About Mexico - Past and Present/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
CEMPOALLA TO TLASCALA.
THE road to Cempoalla lay through luxuriant groves of cocoa and palm trees, and then amid beautiful meadows alive with butterflies and birds. Flowering vines in a gay tangle clambered aloft, festooning the trees and loading the air with palm and spicery. As the Spaniards passed they saw on the face of nature one of those cruel blots of war—the blackened ruins of a little hamlet which had just been burned. Cempoalla was only twelve miles from their new campground, and was a city surrounded by well-kept gardens and orchards.
In one of the suburban villages through which they passed the Spaniards were met by twenty of the leading men of Cempoalla, who came bringing refreshments from their chief. Here the road was lined with crowds eager to see the strange creatures who seemed to these simple folk to have dropped among them from the moon. The men wore large mantles; the women were modestly dressed in long white or parti-colored cotton robes reaching from neck to ankle. They brought wreaths of wild flowers to hang about the horses' necks and to strew in the path, as was their custom when welcoming home their own braves. Both men and women were very much bejeweled. Necks and noses, ears, lips, arms and ankles, had that profusion of glittering ornaments which rude races so much admire.
As the soldiers made their way through the crowd some horsemen riding in advance came dashing back with news. They had been near enough to look within the walls of Cempoalla, and saw there houses of burnished silver most dazzling to behold. In the glowing sunlight the white stucco of which they were built gave the buildings a glistening appearance which the excited cavaliers thought was due to a plating of some precious metal. On a nearer view of the place they compared it to Seville, one of the most beautiful cities of Spain, and named it thus without further delay.
An immense white building with loopholed towers stood in the market-place, and in this the army was invited to take up its quarters. Here the hospitable dames of Cempoalla made ready a good supper, which they spread on the floor for their guests. Clean mats for bedding were brought in abundance, and with these attentions the Indians politely withdrew, leaving their visitors to dispose of themselves for the night. After setting a strong guard the tired soldiers lay down to rest surrounded by what they estimated was a population of sixty thousand Indians.
The next morning the chief came to pay a visit of state to the new comers. He was led into the presence of Cortez, supported under each arm by a chief and followed by a company of servitors bringing rich presents. Cortez returned the visit in due form the next day. The conversation soon turned upon the late political events in Mexico. The chief complained bitterly of Aztec oppression and eagerly sought an alliance with the Spaniards. Nothing since he left Cuba had given Cortez so much 
a missionary errand; he wished to set up among the people the true religion and to abolish human sacrifice. On his way to Cempoalla he had passed a temple where bloody human offerings had just been made, and the indignation of the soldiers over the dreadful sight thus presented was still burning; and had the general followed their advice, it is probable that these priestly butchers of the tribe would never have taken knife in hand again.
After enjoying Cempoallan hospitality for a few days the army took up the line of march to their new encampment, near the site of their proposed city. This was on the seacoast, only twelve miles from Cempoalla and in the country of the Totonaes. The whole tribe, it appeared, were as ready as the people of Cempoalla to throw off the hated Aztec yoke. Strengthened by the presence of their powerful visitors, they refused to pay the taxes then due. Still further to curry favor with the Spaniards, they went vigorously to work to help build the new town. Stone, lime and timber were to be brought to its site, and hands were needed to rear the walls of what must have been, when the cannon were mounted, an almost impregnable fortress.
Meanwhile, Teuthile's late despatches had made a great stir in the City of Mexico. Every movement in the Spanish camp had been stealthily noted long after Indians had been ordered to leave the neighborhood. Reporters lurking in the woods had pictured the fast-increasing graves on the beach, the vessels departing for the north with part of the forces, and, what was most of all to be dreaded, that visit from their enemies the fierce Totonaes. All this, with the march along the shore toward the Totonacan capital, had been pictured faithfully and sent by express to Mexico. How to break this league between their tributary tribe and the Spaniards was the question brought before the perplexed council. Supposing that, like Indians, these people from over the sea would be satisfied with tribute and would go away to leave them to manage their own affairs, they resolved to try what effect gold and other costly presents would have upon them. Two of Montezuma's nephews, with a brilliant array of other chiefs, now set out for the camp to spread before Cortez another magnificent presentation of gifts.
