8. DISCONTENT OF THE TROOPS-INSURRECTION
IN THE CAPITAL-RETURN OF CORTES-GENERAL SIGNS OF HOSTILITY-MASSACRE BY
ALVARADO-RISING OF THE AZTECS
THE tempest that had raged so wildly during the night passed
away with the morning, which rose bright and unclouded on the field of
battle. As the light advanced, it revealed more strikingly the
disparity of the two forces so lately opposed to each other. Those
of Narvaez could not conceal their chagrin; and murmurs of displeasure
became audible, as they contrasted their own superior numbers and
perfect appointments with the way-worn visages and rude attire of
their handful of enemies! It was with some satisfaction, therefore,
that the general beheld his dusky allies from Chinantla, two
thousand in number, arrive upon the field. They were a fine athletic
set of men; and, as they advanced in a sort of promiscuous order, so
to speak, with their gay banners of feather-work, and their lances
tipped with itztli and copper, glistering in the morning sun, they had
something of an air of military discipline. They came too late for the
action, indeed, but Cortes was not sorry to exhibit to his new
followers the extent of his resources in the country. As he had now no
occasion for his Indian allies, after a courteous reception and a
liberal recompense, he dismissed them to their homes.
He then used his utmost endeavours to allay the discontent of
the troops. He addressed them in his most soft and insinuating
tones, and was by no means frugal of his promises. He suited the
action to the word. There were few of them but had lost their
accoutrements, or their baggage, or horses taken and appropriated by
the victors. This last article was in great request among the
latter, and many a soldier, weary with the long marches hitherto
made on foot, had provided himself, as he imagined, with a much more
comfortable as well as creditable conveyance for the rest of the
campaign. The general now commanded everything to be restored. "They
were embarked in the same cause," he said, "and should share with
one another equally." He went still further; and distributed among the
soldiers of Narvaez a quantity of gold and other precious
commodities gathered from the neighbouring tribes, or found in his
rival's quarters.
These proceedings, however politic in reference to his new
followers, gave great disgust to his old. "Our commander," they cried,
"has forsaken his friends for his foes. We stood by him in his hour of
distress, and are rewarded with blows and wounds, while the spoil goes
to our enemies!" The indignant soldiery commissioned the priest Olmedo
and Alonso de Avila to lay their complaints before Cortes. The
ambassadors stated them without reserve, comparing their commander's
conduct to the ungrateful proceeding of Alexander, who, when he gained
a victory, usually gave away more to his enemies than to the troops
who enabled him to beat them. Cortes was greatly perplexed. Victorious
or defeated, his path seemed equally beset with difficulties!
He endeavoured to soothe their irritation by pleading the
necessity of the case. "Our new comrades," he said, "are formidable
from their numbers; so much so, that we are even now much more in
their power than they are in ours. Our only security is to make them
not merely confederates, but friends. On any cause of disgust, we
shall have the whole battle to fight over again; and, if they are
united, under a much greater disadvantage than before. I have
considered your interests," he added, "as much as my own. All that I
have is yours. But why should there be any ground for discontent, when
the whole country, with its riches, is before us? And our augmented
strength must henceforth secure the undisturbed control of it!"
But Cortes did not rely wholly on argument for the restoration
of tranquillity. He knew this to be incompatible with inaction; and be
made arrangements to divide his forces at once, and to employ them
on distant services. He selected a detachment of two hundred men,
under Diego de Ordaz, whom he ordered to form the settlement before
meditated on the Coatzacualco. A like number was sent with Velasquez
de Leon, to secure the province of Panuco, some three degrees to the
north, on the Mexican Gulf. Twenty in each detachment were drafted
from his own veterans.
Two hundred men he despatched to Vera Cruz, with orders to have
the rigging, iron, and everything portable on board of the fleet of
Narvaez, brought on shore, and the vessels completely dismantled. He
appointed a person named Cavallero superintendent of the marine,
with instructions that if any ships hereafter should enter the port,
they should be dismantled in like manner, and their officers
imprisoned on shore.
