Spaniards straggle back into his city, the young Xicotenga held council with his father, Xicotenga the Elder, and other regional chieftains, suggesting that the Tlaxcalans should kill all the Spaniards, which would be easy to do, given their condition.3 The elder Xicotenga disagreed, as did the chief Maxixcatzin. They argued that their previously agreed-to allegiance should be honored and maintained. Heated debate broke out.

  Eventually the elders reminded the young and impetuous warrior Xicotenga of the Tlaxcalans’ long-standing animosity toward the Aztecs. Though they had to physically subdue him and remove him from the room, he finally accepted their counsel. Cuitláhuac’s entreaties were ignored, and his emissaries sent away. Maxixcatzin, deeply mourning the loss of his daughter and fueled by a desire for revenge, through Malinche made verbal assurances to Cortés. “We have made common cause together,” he offered ceremonially, “and we have common injuries to avenge; and…be assured we will prove true and loyal friends, and stand by you to the death.”4

  A great number of fine and brave Tlaxcalans had in fact already stood by Cortés to the death, so these were honored words. But perhaps because of the high death tolls, the Tlaxcalans wished to renegotiate their continued allegiance, which now came with specific provisions. Primarily they wanted everlasting exemption from paying tribute to the Aztecs, and should Cortés somehow manage to retake Tenochtitlán (this now appeared less likely than it once had), they demanded some share of the rewards. The Tlaxcalans also wanted control of Cholula and of Tepeaca, another region adjacent to their frontier. Both would have to pay them tributes. And last, they demanded that a Tlaxcalan fort be built in Tenochtitlán, which they would staff and guard.5 Realizing the important role the Tlaxcalans had already played in his quest, and utterly cognizant of his continued dependence on them not only for their geographically crucial buffer zone but also for servants, porters, cooks, and warriors, Cortés immediately agreed.6 He knew that without them his quest stood no chance.

  The alliance with the Tlaxcalans reestablished and legal papers drawn up, Cortés moved on to other pressing diplomatic matters. Apprehensive about the state of Villa Rica, he wrote letters and sent Tlaxcalan runners bearing them to the coast. The missives underscored his urgent need for more soldiers, gunpowder, crossbows, and bow cords, and any ammunition they could spare. He sent specific instructions to Alonso Caballero, the sea captain in charge of the remaining two Narváez ships, to ensure that no one departed for Cuba under any circumstances. He was to scuttle the ships if he had to. Caballero was also to tighten security around Narváez, maintaining around-the-clock surveillance of the traitorous prisoner.7 Seeing no need to create undue apprehension or loss in morale among those at the fort in Villa Rica, Cortés conveniently omitted the details of their near annihilation, including the fact that he had lost over half his troops and the majority of the Narváez contingent.

  The garrison at Villa Rica responded quickly, though Cortés was less than impressed by the reinforcements that arrived. Seven soldiers made the arduous mountain trek up from the torpid coast, captained by a soldier named Pedro Lencero. They did bring some of the requested supplies and ammunition, but the soldiers themselves were a sickly, scurvy lot, covered with boils and pustules and complaining of liver ailments, their bellies grotesquely swollen and distended. If Cortés was not amused, some of his men, recovered enough to retain a sense of humor, were; they thereafter referred to any useless assistance as “Lencero’s Help,” and these pathetic reinforcements became the fodder of many jokes around the camp.8

  As it turned out, the laughingstock of Lencero’s Help was the least of Cortés’s problems. He had other difficulties, political and practical, internal and external. He had recently made a demand on his men that, though necessary, proved to be universally disliked. Because of their recent losses (and especially the loss of Montezuma’s treasure), their war coffers were depleted. Cortés ordered that, under penalty of death for disobedience, any and all gold now carried by soldiers must be handed over to him and Pedro de Alvarado, where it would be used communally as a continued war fund, part of Cortés’s planned reconquest of the Valley of Mexico. Soldiers groused but grudgingly handed over their loot. Some, battle-maimed and even crippled for life, murmured that they should retreat to the coast and board ships for the islands and comforts of home. The remaining Narváez men, their allegiance to Cortés having only recently been procured, were most vocal. All of Cortés’s promises of wealth and grandeur had thus far yielded them only lifelong scars and disfigurement.

