hostile Indians, yet not before he, too, saw evidence of a mighty civilization.
Sailing still further south, in the Gulf of Mexico, along the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, Grijalva made landfall again, at what is now the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco, and it was there, in the dense rain forest, that Grijalva first heard the stories of the mighty Aztec, and their capitol, Tenochtitlan, and of Aztec gold.
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Montezuma II, leader and High Priest of the Aztec, two hundred miles away in Tenochtitlan, had been watching Grijalva's landing and advance. Montezuma, at thirty nine, was the most powerful Aztec ruler his people had ever had. With two hundred thousand Aztec Indians living in Tenochtitlan, and another one million under his rule, Montezuma, himself a well respected general of many campaigns, had nothing to fear. Time, numbers, and geography were all on his side. Grijalva's party of one hundred seventy men was nothing.
Yet Montezuma had been having dreams, dreams which indicated that these men might not be men at all. Montezuma suspected that Grijalva was the long-banished Aztec god Quatzalcoatl.
Quatzalcoatl was the banished Aztec patron god of priests, of learning, and of agriculture.
Quatzalcoatl's brother, Huitzilopochtli, was the Aztec God of the Sun. Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec believed, had to do battle each morning before sunrise for the right to rise into the sky.
To do battle each morning, Huitzilopochtli needed energy. The Aztecs believed that the best energy for Huitzilopochtli could come only from a human being; and only, a beating human heart. Thus, the Aztec built the Temple of Huitzilopochtli. The place where the Aztec sacrificed over one quarter million Indians.
The ancient Mayan, from whom the Aztec had inherited much, rarely practiced human sacrifice.
Quatzalcoatl despised human sacrifice above all else.
Montezuma must have been silently rejoicing, for there is some evidence that he himself despised the Aztec ritual practice of human sacrifice. The Aztec empire was very young: the Aztec capitol, Tenochtitlan, was less than two hundred years old. However, the Aztec had been busy. They had lifted themselves up from barbarism, and created an empire of ten million. Even the Spanish, when they first saw the city of Tenochtitlan, with its floating islands and stone temples and beautiful buildings and canal systems, declared it "the most beautiful city in the world". Perhaps the sudden appearance of Quatzalcoatl was a sign of good fortune. Perhaps Quatzalcoatl would destroy Huitzilopochtli, and show them a better way, and end the Aztec practice of human sacrifice?
Montezuma sent out trusted scouts to observe the Spaniards. The scouts returned with descriptions that fit the legends of the returning god Quatzalcoatl.
Montezuma then sent the scouts back, with gifts of gold, and precious stones such as jade, and instructions to direct the Indian chiefs of the region to welcome the intruders, and prepare lavish feasts to present.
The next day, before sunrise, the Indians emerged from the dark rain forest, bearing a fantastic variety of their native foods.
Turkey. White Potatoes. Sweet Potatoes. Corn. Pumpkin.
Juan de Grijalva was truly enchanted, and invited the Indians onto his ship, where the Indians happily feasted alongside the Spaniards, and drank wine. The Indians became intoxicated, and had to spend the night aboard the Spanish ship. In the morning the Indians departed, and thanked their host. Grijalva had to depart from them because his supplies were running low, but made it clear, with a smile, that he would return soon.
Grijalva departed with the Indians feeling hopeful. Yet returning to Cuba without establishing a settlement or claiming the land for Spain, Grijalva opened himself up to the enraged criticisms of the standing governor -and conqueror - of Cuba , Diego Velazquez de Cuellar.
Why had Grijalva stuck so closely to his orders?
Grijalva no longer mattered. The stories were true, and the stage, set for Hernan Cortes.
-
-The Christmas of 1492-
The first Europeans strode through the salty shallow ocean waters off the coast of the island of Guanhani with dirty boots and dirty hands, and with naked motivations and naked natives standing by planted their flag in the warm sand in the name of God and Spain and claimed the island for Ferdinand and Isabella.
The Admiral of the Ocean Sea had finally landed. He named the island San Salvador [the Blessed Savior].
The Tainos, or Arawak, as they had been called, observed Columbus with curiosity as Columbus observed them. He wrote in his log: "...very well made, of handsome bodies and very good faces."