But while he was thus occupied with new schemes of discovery and
conquest, he received such astounding intelligence from Mexico, as
compelled him to concentrate all his faculties and his forces on
that one point. The city was in a state of insurrection. No sooner had
the struggle with his rival been decided, than Cortes despatched a
courier with the tidings to the capital. In less than a fortnight, the
same messenger returned with letters from Alvarado, conveying the
alarming information that the Mexicans were in arms, and had
vigorously assaulted the Spaniards in their own quarters. The enemy,
he added, had burned the brigantines, by which Cortes had secured
the means of retreat in case of the destruction of the bridges. They
had attempted to force the defences, and had succeeded in partially
undermining them, and they had overwhelmed the garrison with a tempest
of missiles, which had killed several, and wounded a great number. The
letter concluded with beseeching his commander to hasten to their
relief, if he would save them, or keep his hold on the capital.
These tidings were a heavy blow to the general,-the heavier, it
seemed, coming, as they did, in the hour of triumph, when he had
thought to have all his enemies at his feet. There was no room for
hesitation. To lose their footing in the capital, the noblest city
in the Western World, would be to lose the country itself, which
looked up to it as its head. He opened the matter fully to his
soldiers, calling on all who would save their countrymen to follow
him. All declared their readiness to go; showing an alacrity, says
Diaz, which some would have been slow to manifest, had they foreseen
the future.
Cortes now made preparations for instant departure. He
countermanded the orders previously given to Velasquez and Ordaz,
and directed them to join him with their forces at Tlascala. He
recalled the troops from Vera Cruz, leaving only a hundred men in
garrison there, under command of one Rodrigo Rangre: for he could
not spare the services of Sandoval at this crisis. He left his sick
and wounded at Cempoalla, under charge of a small detachment,
directing that they should follow as soon as they were in marching
order. Having completed these arrangements, he set out from Cempoalla,
well supplied with provisions by its hospitable cacique, who
attended him some leagues on his way. The Totonac chief seems to
have had an amiable facility of accommodating himself to the powers
that were in the ascendant.
Nothing worthy of notice occurred during the first part of the
march. The troops everywhere met with a friendly reception from the
peasantry, who readily supplied their wants. Some time before reaching
Tlascala, the route lay through a country thinly settled, and the army
experienced considerable suffering from want of food, and still more
from that of water. Their distress increased to an alarming degree,
as, in the hurry of their march, they travelled with the meridian
sun beating fiercely on their heads. Several faltered by the way, and,
throwing themselves down by the roadside, seemed incapable of
further effort, and almost indifferent to life.
In this extremity, Cortes sent forward a small detachment of horse
to procure provisions in Tlascala, and speedily followed in person. On
arriving, he found abundant supplies already prepared by the
hospitable natives. They were sent back to the troops; the
stragglers were collected one by one; refreshments were
administered; and the army, restored in strength and spirits,
entered the republican capital.
Here they gathered little additional news respecting the events in
Mexico, which a popular rumour attributed to the secret
encouragement and machinations of Montezuma. Cortes was commodiously
lodged in the quarters of Maxixca, one of the four chiefs of the
republic. They readily furnished him with two thousand troops. There
was no want of heartiness, when the war was with their ancient
enemy, the Aztec.
The Spanish commander, on reviewing his forces, after the junction
with his two captains, found that they amounted to about a thousand
foot, and one hundred horse, besides the Tlascalan levies. In the
infantry were nearly a hundred arquebusiers, with as many crossbowmen;
and the part of the army brought over by Narvaez was admirably
equipped. It was inferior, however, to his own veterans in what is
better than any outward appointments-military training, and
familiarity with the peculiar service in which they were engaged.
