The Conquistadors (21 page)

Thus, publicly, before the Royal Notary and witnesses, Moctezuma became a vassal of the Emperor Charles, and all his lords and the people of Mexico followed his example. The matter of tribute was then dealt with. Expeditions were dispatched into all the gold-mining provinces, and to the gold dust and nuggets brought in, and the tribute collected, Moctezuma added the contents of the treasure rooms of his father, saying, ‘When you send it to him [the Emperor], tell him in your letter that it is sent by his loyal vassal, Moctezuma.' And he added that he would send some very precious stones: ‘They are
chalchihuites
and must not be given to anyone but your great prince, for each one of them is worth two loads of gold.'He also gave Cortés twelve blowpipes ‘decorated with very excellent paintings of perfect hues, in which there were figures of many different kinds of birds, animals, flowers, and divers other objects, and the mouthpieces and extremities were bordered with gold, a span deep, as was also the middle, all beautifully worked'. Included with the blowpipes was a gold network pouch to hold the balls, and Moctezuma promised that the balls themselves, which he would send later, would be of solid gold. Rather pathetically, he added that he would have wished to give the Emperor more of his own possessions, but these would only be small, ‘for all the gold and jewels I had, I have given you at one time or another'.

The treasure rooms in Axayacatl's palace were then opened up again, and the division of the spoils began. It took three days, and, as with any share-out, there was dissatisfaction. Bernal Diaz claims that Cortés filched a third of the great treasure pile before even the king's fifth was subtracted, and that some of his captains, particularly Juan Velazquez de Leon, were having large gold chains and
table ware of gold made up that was far in excess of their share. For this purpose goldsmiths had been brought in from the neighbouring city of Azcapotzalco, and from them Cortés himself ordered jewels and a great dinner service. The soldiers, too, had got their hands on the stuff, and there was a great deal of gambling with home-made cards.

The rumbles of dissatisfaction were so great that Cortés felt it necessary to make one of his diplomatic speeches, even undertaking to forego the fifth his men had agreed to give him when they elected him captain-general. In the end, the fabulously beautiful silver and gold work from the treasure store was melted down into ingots. Weights were made, the king's fifth subtracted and the gold bars stamped with a home-made die. Cortés got the fifth he had been promised; he also got the expenses of mounting and fitting out the expedition, the value of the ships destroyed, even the cost of the embassy sent to Spain. Fray Bartolomé de Olmedo and the priest got double shares, as did the captains, the arquebusiers and musketeers, the crossbowmen, and those who had brought horses with them. The seventy men in Vera Cruz were not forgotten, and the horses that had been lost were paid for. In the end, Bernal Díaz says, very little was left, ‘so little indeed that many of us soldiers did not want to touch it'. He claims that Cortés gave some of them gifts as a kind of favour, and by big promises and smooth words got them to accept the situation.

This vast treasure was the visible, material symbol of the expedition's success. However Bernal Díaz may grumble, it increased the morale of the army enormously. As for himself, Cortés knew that it would buy him recognition at home and establish his position beyond all question. But he was much too statesmanlike a leader to regard gold as the sole purpose of conquest. Writing to his emperor, he emphasizes that throughout the six months since his arrival in the city on November 8, 1519, his forces had been actively employed in ‘pacifying and winning over many provinces, thickly-peopled countries, very great cities, towns and forts; and in discovering mines, and learning and enquiring into many of the secrets of Moctezuma's dominions … so many and marvellous that they are almost incredible'. All, as he points out, with the willing assistance of Moctezuma and the Indians. He had even developed ninety acres as a sort of agricultural research farm, experimenting in the growing of maize, beans and cocoa, the breeding of hens, and also ducks for the production of feathers. And in the search for new and better anchorages on the coast he had arranged with Moctezuma for the pictographic mapping of the Gulf shore, and as a result had sent Ordaz with ten men to explore the possibilities of the Coatzacoalco river. All these activities, together with guard duties and the need to be constantly on the alert against insurrection, kept his men fully occupied.

