Conquistador
Page 37
13. From the Codex Aubin, in Schwartz, Victors, 164.
14. Gómara, Cortés, 208; White, Cortés, 220.
15. León-Portilla, Broken Spears, 76–77. From Codex Ramirez and Codex Aubin. Also in Lockhart, We People Here, 132–36.
16. Marks, Cortés, 163; Hassig, Mexico, 109–11; Brundage, Rain of Darts, 273. Numbers of the slain range widely, from two thousand to ten thousand. Duran, Indies, trans. Heyden, 536–37, cites the larger number.
17. León-Portilla, Broken Spears, 77. The elaborate nature of funeral rites for fallen warriors is treated at length in Duran, Indies, trans. Heyden, 149–52, 283–90.
18. Padden, Hummingbird and Hawk, 196; Thomas, Conquest, 391, 729n, 790n; Camilo Polavieja, Hernán Cortés, Copias de Documentos (Seville, 1889), 280–81.
19. Quoted in León-Portilla, Broken Spears, 77–78; Lockhart, We People Here, 138.
20. Prescott, History, 540; Hassig, Mexico, 111, 215n; Thomas, Conquest, 392–93; Koch, Aztecs, 234.
Chapter 13
1. Díaz, Discovery, 398; Cortés, Letters, 475n. Thomas names the two captains of these expeditions as Velázquez de León and Rodrigo Rangel.
2. Prescott, History, 531–32; Susan Toby Evans, Ancient Mexico and Central America (New York, 2004), 45–61.
3. Hassig, Mexico, 111; Gardiner, Constant Captain, 46–48.
4. Cortés, Letters, 128.
5. Marks, Cortés, 165; Thomas, Conquest, 395.
6. Cortés, Letters, 128–29; Gardiner, Constant Captain, 48.
7. Clendinnen, Aztecs, 29–30; Alfonso Caso, The Aztecs: People of the Sun (Norman, Okla., 1958), 41–51.
8. Cortés, Letters, 130.
9. Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 285–86. Also in Díaz, Discovery, 402–4.
10. Quoted in Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 286; and in Díaz, Discovery, 404.
11. Thomas, Conquest, 396–97.
12. Quoted in Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 286, and Díaz, Discovery, 406.
13. Quoted in Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 287; Díaz, Discovery, 406; Innes, Conquistadors, 162–63.
14. Padden, Hummingbird and Hawk, 199; Brundage, Rain of Darts, 274.
15. Prescott, History, 542–43; Koch, Aztecs, 236.
16. Wood, Conquistadors, 73; Schwartz, Victors, 157; Brundage, Rain of Darts, 275; Prescott, History, 543. Hassig, Mexico, suggests that Cuitláhuac would not officially be anointed king until about September 15, 1520, but from this moment on (until his death) Cuitláhuac assumed the role of Aztec tlatoani or emperor.
17. Cortés, Letters, 130.
18. Ibid.; Prescott, History, 552.
19. Díaz, Discovery, 407; Cortés, Letters, 130.
20. Cortés, Letters, 130; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 288; Hassig, Mexico, 112; Thomas, Conquest, 399.
21. Díaz, Discovery, 409.
22. Cortés, Letters, 131.
23. Koch, Aztecs, 241.
24. Cortés, Letters, 132; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 290; Prescott, History, 573–74; Jose López-Portillo, They Are Coming: The Conquest of Mexico, trans. Beatrice Berler (Denton, Tex., 1992), 257–58; Hassig, Mexico, 112.
25. Prescott, History, 574–75; Marks, Cortés, 167; López-Portillo, They Are Coming, 258.
26. Quoted in Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 293. Also in Díaz, Discovery, 415; Gómara, Cortés, 212; Prescott, History, 561. Cortés, Letters, claims that Montezuma asked him if he could speak to the people (132), but this sounds unlikely, given the circumstances. Even his first biographer, Gómara, who wrote much of the history from Cortés’s and the Spaniards’ point of view, says that “Cortés begged Montezuma to go up on the roof and command his men to cease fighting and go away.” Gómara, Cortés, 212.
