CHAPTER IX.
WHO ARE THE WHITE CONQUERORS?
Yes, the white strangers were at war with Tlascala; there could beno doubt of it. The meaning of the pictured despatches was too clearon that point to be misunderstood. Which side would win in such astruggle? The pictures seemed to indicate that the strangers hadsuffered a defeat. Certainly some of them had been killed, as had atleast three of the mysterious beings who had, until then, been believedto be gods. With such evidences of the superiority of his countrymen toreassure him, could the son of a Tlascalan warrior doubt which bannerwould be crowned with victory? And yet, if these white strangers shouldbe destroyed, or driven back whence they came, what would become of hisfather's cherished plan for the overthrow of Montezuma and his bloodypriesthood by their aid? Why had Tlahuicol placed such confidence intheir powers? Who, and what, were these white conquerors? Whence hadthey come? and what was their object in braving the dangers that mustbeset every step of their advance into the land of Anahuac?
With thoughts and queries such as these was the mind of Huetzin filledas he sped forward on his self-appointed mission. The question of food,that had absorbed so large a share of his attention on the precedingdays of his flight, no longer gave him any anxiety. The sight of hisgreen girdle and packet of despatches caused his wants of this natureto be rapidly supplied from the several post stations, at which hehalted for a moment without entering. To be sure his appearance createdanimated discussions after he had departed, but only when it was toolate to make investigation. Thus Huetzin's mind was free to dwell uponthe subject of the white conquerors and their war with his own people.
These "white conquerors," as Tlahuicol had termed them, formed thelittle army with which Hernando Cortes set forth from Cuba, in thespring of 1519, for the exploration and possible subjugation of thegreat western kingdom, concerning which fabulous accounts had alreadyreached Spain. During the twenty-seven years that had elapsed sinceColumbus first set foot on an island of the New World, explorationhad been active, and the extent of its eastern coast had been nearlydetermined. Sebastian Cabot had skirted it from Labrador to thepeninsula of Florida. Columbus himself had reached the mainland,without realizing that it was such, and had sailed from Honduras to themouth of the mighty Orinoco. Amerigo Vespucci and others had coastedsouthward as far as the Rio de la Plata. Balboa, with dauntlesscourage, had forced his way through the trackless forests of Darien,and from the summit of its lofty cordilleras sighted the mightyPacific. The West Indian Islands were all known, and only the landsbordering the Mexican Gulf still remained unexplored.
In 1517 a Spanish slave-hunter, bound from Cuba to the Bahamas, wasdriven so far out of his course by a succession of easterly gales that,at the end of three weeks, he found himself on an unknown coast farto the westward. It was the land of the Mayas, who, having learned byrumor of the cruelties practised by the Spaniards in the CaribbeanIslands, greeted these new-comers with an invincible hostility thatresulted in a series of bloody encounters. In most of these theSpaniards were worsted; some of them were taken prisoners by theIndians, and so many were killed that all notions of their godlikenature were destroyed. When the whites questioned those natives withwhom they gained intercourse as to the name of their land, the answeralways given was, "Tec-ta-tan" (I do not understand you), and this,corrupted into "Yucatan," is the name borne by that portion of thecountry to this day.
In spite of their reverses and failure to gain a foothold in this newcountry, the Spanish slave-hunters saw enough of its stone buildings,populous towns, cultivated fields, rich fabrics, and golden ornamentsto convince them that they were on the borders of a powerful andwealthy empire. Thus, when they returned to Cuba, leaving half theirnumber behind, either dead or as prisoners, they brought such glowingaccounts of their discoveries that another expedition to extend them,as well as to procure slaves and gold, was immediately fitted out.Under the command of Juan de Grijalva, and embarked in four smallvessels, it sailed from Santiago in May, 1518, and was gone six months,during which time it explored the coast from Yucatan to a point somedistance beyond where the city of Vera Cruz now stands.
On the Mayan coast Grijalva met with the same fierce hostility thathad greeted his predecessor, but among the Aztecs he was received witha more friendly spirit by a chieftain who had been ordered to make acareful study of the strangers for the information of the king of thatland. This monarch, who was soon to become the world-famed Montezuma,also sent costly gifts to the Spaniards, hoping that, satisfied withthem, they would depart and leave his country in peace. They didso, but only to carry to Cuba such wonderful tales of the wealth ofthe countries they had visited that a third expedition was at onceundertaken. It was placed under command of Hernando Cortes, a trainedsoldier, about thirty-three years of age. His fleet consisted of elevenvessels, the largest of which was but of one hundred tons burden.Three others were from seventy to eighty tons, and the rest were opencaravels. In these were embarked eight hundred and fifty souls, of whomone hundred and ten were sailors. Five hundred and fifty were soldiers,but of these only thirteen were armed with muskets, and thirty-two withcrossbows, the rest being provided with swords and pikes. The remainderof the force consisted of Indian servants.
