Latin-American Mythology. Hartley Burr Alexander

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      II. CONQUISTADORES²⁵

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      In 1517 Hernandez de Cordova, sailing from Cuba for the Bahamas, was driven out of his course by adverse gales; Yucatan was discovered; and a part of the coast of the Gulf of Campeche was explored. Battles were fought, and hardships were endured by the discoverers, but the reports of a higher civilization which they brought back to Cuba, coupled with specimens of curious gold-work, induced the governor of the island to equip a new expedition to continue the exploration. This venture, of four vessels under the command of Juan de Grijalva, set out in May, 1518, and following the course of its predecessor, coasted as far as the province of Panuco, visiting the Isla de los Sacrificios—near the site of the future Vera Cruz—and doing profitable trading with some of the vassals of the Aztec emperor. A caravel which he dispatched to Cuba with some of his golden profit induced the governor to undertake a larger military expedition to effect the conquest of the empire discovered; for now men began to realize that a truly imperial realm had been revealed. This third expedition was placed under the command of Hernando Cortez; it sailed from Cuba in February, 1519, and landed on the island of Cozumel, in Maya territory, where the Spaniards were profoundly impressed at finding the Cross an object of veneration. The course was resumed, and a battle was fought near the mouth of the Rio de Tabasco; but Cortez was in search of richer lands and so moved onward, beyond the lands of the Maya, until on Good Friday, April 21, 1519, he landed with all his forces on the site of Vera Cruz. The two years of the Conquest followed—the tale of which, for fantastic and romantic adventure, for egregious heroism and veritable gluttony of bloodshed, has few competitors in human annals: its climacterics being the seizure of Montezuma in November, 1519; la noche triste, July 1, 1520, when the invaders were driven from Tenochtitlan; and, finally, the defeat and capture of Guatemotzin, August 13, 1521.

The reader of the tale cannot but be profoundly moved both by what the Spaniards found and by what they did. He will be moved with regret at the wanton destruction of so much that was in its way splendid in Aztec civilization. He will be moved with revulsion and wonder that such a civilization could support a religion which, though not without elements of poetic exaltation, was drugged with obscene and bloody rites; and he will feel only a shuddering thankfulness that this faith is of the past. But when he turns to the agents of its destruction and reads their chronicles, furious with carnage, he will surely say, with Clavigero, that "the Spaniards cannot but appear to have been the severest instruments fate ever made use of to further the ends of Providence," and amid conflicting horrors he will be led again into regretful sympathy for the final victims.

      An apologist for human nature would say that neither conquistador nor papa (as the Spaniards named the Aztec priest) was quite so despicable as his deeds, that both were moved by a faith that had redeeming traits. Outwardly, aesthetically, the whole scene is bizarre and devilish; inwardly, it is not without devotion and heroism. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, adventurer not only with Cortez, but with Cordova and Grijalva before him, one of the sturdiest of the conquerors and destined to be their foremost chronicler, records for us one unforgettable incident which presents the whole inwardness and outwardness of the situation—gorgeous cruelty and simple humanity—in a single image. It was four days after the army of Cortez had entered the Mexican capital; and after having been shown the wonders of the populous markets of Tenochtitlan, the visitors were escorted, at their own request, to the platform top of the great teocalli overlooking Tlatelolco, the mart of Mexico. From the platform Montezuma proudly pointed to the quartered city below, and beyond that to the gleaming lake and the glistening villages on its borders—all a local index of his imperial domains. "We counted among us," says the chronicler,²⁶ "soldiers who had traversed different parts of the world: Constantinople, Italy, Rome; they said that they had seen nowhere a place so well aligned, so vast, ordered with such art, and covered with so many people." Cortez turned to Montezuma: "You are a great lord," he said. "You have shown us your great cities; show us now your gods."