by Buddy Levy
Within two hours nearly everyone who assembled in the courtyard had been slain. Uncharacteristically, Cortés then allowed many of his allied Tlaxcalans inside the city to vent their rage on their long-standing rivals. For hours the Tlaxcalans pillaged and burned houses, looted and slaughtered everyone they could find, until Cortés determined to put a stop to them lest they go on indefinitely, so inflamed was their bloodlust. By the time Cortés halted the butchery, nearly five thousand people lay dead on the stone streets of Cholula.
A great deal of gold and other precious items was looted from the palaces and homes of the nobles, and Cortés confiscated everything he could—though he had difficulty getting some back from the Tlaxcalans. Eventually Cortés ordered his men to clean the corpse-strewn city, removing the dead and scrubbing the place. What priests and nobles remained alive were brought forth, blamed for the slaughter, and instructed to send for their escaped friends and relatives, hiding in the plains or outlying villages, to return—no more harm would be done to them. Though this must have been difficult for them to believe, in time people did reluctantly start to return. Prisoners were released, and after a few days a semblance of order was restored.
As he had in Tlaxcala, Cortés found caged victims, including children, being held and fed for sacrifice, and he angrily broke the wooden bars and freed them. As usual, he instructed the Cholulan priests to cast aside their false gods in favor of his (who was clearly the more powerful) and subject themselves to Spanish authority. They agreed in principle to become allies and vassals, but as to the question of gods, they hedged, and once more Father Olmedo counseled Cortés to give conversion time.
The Aztec ambassadors had remained safely in hiding during the massacre, and now Cortés used their fear to his advantage. He told them that though the Cholulans had blamed Montezuma for planning an attack, he did not believe them, for Montezuma was a friend to the Spaniards and would never have perpetrated such a devious ploy. Cortés intimated that he still planned to march on Tenochtitlán, and he hoped and trusted that Montezuma would receive him peacefully. The Aztec ambassadors asked to send messengers to the capital to discover Montezuma’s wishes, and Cortés allowed it.
With the massacre, Cortés had ensured a safe route between Cholula and Vera Cruz, which he figured would be crucial for resupply of arms, powder, and even men and horses, should any arrive from the islands. The smoke from the burning temples died down after a few days, and to alleviate continued Cholulan fears, Cortés again stationed most of the Tlaxcalans outside the city, but only after the two sides had agreed, begrudgingly, to a truce. Cortés and his men remained there, fed and hosted, for nearly two weeks, but the massacre sent shock waves through the land long afterward.
WHEN the messengers arrived in Tenochtitlán with explicit and detailed descriptions of the bloodbath in Cholula, Montezuma was stricken and perplexed. This style of slaying defied all protocols of traditional Aztec warfare. Even more confounding, Cholula was the spiritual house of Quetzalcoatl—how could his own shrine have been desecrated? How could Quetzalcoatl have allowed it to occur? It was inconceivable. The massacre cast doubt that this Spaniard, this Cortés, was really Quetzalcoatl. But that left an ominous question: who, then, was he?