Leaving these friendly quarters, the Spaniards took a more
northerly route, as more direct than that by which they had before
penetrated into the valley. It was the road to Tezcuco. It still
compelled them to climb the same bold range of the Cordilleras,
which attains its greatest elevation in the two mighty volcans at
whose base they had before travelled. As they descended into the
populous plains, their reception by the natives was very different
from that which they had experienced on the preceding visit. There
were no groups of curious peasantry to be seen gazing at them as
they passed, and offering their simple hospitality. The supplies
they asked were not refused, but granted with an ungracious air,
that showed the blessing of their giver did not accompany them. This
air of reserve became still more marked as the army entered the
suburbs of the ancient capital of the Acolhuas. No one came forth to
greet them, and the population seemed to have dwindled away,-so
many of them were withdrawn to the neighbouring scene of hostilities
at Mexico. Their cold reception was a sensible mortification to the
veterans of Cortes, who, judging from the past, had boasted to their
new comrades of the sensation their presence would excite among the
natives. The cacique of the place, who, as it may be remembered, had
been created through the influence of Cortes, was himself absent.
The general drew an ill omen from all these circumstances, which
even raised an uncomfortable apprehension in his mind respecting the
fate of the garrison in Mexico.
But his doubts were soon dispelled by the arrival of a messenger
in a canoe from that city, whence he had escaped through the
remissness of the enemy, or, perhaps, with their connivance. He
brought despatches from Alvarado, informing his commander that the
Mexicans had for the last fortnight desisted from active
hostilities, and converted their operations into a blockade. The
garrison had suffered greatly, but Alvarado expressed his conviction
that the siege would be raised, and tranquillity restored, on the
approach of his countrymen. Montezuma sent a messenger, also, to the
same effect. At the same time, he exculpated himself from any part
in the late hostilities, which he said had not only been conducted
without his privity, but contrary to his inclination and efforts.
The Spanish general, having halted long enough to refresh his
wearied troops, took up his march along the southern margin of the
lake, which led him over the same causeway by which he had before
entered the capital. It was the day consecrated to St. John the
Baptist, the 24th of June, 1520. But how different was the scene
from that presented on his former entrance! No crowds now lined the
roads, no boats swarmed on the lake, filled with admiring
spectators. A single pirogue might now and then be seen in the
distance, like a spy stealthily watching their movements, and
darting away the moment it had attracted notice. A death-like
stillness brooded over the scene,-a stillness that spoke louder to
the heart than the acclamations of multitudes.
Cortes rode on moodily at the head of his battalions, finding
abundant food for meditation, doubtless, in this change of
circumstances. As if to dispel these gloomy reflections, he ordered
his trumpets to sound, and their clear, shrill notes, borne across the
waters, told the inhabitants of the beleaguered fortress that their
friends were at hand. They were answered by a joyous peal of
artillery, which seemed to give a momentary exhilaration to the
troops, as they quickened their pace, traversed the great drawbridges,
and once more found themselves within the walls of the imperial city.
The appearance of things here was not such as to allay their
apprehensions. In some places they beheld the smaller bridges removed,
intimating too plainly, now that their brigantines were destroyed, how
easy it would be cut off their retreat. The town seemed even more
deserted than Tezcuco. Its once busy and crowded population had
mysteriously vanished. And, as the Spaniards defiled through the empty
streets, the tramp of their horses' feet upon the pavement was
answered by dull and melancholy echoes that fell heavily on their
hearts. With saddened feelings they reached the great gates of the
palace of Axayacatl. The gates were thrown open, and Cortes and his
veterans, rushing in, were cordially embraced by their companions in
arms, while both parties soon forgot the present in the interesting
recapitulation of the past.
The first inquiries of the general were respecting the origin of
the tumult. The accounts were various. Some imputed it to the desire
of the Mexicans to release their sovereign from confinement; others to
the design of cutting off the garrison while crippled by the absence
of Cortes and their countrymen. All agreed, however, in tracing the
immediate cause to the violence of Alvarado. It was common for the
Aztecs to celebrate an annual festival in May, in honour of their
patron war-god. It was called the "incensing of Huitzilopochtli,"
and was commemorated by sacrifice, religious songs, and dances, in
which most of the nobles engaged, for it was one of the great
festivals which displayed the pomp of the Aztec ritual. As it was held
in the court of the teocalli, in the immediate neighbourhood of the
Spanish quarters, and as a part of the temple itself was reserved
for a Christian chapel, the caciques asked permission of Alvarado to
perform their rites there. They requested also to be allowed the
presence of Montezuma. This latter petition Alvarado declined, in
obedience to the injunctions of Cortes; but acquiesced in the
former, on condition that the Aztecs should celebrate no human
sacrifices, and should come without weapons.