  There were other stinging financial losses. On his previous pass through Tlaxcala in June (after the battle with Narváez), Cortés had left boxes of gold and silver, presumably excesses from his stores of bribe booty, which he had ordered be transported to the fort at Villa Rica under the guard of Captain Juan de Alcantara. Cortés now learned that after Alcantara departed for the coast with five horses, about fifty foot soldiers, and two hundred Tlaxcalan porters, they were attacked by Aztecs (or Aztec subjects) at a place called Calpulalpan. All their party was slaughtered, and the attackers absconded with the chests of gold and silver.9 Other Spaniards too, horsemen riding from Villa Rica toward Tlaxcala to provide support for Cortés, had been ambushed and killed along the way. The captain-general fumed at these losses, revenge boiling in his veins.

  But his greatest immediate challenge came from an erstwhile friendly source—his business partner Andrés de Duero. A practical man possessing shrewd business acumen and a keen eye for fiscal matters, Duero surveyed the sorry state of Cortés’s affairs and did not like the look of his investment. Strictly from a business standpoint, things did not appear promising. Bolstered by the grumblings of the few remaining Narváez loyalists and other disenchanted Cortés men, Duero wrote an articulate appeal to the captain-general, laying out a litany of reasons that the expedition should now retreat, cut its losses, and strike out immediately for Villa Rica, where the party could regroup and reassess their circumstances. The letter pointed out (as was painfully obvious to Cortés, though he seemed to operate in a constant state of denial) that the troops were in dire condition: “Our heads are broken, our bodies rotting and covered with wounds and sores, bloodless, weak, and naked. We are in a strange land, poor, sick, surrounded by our enemies, and without hope of rising from the spot we fall.”10 They were without ammunition and weaponry and the flush coffers with which to fund a war.11 Further, they did not trust the Tlaxcalans as Cortés did.

  This formal remonstrance, signed by a good number of Cortés’s company, was reasonable, even logical. But it also committed an error in tone, posited not as a request but as a demand, which surely rankled Cortés: “We therefore ask and beg your Excellency,” the letter continued, “and, if necessary, demand, that you leave this city with all the army and set off for Vera Cruz.”12 The appeal concluded by formally requiring that Cortés personally pay for all subsequent damages and losses should he fail to comply with their demands.13

  His head throbbing from his concussed and fractured skull, his body tattooed with lacerations and bruises,
able to walk only for short periods, Cortés studied the document, holding the paper weakly in his one good hand, deeply pained by the words and distressed by the erosion of his command. Most hurtful of all, the letter stated that Cortés’s pursuit of the present conquest was driven by “his insatiable thirst for glory and authority,” and that “he thinks nothing of dying himself, and less of our death.”14 It was true that he was willing to die for this cause, for great enterprises required risk. He still believed the words he had spoken to his men on the shores of Cuba before their initial departure, that “great things are achieved only by great exertions.”15 Now, it was plain to see, these men were morally and spiritually exhausted. His only recourse was to lead them by example. He would not allow the expedition to crumble and fail. He must rally their sense of duty, pride, and above all honor.

  Hernán Cortés found a quiet place and formulated his response, a written speech that was as rousing as it was definitive, its tenor in many ways similar to a pre-battle speech (which, in effect, it turned out to be). The glory that he and his men were in the process of winning was theirs as much as his, he said, adding that “the outcome of a war depends much upon fame, and how can you win greater fame than by remaining here in Tlaxcala in defiance of your enemies, declaring war against them?”16 Yes, they had been routed and driven from Tenochtitlán, but he used the defeat as a rallying cry rather than a setback, his grandiose tone revealing something of his intentions: “What nation of those who have ruled the world, has not once been defeated? What famous captain, I say, ever went home because he had lost a battle or been driven out of some town? Not one, certainly, for if he had not persevered he would not have conquered or triumphed.”17 Yes, they were few in number, but even now, despite their losses, they had more men than they had when they originally landed. He punctuated this fact with an appeal to their pride and vainglory: “Victories are not won by the many but by the valiant.”18 It was an eloquent appeal to their dignity and honor, perfectly timed and paced, the stirring and patriotic oratory of a man born to lead men.