To what extent their off-duty hours were relieved by fraternization with the natives is nowhere stated, not even by Bernal Díaz. Cortés and his captains certainly had Indian ‘wives', but how he catered for the sexual appetites of his
men we do not know. Discipline was very tight and there is no doubt that he adhered rigidly to his instructions forbidding cohabitation with non-Christian women. The probability is that a far greater number of the Indian women were ‘converted' than is actually recorded.

Knowing the power of the Church at home, conversion of the Mexicans to the Christian faith, the overthrow of their idols and the prevention of human sacrifice must always have been uppermost in his mind. This was not just a matter of expediency. He and his captains – many of his men, too – believed implicity that they were engaged on a crusade. Gómara claims that shortly after Moctezuma's arrest, Cortés felt himself strong enough to begin the work of destroying the idols. When Moctezuma persuaded him to desist, since the Mexicans would undoubtedly resist such sacrilege, Gómara quotes a long speech in which Cortés says all the things that the Holy Office at home would expect him to say, and adds that he had crosses and images of the Virgin Mary and other saints set up amongst the idols in the altar room of the great teocalli. ‘This Christian deed won more honour and glory for Cortés than if he had vanquished them in battle.' This is clearly a political record designed for home consumption. Cortés could not possibly have attempted such an attack upon the establishment of the priesthood until the threat of Cacama's insurrection had been dealt with and the Mexicans had sworn allegiance to the Emperor.

In fact, it was now, when for the first time he really felt himself master of the situation, that he was finally free to let his rage at the devilish activities of the priests get the upper hand. Whether the desperate act of desecration he committed was premeditated, or whether it was a natural and spontaneous outburst of revulsion, nobody will ever know for certain. But since its effect was to undo the work of months, we must presume the latter.

Bernal Díaz simply says that Cortés delivered an ultimatum to Moctezuma: he was to order his priests to stop the sacrifice of human beings, remove the idols of their gods, and replace them with the cross of the true faith and a statue of the Virgin. If they would not do it, then Cortés' men would do it for them. ‘After a good deal of discussion our altar was set up some distance from their accursed idols, with great reverence and thanks to God from all of us.' This seems insufficient grounds for the sudden and violent change in the attitude of the Mexicans that followed. Cortés himself says, ‘The principal idols … I overturned from their seats and rolled down the stairs, and I had those chapels, where they kept them, cleansed, for they were full of blood from the sacrifices; and I set up images of Our Lady, and other Saints in them, which grieved Moctezuma and the natives not a little.'

In the discussion that followed, Moctezuma is described as agreeing that the Mexicans probably erred in their religious beliefs, because of the great length of time that had elapsed since they had left the country of their origin, whereas Cortes had just arrived from that country. This acquiescence – and Cortés says
Moctezuma and his caciques were present throughout the destruction of the idols – does not suggest that the act led inevitably to the expulsion of the Spaniards. But there is one account that does fit the pattern of subsequent events. Andrés de Tapia claims that he was with Cortés in the great teocalli when he attacked the idols, and he makes it clear that it was a personal attack. He also confirms that it followed the final submission of Moctezuma. He says that the Spanish forces in the city at the time were small because most of the soldiers were away in the provinces collecting tribute for the Emperor. Cortés and Tapia went up to the tower of the great teocalli with less than a dozen soldiers, pushed aside a hemp curtain festooned with bells, using their swords, and entered a very dark chamber. Here the walls were lined with stone images ‘and in their mouths and over parts of their bodies were quantities of blood two or three fingers thick'. Tapia tells the story in detail:

When the marqués [Cortés] had seen the stone carvings and looked about at what was to be seen, he was saddened. He sighed, saying so that we all heard him: ‘Oh God! Why do You permit such great honour paid the Devil in this land? Oh Lord, it is good that we are here to serve you.'

He called the interpreters, because some of the priests of those idols had come at the sound of the bells, and he said: ‘God Who made heaven and earth made you and made us and all men. He grows what sustains us. And if we have been good He will take us to heaven, but if not we shall go to hell, as I shall tell you at greater length when we understand one another better. Here where you have these idols I wish to have the images of the Lord and his Blessed Mother. Also bring water to wash these walls, and we will take all this away.'

