Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs

by Buddy Levy

  While Cortés was engaged in these labors, the Cempoalan chief arrived, borne in his litter. He requested an audience with Cortés, who summoned Malinche and Aguilar to hear what Tlacochcalcatl of Cempoala had to say. The chief revealed that already he needed the help which Cortés had promised him. In a hill town called Cingapacinga, some twenty-five miles to the southwest, Aztec warriors were rampaging Totonac villages, destroying their crops and making war on the villagers. According to the Cempoalan chief, this was in retaliation for the Totonacs’ alignment with the Spaniards and for the Totonac federation’s refusal to pay tributes to the Aztecs. The chief wished to know if Cortés would honor his agreement and go there to stop the marauding Aztecs.

  Though he hated to leave the construction of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, which was going so well, Cortés understood the importance of maintaining smooth relations with this new ally, so he agreed to help. He kept a small contingent of men to continue the work and to guard their stores and munitions. Then he mustered the bulk of his able conquistadors, including all the cavalry (which was now just fifteen horses, his own having died), and mounted his new horse, El Arriero (the Muleteer or Muledriver).6 Ahead of a group of musketeers and crossbowmen, and leading more than two thousand Cempoalans, Cortés rode forward toward Cingapacinga.

  Late in the day Cortés and his troops reached some villages to find other Totonacs already there, but rather than battling Aztec warriors, they appeared to be looting and pillaging defenseless villages, robbing stores of their food, dragging women and children away, and even killing innocent and unarmed people. Through Malinche Cortés discovered that this was an ancient intertribal skirmish over boundaries and land ownership between the Totonacs and the Cingapacingans, and there were no Aztecs anywhere to be found. Enraged, Cortés sent the Cempoalan soldiers away, adding that he would deal with them, and with their chief, when he returned. He rode in and physically subdued the Totonac pillagers, berating them for their behavior and for lying about Aztec involvement. He then told the relieved Cingapacingans that this looting was now at an end. They were safe, and their stolen food and kidnapped people were returned. Again, Cortés’s definitive diplomacy worked: the Cingapacingans agreed right then to become Spanish allies.

  Cortés rode back toward Cempoala to deal with the fat chief who had deceived him. During the return, Cortés witnessed one of his own men, a solder named Morla, coming out of a native house, a freshly caught chicken in each hand. This was the very kind of pillaging he had forbidden, and the kind they had just put a stop to. Wanting to set a firm example that such behavior would not be tolerated (and clearly having lost his composure), Cortés ordered two of his men to sling a noose around the thief’s neck and string him up from a nearby tree. Stealing chickens was now, apparently, a hanging offense. Morla swung, suspended in the air and clutching at the noose, struggling for his last breaths. Just then Pedro Alvarado arrived at a gallop and, skidding to a halt, slashed the rope in two, sending Morla to the ground with a thud, alive. Alvarado took private counsel with Cortés, explaining that they needed all the soldiers they had and that this man had certainly learned his lesson, as had any witnesses. Cortés, reasonable, conceded, and they remounted and rode back toward Villa Rica and Cempoala.7

  The next morning Cortés called together the chiefs of all the neighboring towns (including the chief of Cempoala and the cacique of Cingapacinga) and held a meeting. Before witnesses, Cortés told them that he could assist them, and help keep peace in the region, only under certain conditions, which they must agree to and live by. First, they must stop warring among themselves. The long-standing feuds must be forgotten and a new alliance formed. In principle (and apparently in practice, because according to chroniclers, this pact remained intact, never broken by either party), the Cempoalans and the Cingapacingans were to be friends. Cortés is said to have actually had the leaders shake hands on it, an uncustomary gesture that would have seemed at least strange, and probably awkward and meaningless, to the Indians.