The Tainos were cooperative and friendly, which meant nothing to Columbus, if not easy pickings.
"With fifty men," he wrote, "they could all be subjected and compelled to do anything...It would be nothing, to convert these people [to Catholicism] and make them work for us."
Paradise had met the enemy and the enemy was us.
Columbus, a brilliant self-taught man, had had audaciously big plans for quite a while. Before he had ever left Spain, he had married up and proceeded to secure from Ferdinand and Isabella not only their blessings for the trip, but also, money for ships and supplies and men, as well as, for himself, the lofty title of The Admiral of the Ocean Sea, a ten-percent share in whatever 'valuable things" he might find, and be formally recognized the rightful Viceroy and Governor of any lands he discovered, and that these titles were legally transferable to any of his descendents.
He had been bold, and narrowly avoided disaters, not least, from a mutinous crew. He had sailed across the Atlantic without the use of his compass, which he had discovered to be broken only after he was well out to sea. Although he would mistakenly believe that he had found Asia, and had been to the island of Cipango [Japan], and had found the route to Cathay [China], he had, in fact, sailed across the stormy Atlantic, straight through the Sargasso Sea, and had landed on the isands of the Bahamas, off the coast of North America.
The once-gentle Tainos, whose language would be wiped from the earth as the long years passed and Spanish became the dominant language, patiently answered Columbus' many questions, of which only one seemed to matter:
Where are all your veins of gold?
Although the islanders displayed ornaments of gold, they said the gold had not originated from their island, and that the gold Columbus was looking for could be found on a bigger island, to the southwest [Cuba]. Columbus immediately set sail, and after landing a week later, and for the next month, charted the the northern coast of Cuba.
Firmly believing that he was on the outskirts of Asia, The Admiral of the Ocean Sea let his mind wander a thousand miles inland, and saw his name enshrined in gold and glory, and could see his rightful place in history, secured, and his treasure chests overflowing with the ten-percent cut of all the "valuable things" that he had found, and his riches growing, by the hour and the day. He was well pleased.
But while he dreamed, as the men of the Pinta and the Santa Maria busied themselves mapping out the northern coast of Cuba, the Nina sailed off, and abandoned Columbus.
Of the many mistakes that Columbus had made, and would make, none may have been so great as his having placed so much trust in the captain of the Nina, the 51-year old Martin Pinzon, whom not only gave financial backing to much of the supplies Columbus needed, but who was also part owner of the Nina, the Pinta, and possibly, the Santa Maria. But Pinzon had also supplied Columbus with the skilled, experienced men needed for such a voyage, which include Pinzon's two brothers, Vicente and Francisco, who were captain and first mate of the Pinta.
Pinzon was shrewd and ambitious, as well as a skilled seaman in his own right. Worst of all, for Columbus, Pinzon was well repected -perhaps more repected than Columbus- by Columbus' men. Columbus wrote this in his log, well before Pinzon left the squadron:
"I know that Martin Alonzo [Pinzon] cannot be trusted...he wants the rewards and honors of this enterprise for himself....but I am fully aware that I must use him, for his support is too great among the men."
Columbus also wrote
this:
"I think that an Indian I had placed on the Pinta could lead him to much gold, so he departed without waiting and without the excuse of bad weather” [which Pinzon would later use, both on Columbus and in Spain].
Columbus would not see Martin Pinzon again until mid-January of 1493.
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Columbus was kept on Cuba by contrary winds for two weeks after Pinzon left before finally sailing west agian. About a week later, in early December, the Pinta and the Santa Maria anchored off the shores of what is present-day Haiti. Wasting not time, Columbus quickly came ashore and found, to his delight, that the island was even more promising and beautiful than Cuba, and noticed, with pleasure, the well-tended crops of the indigenous Arawak, and the large and valuable stands of hardwoods. But there was more. La Espanola, as Columbus named the island, [later called Hispaniola], had the gold in its veins that he was looking for. The Admiral of the Ocean Sea was thinking about the expeditions he had sent into the island's interior on Christmas Eve of 1492. Columbus had never felt so much excitement.It was supposed to be a Christmas between Christopher Columbus and his Wildest Dreams; let Pinzon sail off, he thought. With two ships, this is going to be easy.
But as the long-legged, red-haired Italian