Montezuma gathered a dozen of his highest priests to contemplate the matter. Cortés could still be a god, but which one? He might be a god of war, a demon of darkness, a deity of justice or punishment. Montezuma wondered what else he could possibly do to prevent these beings from arriving, or perhaps their arrival was preordained and could not be stopped. Maybe it was indeed the will of the gods. Montezuma and his priests climbed to the heights of their temples for meditation, fasting, and prayer. Visions appeared to Montezuma—he must sacrifice many men, which clearly the priests of Cholula had failed to do. For a week Montezuma remained alone, aloft in the temple sanctuary, fasting and waiting for signs. In the thin air he was visited by Huitzilopochtli—the hummingbird, god of war and sacrifice—who communicated with the emperor. After listening carefully to his gods, Montezuma at last left his sanctuary and descended the pyramid steps. He had come to a decision.17
AFTER a few days Aztec runners arrived at the Cholula city gates, runners sent from beyond the high mountains. Behind them trailed emissaries who asked for Cortés. Before him they laid offerings of food, many garments of the finest cloth, and, most impressive, ten plates of solid gold. The gods, and Montezuma, had spoken. The emperor would be willing now to receive Cortés. He was formally invited to come to Tenochtitlán.18
CHAPTER SEVEN
The City of Dreams
HERNÁN CORTÉS SPURRED HIS HORSES and men westward. They rose, the Spaniards and their great train of allied warriors in tow, winding up the scrubby sierra separating the vast plateaus of Mexico. Looking up, they glimpsed the enormous volcano Popocatépetl, its conical dome smoldering, spewing cinder ash and steam straight into the sky. As they marched higher, the horses’ hooves kicked up fine ash and dust, cocooning them in a moving cloud. The Indians shuddered in fear, worried that their presence had angered the mountains. The Totonacs, who had never been this far from their homes in Cempoala, begged permission from Cortés to return to their coastal villages. Some of them were sick, growing queasy with the altitude. The looming mountains ahead, and the foreboding mysteries of the great Tenochtitlán, were more than they could bear. Cortés, appreciative of their assistance, plied them with presents and praise and sent them on their way, ensuring that one load of embroidered cloth be delivered directly to their chief. Cortés and his soldiers would now rely on Tlaxcalan bearers and those Caribbean and West African porters still with him to pull the heavy artillery up and over the mountain passes, and to grind and prepare their food. It was the first of November, viciously cold at night, the temperatures plunging well below freezing.
They lurched slowly up through the timbered foothills and then into the higher mountains. Men, sickened by great heights such as they had never before encountered, bent at the waist, coughing and gasping for air. The horses stumbled up the rocky trails, heaving and wheezing. Cortés began to wonder if he could lead them through this spare and hostile place, or if they would perish here on the mountain’s flank. They progressed slowly, only a few miles each day, passing through tiny scattered villages where they would rest a day or even two, then press upward as biting winds hurtled down the narrow gorges; the poorly clad lowland and island bearers shivered through the nights. The Spaniards in full armor fared better, but they teetered as they climbed, burdened by the weight.1
As they approached the furiously smoking Popocatépetl (The Hill That Smokes) and its sister volcano Iztaccíhuatl (White Woman) Cortés watched a jet-plume shooting arrow-straight into the sky and decided to investigate this remarkable natural phenomenon. He dispatched Diego de Ordaz (a noted Velázquez man and coconspirator back at Vera Cruz, so perhaps Cortés wished to test his loyalty now) and nine fit soldiers to scout the mountain and determine whatever they could and whether it was dangerous. He might also, from high on the mountain, gain some view of the Valley of Mexico and Tenochtitlán. Ordaz took a handful of Tlaxcalan porters and began his ascent while Cortés moved slowly toward the pass between the two stunning snow-covered domes, where they camped and rested at a ridged col,*20 a pass named “The Sleeping Place.” At this exposed and lonely depression, legend held that during Quetzalcoatl’s flight from Tenochtitlán to Cholula, his followers, dwarfs and hunchbacks, had fallen asleep and frozen to death.2 Cortés and his followers must have wondered if they would succumb to a similar fate, so frozen and exposed was the pass.