They laughed as though it were not possible to do such a thing, and they said: ‘Not only this city but all the land holds these as gods. This is the house of Huitzilopochtli, whom we serve, and in comparison with him the people hold for nothing their fathers and mothers and children, and will choose to die. So take heed, for on seeing you come up here they have all risen in arms and are ready to die for their gods.'

The marqués told a Spaniard to go and see that Moctezuma was well guarded, and to send thirty or forty men to the tower. Then he said to the priests: ‘It will give me great pleasure to fight for my God against your gods, who are a mere nothing.' And before the men he had sent for arrived, angered by some words he had heard, he took up an iron bar that was there and began to smash the stone idols. On my faith as a gentleman I swear by God that, as I recall it now, the marqués grew supernaturally tall, and rushed to attack, gripping the bar in the middle, striking as high as the idol's eyes and thus tore down the gold masks, saying: ‘Something must we venture for the Lord.'

Cortés always had a great sense of the dramatic. In giving vent to his feelings in such an act of desecration, with the priests standing there as witnesses, it is clear that, though the timing may have been fortuitous, the decision that prompted the
act had been taken in cold blood. He had achieved complete domination of the Indians through the person of their king, but to break them finally to his will it was essential to destroy their religion and superimpose his own. The desecration must, therefore, be regarded as an act of policy. But the way in which he chose to implement that policy was a mistake. No doubt he had become frustrated by the constant opposition of the priests. No doubt also, as a result of Moctezuma's acquiescence in everything else, he had become too confident. The realization that he had over-reached himself is implicit in the way his action is covered up, both in his own dispatches, and in Gómara's accounts. And it is obvious that he also concealed it from his soldiers, since Bernal Díaz makes so little of it.

Moctezuma was horrified. He warned Cortés that the city would rise, that he could not control his people in the face of such an affront to their gods. And Cortés, from demanding the instant abandonment of all devil worship, retreated into a face-saving compromise. With Moctezuma's agreement, a space was made available in the temple for an altar. A cross was set up with a statue of the Virgin, and all the Spanish garrison then in the capital attended a sung mass.

Though this was done with Moctezuma's reluctant support, the priests were not so amenable. They saw it as a threat to their traditional position of power. They announced that Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca had spoken to them; both gods would abandon Mexico unless the alien Spanish god was removed from the temple. To this threat of disaster they later added an incitement to rebellion: the gods would only stay if the Spaniards were destroyed. During the night, and throughout much of the following day, Moctezuma was in conference, not only with the priests, but with his war chiefs as well. The page, Orteguilla, who acted as Cortés' spy at court, said the king was very agitated. The position had suddenly become explosive. So explosive, in fact, that Moctezuma finally summoned Cortés into his presence and told him that he must leave Mexico at once. If he did not, he and all his men would be killed. The gods had spoken. The word was war.

Cortés temporized, playing for time. He said he could not leave because his ships had been destroyed. And when he did leave, Moctezuma would have to accompany him, to pay court to the Emperor, since he was now his vassal. The end of it was that Moctezuma agreed to provide wood for the construction of ships to replace those that had been destroyed. Meantime, he would persuade his priests not to foment trouble and, in propitiating the gods, to avoid human sacrifice. Cortés, on his part, undertook to proceed with the construction of the ships as fast as possible and leave Mexico when they were completed. What he had in mind, of course, was to use the ships to procure reinforcements. Without more men, arms and horses, he now realized he could not hope to have physical control over such a large and turbulent country. Núñez, and López, the ship's carpenter, were instructed to design and build three vessels, the wood to be cut by the Indian woodsmen provided by Moctezuma. The necessary gear was in store at Vera Cruz.

The situation, however, remained distinctly ugly. Doña Marina warned Cortés repeatedly that an attack was imminent. The Tlaxcalan irregulars he had brought into Mexico with him confirmed it. So did the page, Orteguilla, who was now ‘always in tears'. The men slept in their armour. The horses stood saddled and bridled throughout the day. From being the power behind the throne, the maker and breaker of kings, the captain-general who had brought a whole new country into the vassalage of his emperor, Cortés was now in a state of siege. All because he had meddled with their religion. Yet he knew that without the destruction of their gods he could not hold them, for, as in any country, particularly of that period, their religion was their strength, giving them the moral fibre to resist.