  Then, seeing that local border tensions were pacified, Cortés determined that the time was right for full-fledged conversion. Through Malinche, he delivered his “customary exposition of our holy faith, and his injunctions to give up human sacrifice and robbery and the foul practice of sodomy,*10 and to cease worshipping their accursed idols.”8 Cortés explained that only if they agreed to all of this would he assist them. If they did not, he would leave them as they were before, helplessly subjugated, vassals under the rule of the Aztecs. If they would cast aside their own beliefs and follow the belief of the one true God, they would become vassals of Spain (and receive other benefits as well, like everlasting life). Then, as he always favored action over words alone, Cortés had the chiefs bring all their soldiers and civilians together and assemble in the central square of Cempoala. Curious villagers had also arrived from the outlying townships, and many filled the pyramid compound, where all religious ritual took place.

  Hoping to make amends, a bit sheepish and contrite, the Cempoalan chief presented Cortés with eight native maidens, the daughters of chiefs, explaining that the Cempoalans wished to have the Spaniards as brothers and that he hoped these young women would bear them children. (One of these women Cortés would give to Alonso Hernández Puertocarrero, which was only fitting, seeing that Cortés had given him but then taken back Malinche.) With skillful improvisation, Cortés used the gift as leverage. He said that he much appreciated the gesture, but that the Spaniards could accept these women only if they became baptized as Christians. Moreover, he reiterated his condition that all the Indians of the region entirely give up the practice of human sacrifice. Every day Cortés and his men had witnessed this act, this barbarity, and it simply must cease, or he could not in good conscience be their ally and protect them from their “false beliefs.”*11

  On the issue of removing their idols from the temples, the Cempoalan chiefs and priests argued vigorously, saying that these gods were responsible for bringing them good health, plentiful harvests, suitable weather, and indeed, life itself. It would be wrong to remove them. Cortés explained that, if they would not do it themselves, he was going to have some of his men ascend the pyramids and perform the service for them. The Totonac people, fearing that their world would come to an end if their idols were destroyed, began to shriek and howl and wail, and Tlacochcalcatl sent armed warriors to stand at the foot of the temple and defend it.

  Cortés would not be bullied; nor would he compromise. He marched fifty of his soldiers forward, armed and ready, swords drawn. As they neared the steps, the Totonacs strung their bows and aimed. Then Cortés turned on Tlacochcalcatl himself and held him at swordpoint. Through Malinche he explained in no uncertain terms that his men must be allowed to pass or Tlacochcalcatl and his priests would be killed on the spot. The air went tense and silent, all at an impasse, but the fat chief finally raised his hand. He called to his warriors to lay down their bows and spears and move aside. As the fifty Spaniards ran up the stone steps, all of the Totonac religious leaders and thousands of terrified onlookers waited below for their world to come crashing down.

  The Spanish soldiers reached the top and paused before the giant stone idols, which they viewed as horrific and macabre. Among them were a “hideously ugly”9 half-man, half-dog figure and a large, ferocious-looking dragon. Working together in teams, the Spaniards heaved the great carved-stone figures to the edge of the temple platform and then sent them rumbling down the steep steps and shattering into pieces. Horrified, the chiefs and priests threw their hands before their eyes and turned away, and the general wailing intensified. The assembled prayed to their gods to forgive this brazen act of the Spaniards, for it was not their fault. The Totonacs apologized to their gods for their inability to protect these symbols from harm.

  When the dust from the crumbling idols cleared, they realized, with some confusion and clear relief, that their world had not come to a cataclysmic end, at least not instantaneously. But this act of conversion, Cortés-style, wa
s the beginning of the end of their religion and their culture, and a mood of somber resignation fell about Cempoala as Cortés ordered the remains of the fragmented sculptures taken away and burned. Adding deep insult to this injury, Cortés forced the eight priests (papas) who were entrusted with the care of the shrine and the idols to perform the task of removing and burning them. These men walked with their heads down, moaning in lamentation. They wore long black cloaks, and their hair, which they never cut, was matted and congealed with sacrificial blood, and their ears were sliced from sacrificial self-mutilation.10