27. Quoted in Prescott, History, 561.
28. Quoted in Díaz, Discovery, 415; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 293.
29. Quoted in Thomas, Conquest, 402.
30. Cortés, Letters, 132; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 294; Gómara, Cortés, 212; Burland, Montezuma, 231–33; Tsouras, Montezuma, 80–85. There are two distinct and opposite versions of Montezuma’s death, as described in the footnote on chapter 13 of this text. Nearly all the Spanish chroniclers are consistent in supporting Cortés’s story that Montezuma was stoned on the roof and died from his wounds. Both Bernal Díaz and Vázquez de Tapia, who were present, agree that the emperor had been shielded, and that likely the Aztecs below did not recognize Montezuma and were hurling stones at the Spanish soldiers. Díaz (in New Spain, trans. Cohen, 294; and Discovery, 416) asserts that Montezuma refused food and medical help and succumbed to his wounds. The chronicler Antonio de Herrera supports this version. Bernal Díaz claims that he, Cortés, and many of the other soldiers wept at Montezuma’s passing, adding that “there was no man among us who knew him and was intimate with him who did not bemoan him as though he were our own father” (Discovery, 416). While such sentiment certainly smacks of exaggeration, they had spent over half a year in intimate contact with the ruler, and it is reasonable to assume that they had developed an affinity for him. Of all the Spanish versions, that of Díaz sounds the most credible. See also Cortés, Letters, 475–76n.
The Aztec accounts almost universally suggest that Montezuma survived the stoning, recovered briefly, and was stabbed to death (or alternately garrotted) just before the Spaniards fled on La Noche Triste. Duran, Indies, trans. Heyden, claims that Montezuma was discovered, stabbed to death five times in the chest (545). A few other native accounts support the stabbing version: both the Codex Ramirez and Ixtlilxochitl claim that Montezuma was stabbed or impaled by swords. Fray Bernardino de Sahagún posits the garrotting account. Thomas, Conquest, calls the Aztec version of the murder by the conquistadors “improbable” (404).
Equal mystery and controversy surround the fate of Montezuma’s body. Cortés claims, “I told two of the Indians who were captive to carry him out on their shoulders to the people. What they did with him I do not know; only that the war did not stop because of it, but grew more fierce and pitiless each day.” Cortés, Letters, 132. Díaz, writing many years after the conquest and without much of a political ax to grind, supports Cortés, saying, “Cortés ordered six Mexicans, all important men…to carry him out on their shoulders and hand him over to the Mexican captains.” Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 295.
Aztec accounts argue that Montezuma’s body was found, alongside the slain bodies of Cacama and Itzquauhtzin (who were, in fact, executed—the Spaniards do not deny this), deposited outside the palace near a canal at a place known as Teoayoc. All were subsequently cremated. See Sahagún in Schwartz, Victors, 177–78; López-Portillo, They Are Coming, 260; Cortés, Letters, 478n.
31. Quoted in Brundage, Rain of Darts, 276. For more on the enigmatic Montezuma II’s death, see Duran, Indies, trans. Heyden, 544–45. For comprehensive studies of his life and rule, see Burland, Montezuma; and Tsouras, Montezuma.
Chapter 14
1. Sahagún, Conquest of New Spain, 82. Cortés, Gómara, and Díaz all state that they stormed the Great Temple, but the closer proximity of the Temple of Yopico and its direct overview of the Palace of Axayacatl, and therefore its use as a command post, makes it the much more likely candidate.
2. Cortés, Letters, 133.
3. Ibid., 133–34; Thomas, Conquest, 403, 731n.
4. Díaz, Discovery, 413.
5. Cortés, Letters, 134–35.
6. Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 297; Gómara, Cortés, 219.
7. Cortés, Letters, 137–38; Díaz, Discovery, 420; López-Portillo, They Are Coming, 263–64.
8. Quoted in Prescott, History, 588, 588n.
9. Díaz, Discovery, 421.
10. Gómara, Cortés, 220; Prescott, History, 589; López-Portillo, They Are Coming, 263.
11. Cortés, Letters, 138; Gómara, Cortés, 220.
12. Florentine Codex, xii, 24; Camargo, Tlaxcola, 220; León-Portilla, Broken Spears, 84–85. Cortés, Letters, mentions that before he reached the second gap in the causeway guards rais
ed a shout, sending Aztec troops in pursuit (138).
13. Quoted in León-Portilla, Broken Spears, 85.
14. Nigel Davies, The Aztecs (New York, 1974), 269–70; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 297–99.
15. Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 298–99.
16. León-Portilla, Broken Spears, 85–87.
17. Gómara, Cortés, 220–21; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 300; Marks, Cortés, 171.
18. Pohl and Robinson, Aztecs, 139. The number of lost varies among sources. See the table provided in Prescott, History, 600. See also Gardiner, Naval Power, 86–88. Hassig, Mexico, offers an interesting speculative conspiracy theory, suggesting that Cortés actually intentionally left the Narváez men in the rear, since they had proved ineffectual soldiers and were expendable (116–17). While Cortés was clearly unimpressed by the performance of his Narváez conscripts, it seems implausible that he would intentionally sacrifice nearly one-third of his Spanish fighting force, whose weapons, armor, and manpower he would also lose. Hassig makes the case that the lone woman on the causeway who cried for help seems unlikely, since she would hardly be drawing water there, as claimed, in the middle of the night. Many other accounts (including Cortés, Letters, 138) make no mention of the woman, saying only that guards “raised a shout.”