Ordaz and his men tramped slowly up the steepening terrain, game trails giving way to sheer talus slopes as they rose, up and up toward the sky, the air growing dangerously thin with every halting step of the boot. Stopping to rest at over thirteen thousand feet, they could see the summit beyond, but it remained elusive, a smoldering mirage in the distance. Here the Tlaxcalan porters began to murmur and shake with fear, saying that they would progre
ss no farther, for they believed that beyond, inside the mountain, lurked evil spirits and malevolent gods. Ordaz took a compatriot and trekked on, hopping over lava streams, the shale and scree turning to snow as they rose up the massive living mountain. Snow and sleet and volcanic ash swirled around them, the heat from the dome almost unbearable as they came near the summit at almost eighteen thousand feet above the sea. Ordaz reported that he was just below the summit, a mere “two lances distant,” before flames and fiery ash and burning stones made it unbearable to continue and their clothes began to catch fire.3
When the tremor subsided and they descended, the smoke diminished, and they gazed out from the mountain to the valley beyond, catching glimpses of the enormous city on the lake, or what appeared to Ordaz as “another new world of great cities and towers and a sea.”4 After a harrowing and dangerous descent over ice and snow, the two climbers managed to stagger down to safety, coughing and stumbling, their feet and hands numb with frost. They brought samples of snow, icicles, and cinder to show Cortés, who was impressed with Ordaz’s tenacity and courage.*21 5 Ordaz had also seen the way to Tenochtitlán, a track between the two mountains, which they followed (now called the Pass of Cortés). At length the company arrived on the ridge separating the two volcanoes, a fork in the main path. One of the roads was open, the other having been blocked with trees and boulders. Cortés inquired of the Aztec guides why this was so, and they explained that the blocked road was the more arduous of the two, with poor footing and steep, rocky, dangerous sections. Sending Tlaxcalans forward to clear the debris, Cortés chose this route.
During that first week of November an early winter storm descended, fog and mist encircling them and snow coming down, lightly at first, then in pelting, blinding flakes. Cortés ordered camp made, using some of the downed trees barring their passage as shelter. They struck fires as they could, though the place was wet and windy. The night was deathly cold; men convulsed in their armor, and the Indians hunkered together to warm each other. Some of the captains found abandoned shacks, perhaps used by Indian traders, and sought shelter there.
By morning snow covered the ground, but the storm had subsided and the skies cleared. Cortés mustered and marched, the Tlaxcalans scrambling ahead to remove stumps and felled trees, and soon the group arrived at the top of the descent into the other side, overlooking the Valley of Mexico. Mist lifted like steam from the valley floor and afforded them views that left them breathless: the connected lakes and waterways glinting in the sun like iridescent blue gemstones, and houses magically built on them, and white trails of wood smoke lofting up from the many whitewashed houses that stretched out for miles. Surrounding and outlying the cities on the lakes were manicured, cultivated jade-colored fields of beans and maize, and beyond them, Tenochtitlán itself—grander and higher and larger than the other cities—seemed to float upon Lake Texcoco. They took it all in, amazed and even reverent, for they had never seen anything of its kind before, and many were left to simply gape in awe and wonder as they descended the steep switchback trail down into the valley.6
The trail snaked and wound sharply, and they eventually came to a large and well-appointed villa that, though abandoned, appeared to have been prepared and provisioned for their arrival. They found great quantities of food and fresh water, rooms large enough for shelter and rest, and fodder for the animals. There was even cut firewood laid by and ready to light, and neat walkways lined with trimmed plants and shrubs, the rooms decorated with wall hangings and draperies. Knowing that the place had been recently inhabited (and responding to reports that there were spies about), Cortés sent guards and sentries ahead and behind; he made certain that the horses remained saddled and the men were alert, but even with these precautions the men slept much better than they had on the snowy mountainside.
They passed the night without incident and early the next morning descended into the valley, passing through beautiful woods and small villages and eventually arriving at a town called Amecameca, home to nearly five thousand people. As they went, Cortés noted with great interest that the chiefs were vocal and forthcoming, often complaining about the high taxes they must pay to Montezuma, and how even their women, as well as their children, were often taken from them, along with valuable goods. Cortés filed the information, interpreting the discord so close to Tenochtitlán as a positive sign of potential future alliances, should he require them.7
During their descent they were also visited by yet another embassy of Aztecs, this one special, for Montezuma had included a handful of his best magicians and sorcerers who he hoped might be able to thwart the relentless approach of the Spaniards. The Aztecs reported that “Montezuma sent the magicians to…see if they could work some charm against them, or do them some mischief. They might be able to direct a harmful wind against them, or cause them to break out in sores, or injure them in some way. Or they might be able to repeat some enchanted word, over and over, that would cause them to fall sick, or die, or return to their own land.”8 Montezuma, running out of options and apparently becoming desperate, also sent an impersonator, a nobleman named Tziuacpopocatzin. He was to dress in regal finery, assume a kingly countenance and behavior, and claim to be Montezuma, the idea being that they could hold their formal meeting and then, just maybe, the Spaniards would turn back. They came bearing gifts, too, lovely featherwork of the quetzal bird and a good deal of gold, which sent the captains into a sort of delirium, for they were apparently still giddy from their high-altitude trek. Their response to the gifts was recorded by chronicler Bernardino de Sahagún,*22 who said they clung to the gold “like monkeys…they thirsted mightily for the gold, they stuffed themselves with it, and starved and lusted for it like pigs. They…showed it to one another, all the while babbling. What they said was gibberish.”9 Initially the Spaniards believed that the nobleman Tziuacpopocatzin might be Montezuma, for he claimed to be, but after consulting a number of the Tlaxcalans, Cortés determined that the man was of the wrong age and build, and the ruse was discovered.