  Cortés then directed the transformation of the pyramid temple into a Christian place of worship, calling on all the town’s stoneworkers to assist him. They ascended the steps with wooden and earthen containers of lime and whitewashed the entire temple area, scrubbing the encrusted dried blood from the floors and the walls and from the surface of the sacrificial stone. They burned incense to eradicate the smell of blood. Then Cortés had an altar erected, laid over with fine linens and sweet-smelling roses. He called on four of the priests to guard and care for the new shrine, and as part of their conversion, their long hair, which fell all the way to the ground on some of them, was cut off, and they were given white robes to wear instead of their black ones. These new keepers were instructed in the art of candle-making and told to keep some always aflame on the altar, illuminating both the wooden cross that had been raised there and the figure of Mary. Remarkably, given Cortés’s usual thoroughness in such matters, these Totonac priests were not baptized.11

  To finalize the transfer of religions, Cortés asked Father Olmedo to say mass before all the Totonac chiefs, while the throngs of onlookers assembled below gazed up and listened intently to the Spanish language, translated by Malinche. Finally Cortés insisted, as a condition of his accepting them, that the eight virgin maidens recently given to him by the fat chief be briefed in the teachings of Christianity and baptized. That done, Cortés distributed the girls among his men, descended the steps of his new pyramid-church, and headed back to Villa Rica. As he and his cavalry rode away, the flames from the burning idols still smoldered, black smoke smearing the skyline of the coastal plain.12

  BACK at Villa Rica, Cortés was intrigued to learn that a ship from Cuba had just arrived. It had been commissioned as part of his original fleet, but at the time of their hasty departure was not yet seaworthy, so it sailed later, and with good weather and good fortune it had spotted Cortés’s main fleet anchored in the placid bay. Captained by Francisco de Saucedo, the caravel carried much-needed provisions and food stores, sixty able soldiers, and—most encouraging and useful—twelve more horses (including a few mares). Cortés’s delight in these reinforcements was tempered by the news that arrived with the ship: a letter from the king in Spain had recently arrived in Cuba, expressly authorizing Diego Velázquez to found settlements and trade in these new-found lands, which included Cozumel and the Yucatán. This message complicated matters.

  Hernán Cortés always considered his difficult choices carefully, then acted quickly, and in this instance too his move was decisive and immediate. He gathered his captains and loyalists and explained that they must immediately dispatch one of their ships directly to Spain. Cortés chose captains Puertocarrero and Montejo for the journey. They were to guard with their lives and personally deliver to the king copies of the documents that founded Villa Rica and dissolved the trading venture with Velázquez. These two captains were carefully chosen. Cortés trusted Puertocarrero as a friend, and by sending Montejo, he dispensed with an influential Velázquez agitator, while providing the appearance of equality in his choice. They were sent not simply as captains and envoys but as official procuradores, civic representatives of the newly founded Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz. This designation gave the appearance of legitimacy, even if it was legally questionable.13 With the expert and experienced captain Alaminos at the helm, their orders were to sail as fast as possible to Spain, avoiding any unnecessary stops or delays.

  Cortés explained to his men, who must certainly have bristled, that they must load the ship with every ounce of treasure they had procured along the way: all of Montezuma’s wondrous gifts, the great disks and the resplendent featherwork, including a magnificent headdress adorned with over five hundred quetzal feathers; all the gold they had been given from Cozumel to Tabasco (except, mysteriously, what they had received at San Juan de Ulúa),14 and every single item of precious jewelry, of stonework, down to the last golden trinket. When some of the men balked, protesting that they were required to send only the Royal Fifth, and would be giving away their hard-won spoils, Cortés argued that he understood, but in order to impress the emperor and win good graces for their continued mission, they must send a treasure literally fit for a king. Anything less would potentially undermine their credibility. It was a calculated maneuver, a roll of the dice. He had placed on his finest remaining ship some of the greatest riches ever assembled on a single vessel. In effect, it was an elaborate bribe.15