19. Gómara, Cortés, 221; López-Portillo, They Are Coming, 268. The tree is among the longest-living in the world, averaging about five hundred years, but some in Oaxaca are as old as two thousand years.
20. Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 301.
21. Kelly, Alvarado, 90, 94; Innes, Conquistdors, 175; Prescott, History, 596–97.
22. Quoted in Thomas, Conquest, 412, 735n; Gardiner, Naval Conquest, 89; C. Harvey Gardiner, Martín López: Conquistador Citizen of Mexico (Lexington, Mass., 1958), 35.
23. León-Portilla, Broken Spears, 88; López-Portillo, They Are Coming, 269.
24. León-Portilla, Broken Spears, 88; Lockhart, We People Here, 160.
25. López-Portilla, They Are Coming, 269.
26. Ibid., 270. Lockhart, We People Here, 156–60, from Book 12 of the Florentine Codex.
27. López-Portillo, They Are Coming, 270; Carrasco, City of Sacrifice, 23, 83–84. Carrasco describes the importance of prisoners as sacrificial victims as well as the symbolic significance of skulls and skull racks.
28. Carrasco, City of Sacrifice, 164–87. Carrasco’s chapter “Cosmic Jaws” offers a truly fascinating interpretation of the mythological and cosmological bases for cannibalism prevalent in Aztec religious ceremony, pointing out the preponderance of “jaws, mouths, tongues, eating gestures, and the rituals of using the mouth to eat human beings and, in the case of at least one god, the sins of human beings”(168).
29. Cortés, Letters, 140; Gómara, Cortés, 222–23; López-Portillo, They Are Coming, 270; Prescott, History, 597–98.
30. Cortés, Letters, 140; Gómara, Cortés, 223.
31. Carrasco, City of Sacrifice, 71, 76–77; Keber, Representing Aztec Ritual, 57, 59, 100, 120; Gillespie, Aztec Kings, 203; David Carrasco and Edwardo Matos Moctezuma, Moctezuma’s Mexico: Visions of the Aztec World (Boulder, Colo., 2003), 62, 156; Thomas, Conquest, 29.
32. Cortés, Letters, 141; Gómara, Cortés, 224.
33. Quoted in López-Portillo, They Are Coming, 271; Duran, Indies, trans. Heyden, 305–6. The importance of Cihuacoatl (Snake or Serpent Woman) is dealt with in detail in Duran, Book of the Gods, 210–20. For a strong and detailed description of the military garb worn by accomplished and elite Aztec warriors, see Hassig, Aztec Warfare, 37–47.
34. Cortés, Letters, 142.
35. Quoted in Díaz, Discovery, 427.
36. Cortés, Letters, 142.
37. Kelly, Alvarado, 24–25, 95–98, 117–118n; Collis, Cortés, 202–3.
38. Hassig, Mexico, 119.
39. Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 304.
40. Ibid.; Prescott, History, 616; Vaillant, Aztecs of Mexico, 253–54.
41. Anonymous Conqueror, in Fuentes, Conquistadors, 168; Hassig, Aztec Warfare, 58; Pohl and Robinson, Aztecs, 141; López-Portillo, They Are Coming, 271–73.
42. Cortés, Letters, 144, 480n. Prescott, History, 622 and footnote. In his letter to the king Cortés claimed to have lost two fingers in the battle, but other chroniclers say that while his hand was “maimed,” he retained all digits. As for his head injuries, we have physical evidence: Cortés’s skull (along with the rest of his skeleton) is archived in the Hospital de Jesús in Mexico City, discovered there in a crypt by archaeologists in 1946, along with legal documents confirming that the bones were his. The skull bears severe fractures on the left side, consistent with his own claims and those of other chroniclers. See Cortés, Letters, 144, 480n; Marks, Cortés, 175–76.
Chapter 15
1. Prescott, History, 622; Marks, Cortés, 187.
2. Díaz, Discovery, 433.
3. Sahagún, in Conquest of New Spain, 101; Díaz, Discovery, 434–35; López-Portillo, They Are Coming, 276–77;
4. Quoted in Prescott, History, 621.
5. Hassig, Mexico, 122. Gibson, Tlaxcala, 159–60.
6. Thomas, Conquest, 428, 737n; Marks, Cortés, 188. Gibson, Tlaxcala, 10, 104–5, 158–61. For the most part Spain honored its legal agreement with Tlaxcala for nearly three hundred years, but although the Tlaxcalans no longer had to pay tribute to Tenochtitlán, they were obligated, as vassals of Spain, to make payments to the crown.