They assembled accordingly on the day appointed, to the number
of six hundred, at the smallest computation. They were dressed in
their most magnificent gala costumes, with their graceful mantles of
feather-work, sprinkled with precious stones, and their necks, arms
and legs ornamented with collars and bracelets of gold. They had
that love of gaudy splendour which belongs to semi-civilised
nations, and on these occasions displayed all the pomp and profusion
of their barbaric wardrobes.
Alvarado and his soldiers attended as spectators, some of them
taking their station at the gates, as if by chance, and others
mingling in the crowd. They were all armed, a circumstance which, as
it was usual, excited no attention. The Aztecs were soon engrossed
by the exciting movement of the dance, accompanied by their
religious chant, and wild, discordant minstrelsy. While thus occupied,
Alvarado and his men, at a concerted signal, rushed with drawn
swords on their victims. Unprotected by armour or weapons of any kind,
they were hewn down without resistance by their assailants, who, in
their bloody work, says a contemporary, showed no touch of pity or
compunction. Some fled to the gates, but were caught on the long pikes
of the soldiers. Others, who attempted to scale the Coatepantli, or
Wall of Serpents, as it was called, which surrounded the area,
shared the like fate, or were cut to pieces, or shot by the ruthless
soldiery. The pavement, says a writer of the age, ran with streams
of blood, like water in a heavy shower. Not an Aztec of all that gay
company was left alive! It was repeating the dreadful scene of
Cholula, with the disgraceful addition, that the Spaniards, not
content with slaughtering their victims, rifled them of the precious
ornaments on their persons! On this sad day fell the flower of the
Aztec nobility. Not a family of note but had mourning and desolation
brought within its walls; and many a doleful ballad, rehearsing the
tragic incidents of the story, and adapted to the plaintive national
airs, continued to be chanted by the natives long after the
subjugation of the country.
Various explanations have been given of this atrocious deed; but
few historians have been content to admit that of Alvarado himself.
According to this, intelligence had been obtained through his spies-some of them Mexicans-of an intended rising of the Indians. The
celebration of this festival was fixed on as the period for its
execution, when the caciques would be met together, and would easily
rouse the people to support them. Alvarado, advised of all this, had
forbidden them to wear arms at their meeting. While affecting to
comply, they had secreted their weapons in the neighbouring
arsenals, whence they could readily withdraw them. But his own blow,
by anticipating theirs, defeated the design, and, as he confidently
hoped, would deter the Aztecs from a similar attempt in future.
Such is the account of the matter given by Alvarado. But, if true,
why did he not verify his assertion by exposing the arms thus
secreted? Why did he not vindicate his conduct in the eyes of the
Mexicans generally, by publicly avowing the treason of the nobles,
as was done by Cortes at Cholula? The whole looks much like an apology
devised after the commission of the deed, to cover up its atrocity.
Some contemporaries assign a very different motive for the
massacre, which, according to them, originated in the cupidity of
the Conquerors, as shown by their plundering the bodies of their
victims. Bernal Diaz, who, though not present, had conversed
familiarly with those who were, vindicates them from the charge of
this unworthy motive. According to him, Alvarado struck the blow in
order to intimidate the Aztecs from any insurrectionary movement.
But whether he had reason to apprehend such, or even affected to do so
before the massacre, the old chronicler does not inform us.