  Cortés retired to his quarters to begin the first of five detailed and elaborate letters to the king describing their itinerary, recounting their actions in the new-found lands, and, most important, providing a political justification for his decisions at every step of the way.*12 The first letter contained an itemized list, down to the last golden bird and tiny bell, of the treasure he had sent, with the implication that there was plenty more where this came from, and the tacit assurance that Cortés and his men were going after it, right into the heart of the Aztec empire. Cortés well knew that, even under perfect sailing conditions (which were rarely guaranteed, and this ship would be leaving for Spain on July 26, nearly two months past the ideal departure weather), the treasure ship would take a few months to reach Spain, and that no response would reach him until spring of the following year, at the earliest. Cortés must have calculated that if all went well, by the time he heard back from his king, he would already have procured for him a prize much larger than this treasure: the Aztec kingdom itself.

  Uneasiness simmered among some of the colony as they watched the pilot Alaminos sail away. Some diehard Velázquez loyalists grumbled, longing to board ships to return to Cuba, to their wives and farms and the creature comforts of home. This desire was reinforced when Cortés’s intentions to march inland became obvious to them. They had been on the intemperate Veracruz coast for two months and, to their way of thinking, had achieved their initial goals. They were hungry and tired, and some were still run down with tropical malaises. They wanted to go home. Initially Cortés feigned sympathy, saying that any who wished to leave should be allowed to, but he soon reversed that decision, explaining that for the venture upon which they were about to embark, he would need every last man to combat the unknown dangers ahead.

  But mutiny hung in the air. A small contingent of Velázquez supporters (championed by Pedro Escudero, Velázquez de León, Diego de Ordaz, and an able pilot named Gonzalo de Umbria) met secretly and plotted to board one of the most seaworthy brigantines, kill the captain, seize the ship, and sail after the treasure ship—which they would overtake and return to Velázquez. During the night they commenced preparations, loading flitches of salt pork, rations of cassava bread, water, oil, and some local fish, and planned a silent midnight departure. One of the original conspirators apparently lost his nerve and, fearing the wrath of Cortés if they were caught, decided to reveal the plot to his captain-general. He was right to have feared Cortés.

  Cortés had all the known plotters arrested and, to send a message to his troops, imposed immediate, harsh sentences. Chief instigator Escudero would be hanged; the pilot Gonzalo de Umbria was to have his feet cut off; one of the lesser sailors was to be given two hundred lashes, in full view of the troops; and one of the expedition’s priests, Juan Díaz, was imprisoned for a time and threatened with hanging. (Ostensibly Cortés wished him to be “scared to death.”) Perhaps for dramatic effect, and to illustrate his compassion, Cortés would say of his decision, “It would be bett
er not to know how to write. Then one would not have to sign death sentences.”16 With that, Escudero swung from the gallows. But not all sentences were carried out as originally conceived. Part of Umbria’s feet, most likely his toes, were cut off, but he continued on the journey, and the rest of the men were held behind bars but eventually released, having learned their lesson.

  Still, the mutiny unsettled Cortés. He could risk no further insubordination and knew that he must eradicate all enticements to future discord. In an act of incredible, calculated daring, he confided in his trusted shipmasters and had them bore holes in the bottoms of the boats so that they began to list and groan and founder in the water. Then Cortés gathered his troops. The hulls of some ships were worm-eaten, he explained, and others were weakened by the heavy gales and pounding surf of their long journeys. He ordered the boats stripped of sails and cables, cordage and nails, tackle and rigging, cables and pulleys, oars and all navigational equipment, and stowed all the usable hardware in the fort on the promontory above the beach.17

  Then Cortés gave the order to have all the ships run aground or sunk. He scuttled his fleet.

  As the last of the great ships fell below the level of the horizon and disappeared into the bottom of the dark gulf waters, Cortés stood with his men. He had staked everything, his very life and all of theirs, on the future. He later reflected that they now had “nothing to rely on save their own hands—and the certainty that they must either win the land or die in the attempt.”18 There would be no turning back.