7. Díaz, Discovery, 433–34; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 308.
8. Díaz, Discovery, 434; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 308
9. Cortés, Letters, 143–44.
10. Quoted in Gómara, Cortés, 228.
11. Ibid. 227–28; Prescott, History, 624.
12. Quoted in Thomas, Conquest, 432.
13. Ibid. 432, 738n.
14. Quoted in Gómara, Cortés, 228.
15. Quoted in Prescott, History, 192; Berler, Conquest of Mexico, 14.
16. Quoted in Gómara, Cortés, 229.
17. Ibid., 229.
18. Ibid., 230.
19. Ibid., 229. Cortés would shortly begin using the term “New Spain” in letters to the king.
20. Cortés, Letters, 145. Cortés did not coin this phrase, but he used it more than once. It was, at the time, in relatively common usage, also rendered as “Fortune favors the brave.” Sometimes attributed to Virgil, from The Aeneid.
21. Quoted in Gómara, Cortés, 230.
22. Cortés, Letters, 145.
23. Hassig, Mexico, 123.
24. Cortés, Letters, 145–46; Gómara, Cortés, 231; Díaz, Discovery, 438; Prescott, History, 632–33.
25. Cortés, Letters, 146.
26. Ibid., 146; Gómara, Cortés, 231–32; Díaz, New Spain, 308.
27. Cores, Letters, 146.
28. Díaz, Discovery, 439; Prescott, History, 634; Souselle, Daily Life, 73.
29. Varner and Varner, Dogs, 68.
30. Cortés, Letters, 146; Gómara, Cortés, 232.
31. Cortés, Letters, 146, 480–81n. Pagden, in his note on 480–81, points out that Cortés here overstates the term cannibals, and that most of the consumption of human flesh was symbolic and ritualistic. See also Carrasco, City of Sacrifice, 164–68. Marvin Harris makes the controversial case that the Aztec diet lacked protein and that cannibalism compensated for this deficiency. See Marvin Harris, Cannibals and Kings (New York, 1978), 147–66.
32. Thomas, Conquest, 437 and 739n; J.M.G. Le Clezio, The Mexican Dream: Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations (Chicago and London, 1993), 10–20.
33. Quoted in Thomas, Conquest, 442; Gardiner, Naval Power, 98, 100–1; Gardiner, Martín López, 37–39.
Chapter 16
1. Díaz, Discovery, 440; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 309.
2. Quoted in Díaz, Discovery, 440.
3. Díaz, Discovery, 440; López-Pórtillo, They Are Coming, 281; Hassig, Mexico, 128; Prescott, History, 641.
4. Díaz, Discovery, 440–41.
5.
Cortés, Letters, 157.
6. Ibid., 157–58; Díaz, Discovery, 442–43; Gardiner, Naval Power, 107; Prescott, History, 642.
7. Díaz, Discovery, 443–44; Gardiner, Naval Power, 108; Thomas, Conquest, 447–48.
8. Díaz, Discovery, 443; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 309; López-Pórtillo, They Are Coming, 282.
9. Gardiner, Naval Power, 108; Thomas, Conquest, 448; Marks, Cortés, 196.
10. Mann, 1491, 92–93; Crosby, Columbian, 47; William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (New York, 1976), 206–7.
11. Mann, 1491, 93; Duran, Aztecs, 323; Crosby, Columbian, 48–49. A few reports indicate that additional Cuban servants aboard Narváez’s ships were infected, but all indications point to the Narváez expedition as the source of the disease in New Spain proper. See David Noble Cook, Born to Die: Disease and the New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), 64–70.
12. Quoted in Crosby, Columbian, 48–49.
13. León-Portilla, Broken Spears, 92–93; Aztec Accounts, Florentine Codex, in Lockhart, We People Here, 182–83; Schwartz, Victors, 188–90.
14. Clendinnen, Aztecs, 270; Brundage, Rain of Darts, 279.
15. Soustelle, Daily Life, 196–98; Restall, Seven Myths, 140–42; Cook, Born to Die, 62–67.
16. Soustelle, Daily Life, 130; Van Tuerenhout, Aztecs, 137 and 216; Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano, Aztec Medicine, Health, and Nutrition (New Brunswick, N.J., and London, 1991), 163–164.
17. Florentine Codex, in Lockhart, We People Here, 182.
18. Quoted in León-Portilla, Broken Spears, 93. On the devastation of the disease and its implications in the region, see also Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher, The American West: A New Interpretive History (New Haven, Conn., and London, 2000), 25–27.
19. Francisco de Aguilar quoted in Fuentes, Conquistadors, 159.
20. McNeill, Plagues, 207–8. See also Robert McCaa, “Spanish and Nahuatl Views on Smallpox and Demographic Catastrophe in Mexico,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 25 (1995), 397–431.