On reflection, it seems scarcely possible that so foul a deed, and
one involving so much hazard to the Spaniards themselves, should
have been perpetrated from the mere desire of getting possession of
the baubles worn on the persons of the natives. It is more likely this
was an after-thought, suggested to the rapacious soldiery by the
display of the spoil before them. It is not improbable that Alvarado
may have gathered rumours of a conspiracy among the nobles,-rumours, perhaps, derived through the Tlascalans, their inveterate
foes, and for that reason very little deserving of credit. He proposed
to defeat it by imitating the example of his commander at Cholula. But
he omitted to imitate his leader in taking precautions against the
subsequent rising of the populace. And he grievously miscalculated,
when he confounded the bold and warlike Aztec with the effeminate
Cholulan.
No sooner was the butchery accomplished, than the tidings spread
like wildfire through the capital. Men could scarcely credit their
senses. All they had hitherto suffered, the desecration of their
temples, the imprisonment of their sovereign, the insults heaped on
his person, all were forgotten in this one act. Every feeling of
long smothered hostility and rancour now burst forth in the cry for
vengeance. Every former sentiment of superstitious dread was merged in
that of inextinguishable hatred. It required no effort of the priests-though this was not wanting-to fan these passions into a blaze. The
city rose in arms to a man; and on the following dawn, almost before
the Spaniards could secure themselves in their defences, they were
assaulted with desperate fury. Some of the assailants attempted to
scale the walls; others succeeded in partially undermining and in
setting fire to the works. Whether they would have succeeded in
carrying the place by storm is doubtful. But, at the prayers of the
garrison, Montezuma himself interfered, and mounting the battlements
addressed the populace, whose fury he endeavoured to mitigate by
urging considerations for his own safety. They respected their monarch
so far as to desist from further attempts to storm the fortress, but
changed their operations into a regular blockade. They threw up
works around the palace to prevent the egress of the Spaniards. They
suspended the tianguez, or market, to preclude the possibility of
their enemy's obtaining supplies; and they then quietly sat down, with
feelings of sullen desperation, waiting for the hour when famine
should throw their victims into their hands.
The condition of the besieged, meanwhile, was sufficiently
distressing. Their magazines of provisions, it is true, were not
exhausted; but they suffered greatly from want of water, which, within
the inclosure, was exceedingly brackish, for the soil was saturated
with the salt of the surrounding element. In this extremity, they
discovered, it is said, a spring of fresh water in the area. Such
springs were known in some other parts of the city; but, discovered
first under these circumstances, it was accounted as nothing less than
a miracle. Still they suffered much from their past encounters.
Seven Spaniards, and many Tlascalans, had fallen, and there was
scarcely one of either nation who had not received several wounds.
In this situation, far from their own countrymen, without
expectation of succour from abroad, they seemed to have no alternative
before them, but a lingering death by famine, or one more dreadful
on the altar of sacrifice. From this gloomy state they were relieved
by the coming of their comrades.
Cortes calmly listened to the explanation made by Alvarado. But,
before it was ended, the conviction must have forced itself on his
mind, that he had made a wrong selection for this important post.
Yet the mistake was natural. Alvarado was a cavalier of high family,
gallant and chivalrous, and his warm personal friend. He had talents
for action, was possessed of firmness and intrepidity, while his frank
and dazzling manners made the Tonatiuh an especial favourite with
the Mexicans. But, underneath this showy exterior, the future
conqueror of Guatemala concealed a heart rash, rapacious, and cruel.
He was altogether destitute of that moderation, which, in the delicate
position he occupied, was a quality of more worth than all the rest.
When Alvarado had concluded his answers to the several
interrogatories of Cortes, the brow of the latter darkened, as he said
to his lieutenant, "You have done badly. You have been false to your
trust. Your conduct has been that of a madman!" And, turning
abruptly on his heel, he left him in undisguised displeasure.
Yet this was not a time to break with one so popular, and in
many respects so important to him, as this captain, much less to
inflict on him the punishment he merited. The Spaniards were like
mariners labouring in a heavy tempest, whose bark nothing but the
dexterity of the pilot, and the hearty co-operation of the crew, can
save from foundering. Dissensions at such a moment must be fatal.