If this small force of men had been his sole reliance, Cortes wouldhave accomplished little more than his predecessors; but it was not.He was well provided with artillery, in the shape of ten heavy gunsand four small brass pieces called falconets, besides a bountifulsupply of ammunition. Better than all, however, he had sixteen horses,animals up to that time unknown on the American continent, and wellfitted to inspire the simple-minded natives with terror. Cortes wasalso fortunate in his selection of officers. Among them were the fierceAlvarado, who had already been on the coast with Grijalva, and who wasafterward named by the Aztecs "Tonatiah," or the Sunlit, on account ofhis golden hair and beard, and Gonzalo de Sandoval, barely twenty-twoyears of age and slow of speech, but of such a sturdy frame, goodjudgment, and absolute fearlessness that he became the most famous andtrustworthy of all the conqueror's captains. He was also the owner ofthe glorious mare Motilla, the pride and pet of the army.
With this force Cortes sailed for the Mexican coast filled with hopesof conquest and of abolishing forever the cruel religion of the Aztecs,with its human sacrifices and bloody rites, concerning which thereports of his predecessors had said so much.
The policy of Cortes was to gain his ends by peaceful means, ifpossible, and only to fight when forced to do so. In pursuance ofthis plan of action he touched at several places on the Mayan coast,before proceeding to Mexico, and so won the good-will of those fiercefighters by his courtesy and a liberal bestowal of presents, that theynot only desisted from hostilities, but delivered to him a Spaniardwhom they had held as prisoner for several years. This man, whose namewas Aguilar, could converse fluently in the Mayan tongue, and was thusinvaluable as an interpreter.
At the mouth of the Tabasco River, on the borders of Aztec territory,where Grijalva had been so courteously received two years before,Cortes was greeted in a very different manner. As the Tabascans hadbeen ordered by the Aztec monarch to treat Grijalva's expeditionkindly and gain from it all possible information concerning the whitestrangers, they now received instructions from the same source todestroy this one. Accordingly a great army had been collected, and inspite of Cortes's efforts to maintain peaceful relations, his littleforce was attacked with the utmost fury as soon as it landed. Theartillery created terrible havoc in the dense ranks of the natives;but so desperate was their onset that the Spaniards would doubtlesshave been defeated had it not been for the opportune arrival of theircavalry, which was thus used for the first time in a New-World battle.Before these death-dealing monsters, whose weight bore down allopposition, and beneath whose iron hoofs they were trampled like bladesof grass, the panic-stricken Indians fled in dismay.
The loss of the Tabascans in this first battle of the conquest ofMexico was enormous, reaching well into the thousands, while of theSpaniards a number
were killed and some two hundred were wounded. Amongthe prisoners taken were several caciques, whom Cortes set at libertyand sent back to their own people with presents, and the message thatfor the sake of peace he was willing to overlook the past providedthey would now acknowledge the authority of his king and abolish humansacrifices from their religious observances. If they refused theseterms he would put every man, woman, and child to the sword.
This threat, together with the punishment already received, waseffective. On the following day a delegation of head men came in, totender their submission to the White Conqueror. They brought manyvaluable gifts, among which were twenty female slaves, whom Cortescaused to be baptized and given Christian names. The most beautifulof these, and the one who quickly proved herself the most intelligent,had already passed through a long experience of slavery, though stillbut seventeen years of age. Sold, when a child, by a step-mother, ina distant northern province, she had been carried to the land of theMayas, educated there in the household of a noble, and finally capturedby the fierce Tabascans. She was thus able to speak both the Aztecand the Mayan tongues, and so could interpret the Aztec, through theMayan, to Aguilar, who in turn translated her words into Spanish. Thus,through this young Indian girl, the Spaniards were, for the first time,placed in direct communication with the dominant race of the country.The Christian name given her was "Marina," a name destined to becomealmost as well known as that of the White Conqueror himself.
From Tabasco Cortes followed the coast to the island of San Juan deUlloa, inside which he anchored his fleet. Here, for the first time, hereceived an embassy direct from Montezuma, and saw the Aztec artistsbusily making sketches of his men and their belongings for the king'sinformation. Here, too, he landed, and founded the city of Vera Cruz,to be used as a base of operations while in that country.
The Spaniards spent some months on the coast, and in the _TierraCaliente_, or hot lands, immediately adjoining it. They formed analliance with the Totonacs, a disaffected people recently conquered bythe Aztecs, regained for them their principal city of Cempoalla, wherethey destroyed the Aztec idols, and devoted themselves to a study ofthe resources of the country they proposed to conquer and the characterof its people.
In the meantime they received many messages from Montezuma forbiddingtheir proposed visit to his capital, and commanding them to departwhence they came. As these messages were always accompanied bymagnificent presents of gold, jewels, and rich fabrics, the Spaniardswere even more tempted to stay and search for the source of thisunbounded wealth, than to leave it undiscovered. So, in spite ofMontezuma's prohibition, Cortes, after first destroying his ships thatthey might offer no excuse for a retreat, took up his line of march forTenochtitlan, two hundred miles in the interior.