The magicians and wizards, too, failed in their attempts, and the embassy returned to Montezuma with disconcerting news: all their witchcraft, spells, and conjurings were ineffective on these teules, these gods. Cortés, his cavalry and horses, and many thousand Tlaxcalans were still coming to Tenochtitlán. Montezuma sought more counsel, both from his priests and from his gods.
Cortés remained in Amecameca for two full days, where he was well housed and fed and given more gold as well as forty slave girls. He developed good relations with the city’s chiefs, assuring them that soon he could relieve their burden of tribute to the Aztecs. Rested, he resumed his march, arriving next at the banks of Lake Chalco, the southernmost body of water in the lacustrine chain. The city teemed with thousands of people, and here the Spaniards watched with interest the many canoes pouring into and out of the town on the calm waters. Soon a very formal and official contingent of Aztec nobles arrived, bearing with them Cacama, Montezuma’s nephew and king of Texcoco. They came, as Bernal Díaz remembered it, with
greater pomp and splendor than we had ever beheld in any Mexican prince. He came borne in a litter, most richly worked in green feathers with much silver decoration and precious stones set in tree designs that were worked with the finest gold. His litter was carried by chieftains, each of whom…was a ruler of a town. When they came near the house where Cortés was lodged, they helped the prince out of his litter, swept the ground, and removed the stones and straws from his way.10
Cacama faced Cortés and explained, through Malinche, that he regretted that the great Montezuma, his emperor, was unable to come himself but he felt ill. Cacama came to represent him in his stead and wished to extend every courtesy to Cortés and his men, who would now most certainly be his invited guests and would have a personal audience with Montezuma very soon. Until then, Cacama and his nobles and lords would escort the Spaniards to the city of Iztapalapa, and then into the capital, and they would have everything they would need along the way.
Hearing this message and overcome with emotion, Cortés embraced the prince in an awkward (but customarily Spanish) hug, then hung from him a necklace of cut glass. He gave colored beads to the other attendees standing by.
Once these formalities were taken care of, Cortés followed his new dignitary hosts along the lakeshore, noting that crowds of curious onlookers flocked alongside the marching train. Soon they encountered the first of the marvelous causeways, a long straight road structure made of stone that ran some five miles across the water from Chalco to the adjoining Lake Xochimilco. The causeway was narrow—Cortés would say, only “as wide as a horseman’s lance”—and they marched in growing awe and wonder as they neared the town of Cuitláhuac, which Cortés described as small but definitely “the most beautiful we had seen, both in regard to the well-built houses and towers and in the skill of foundations, for it is raised on the water.”11 His amazement was only being piqued. So too was that of Bernal Díaz, who remembered the place with astonished wonder: “When we saw all those cities and villages built in the water…and that straight level causeway leading to Mexico, we were astounded. These great towns and temples had buildings rising from the water, all made of stone, and it seemed like an enchanted vision from the tale of Amadis. Indeed, some of our soldiers asked if this was not all a dream.”12 Cortés himself would refer to Tenochtitlán as “the City of Dreams,” exclaiming that it was without question “the most beautiful thing in the world.”13