Cortes, it is true, felt strong in his present resources. He now found
himself at the head of a force which could scarcely amount to less
than twelve hundred and fifty Spaniards, and eight thousand native
warriors, principally Tlascalans. But, though relying on this to
overawe resistance, the very augmentations of numbers increased the
difficulty of subsistence. Discontented with himself, disgusted with
his officer, and embarrassed by the disastrous consequences in which
Alvarado's intemperance had involved him, he became irritable, and
indulged in a petulance by no means common; for, though a man of
lively passions by nature, he held them habitually under control.
On the day that Cortes arrived, Montezuma had left his own
quarters to welcome him. But the Spanish commander, distrusting, as it
would seem, however unreasonably, his good faith, received him so
coldly that the Indian monarch withdrew, displeased and dejected, to
his apartment. As the Mexican populace made no show of submission, and
brought no supplies to the army, the general's ill-humour with the
emperor continued. When, therefore, Montezuma sent some of the
nobles to ask an interview with Cortes, the latter, turning to his own
officers, haughtily exclaimed, "What have I to do with this dog of a
king, who suffers us to starve before his eyes!"
His captains, among whom were Olid, de Avila, and Velasquez de
Leon, endeavoured to mitigate his anger, reminding him, in
respectful terms, that, had it not been for the emperor, the
garrison might even now have been overwhelmed by the enemy. This
remonstrance only chafed him the more. "Did not the dog," he asked,
repeating the opprobrious epithet, "betray us in his communications
with Narvaez? And does he not now suffer his markets to be closed, and
leave us to die of famine?" Then, turning fiercely to the Mexicans
he said, "Go, tell your master and his people to open the markets,
or we will do it for them, at their cost!" The chiefs, who had
gathered the import of his previous taunt on their sovereign, from his
tone and gesture, or perhaps from some comprehensions of his language,
left his presence swelling with resentment; and, in communicating
his message, took care it should lose none of its effect.
Shortly after, Cortes, at the suggestion, it is said, of
Montezuma, released his brother Cuitlahua, lord of Iztapalapan, who,
it will be remembered, had been seized on suspicion of co-operating
with the chief of Tezcuco in his meditated revolt. It was thought he
might be of service in allaying the present tumult, and bringing
the. populace to a better state of feeling. But he returned no more to
the fortress. He was a bold, ambitious prince, and the injuries he had
received from the Spaniards rankled deep in his bosom. He was
presumptive heir to the crown, which, by the Aztec laws of succession,
descended much more frequently in a collateral than in a direct
line. The people welcomed him as the representative of their reign,
and chose him to supply the place of Montezuma during his captivity.
Cuitlahua willingly accepted the post of honour and of danger. He
was an experienced warrior, and exerted himself to reorganise the
disorderly levies, and to arrange a more efficient plan of operations.
The effect was soon visible.
Cortes, meanwhile, had so little doubt of his ability to overawe
the insurgents, that he wrote to that effect to the garrison of
Villa Rica, by the same despatches in which he informed them of his
safe arrival in the capital. But scarcely had his messenger been
gone half an hour, when he returned breathless with terror, and
covered with wounds.
"The city," he said, "was all in arms! The drawbridges were
raised, and the enemy would soon be upon them!" He spoke truth. It was
not long before a hoarse, sullen sound became audible, like that of
the roaring of distant waters. It grew louder and louder; till, from
the parapet surrounding the inclosure, the great avenues which led
to it might be seen dark with the masses of warriors, who came rolling
on in a confused tide towards the fortress. At the same time the
terraces and azoteas or flat roofs, in the neighbourhood, were
thronged with combatants brandishing their missiles, who seemed to
have risen up as if by magic! It was a spectacle to appal the
stoutest.-But the dark storm to which it was the prelude, and which
gathered deeper and deeper round the Spaniards during the remainder of
their residence in the capital, must form the subject of a separate
book.