About the same time all Cempoalla was thrown into a flutter of excitement by a demand from the council of Mexico for twenty young men and maidens to be sacrificed on the high altar there; this was intended as a punishment for daring to entertain the strangers without permission. Cortez saw his opportunity; he ordered his new allies to seize these messengers and put them in prison. The poor Cempoallans shrank in terror, not daring to offer such an affront to their haughty Aztec masters. On the other hand were these mysterious strangers, who might crush them while professing to shield them from their oppressors. But Cortez was firm. Would they break with their Aztec masters or with him? Of the two evils, the puzzled Cempoallans chose what seemed to be the least: they resolved to throw themselves on the mercy of a Spanish rather than a Mexican conqueror, and the surprised tax-collectors were soon thrust behind prison-bars. But they did not gnash their teeth with rage there very long, for Cortez, unknown to his allies, contrived to set them free that night, got them on board of one of his ships, and took them to a point where they could land with safety and speed back to Mexico to tell their story to the council, while, at the same time, he made a bid for Aztec friendship by thus delivering them. While the Totonacs were thus dependent on Cortez to shield them from Aztec vengeance, Cortez determined to bring them into the true Church; he therefore took an opportunity to pay them a religious visit. He first tried by smooth words to persuade them to give up their idols. Finding that these would not avail, he impatiently ordered fifty of his men to mount the steps of the temple and demolish the idols with their pikes. The angry chief stormed and threatened that if this order was carried out it would call down on their heads the vengeance of every god in Mexico. But Cortez coolly reminded him that the Aztecs would be glad to become allies of the Spaniards, and that if the Totonacs were not very civil to him he would leave them to settle the old score with their former masters without any help from him. This threat silenced the poor chief, but the people were furious. The priests called loudly on them to arise and defend their gods. They ran about in the crowd with wildly-streaming hair, beating their breasts in rage and despair.
As usual, Cortez improved this circumstance. He now ordered his men to seize the chief and the leading priests, and, taking them apart, he gave them to understand that if they did not quiet the mob the city would soon be too hot to hold them. In order to save their own lives, they were thus obliged to check the excited multitude, and actually to aid the soldiers to pile up the wooden gods, with all their finery, and to burn them in the public square. With what groans and lamentations this was done can better be imagined than described. The soldiers next took the temple in hand. Walls and floor, foul from disgusting worship, were soon cleansed and some bright new images set up in the empty shrine. Father Olmedo then gave the people a lesson in the worship due the idols of Rome just introduced to them; he ordered the priests to take off their black tunics and put on white, and, with candles in their hands, to join in the solemn procession which wound up the temple-stairs, never again to echo the footsteps of those who carried up human victims to die on that high altar. One thing at least was effected: the natives saw that the gods before whom they had trembled were unable to punish those who had thus insulted them, or to defend their worshipers. While this work of converting the natives was going on, the revenue-officers, who had found their way back to Mexico after their escape from imprisonment in Cempoalla, had created quite a change in public sentiment by their report to Montezuma and his council. After all, the strangers were their friends, and the "water-houses," as they called the ships, were blessings in disguise. Full of gratitude and admiration, they were now sent back to s their deliverers loaded with presents. The poor Totonacs, unable to understand this situation, were more than ever convinced that Cortez was not a human being, but the Fair God himself, and that he who could so transform the Aztecs was the only one who could protect them.
On the 16th of August, Cortez began his march toward Mexico. He had with him five hundred of his own countrymen, fifteen horses and six field-pieces, with several of the principal men of Cempoalla as hostages for the good behavior of the city in his absence. With the gifts from Mexico, many baggage-porters were needed, and these were furnished by the Totonacan allies. The rest of the army were left as a garrison in the new town, then little more than a fortress. One of the soldiers, an old and devout man, was charged with the duty of training the people in the religion they had so unwillingly adopted. Part of his business was to teach them how to make wax candles. The woods in the neighborhood of Cempoalla were rich in wild fruits and berries, one species of the latter furnishing wax in large quantities. Out of this tapers were made, to burn before the Virgin and Child. The industrious natives were quite pleased with this new employment, and worked diligently to provide the temple with lights far exceeding in brilliancy and steadiness those of the fireflies with which they lighted their own houses. The new camp was now a regularly-organized colony of Spain. Cortez was chosen mayor, with his particular friends as subordinates—a precaution very necessary among these restless adventurers. The name of the city was very long and very religious, according to the fashion of the times. It was Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz—"the Rich City of the True Cross."
Past experience had taught Cortez that either great difficulties or a life of idleness would make his men homesick. He saw that hardship and delay were inevitable, and feared that the sight of ships riding at anchor, ready to carry them back to Cuba, would be a temptation to them to desert; he therefore determined to cut off this opportunity by sinking all these vessels before he left the coast. He induced those who inspected the vessels to pronounce them worm-eaten and unseaworthy. The sails, the iron and the cordage were carefully taken out of them, and then a hole cut in the bottom of each ship sent it to the bottom, where no deserter could reach it.
The chief of Cempoalla sent his ally abundance of provisions for the journey, with two hundred porters and four hundred warriors. It was the rainy season, and all nature was rioting in a luxuriance of growth known only in this high tide of a tropical year. Field and forest were teeming with life. Where the latter was threaded by footpaths a tangled undergrowth disputed every inch of a way which was never wide enough for two travelers to walk abreast. Passing from these forests into the cultivated fields which surrounded every hamlet, the eye was gladdened by corn of such magnificent growth as completely to overtop the low-roofed houses in which most of the people of the lowlands lived. The banana, the plaintain, manioc, cocoa, vanilla and other tropical fruits made this a home of plenty. The white-walled villages nestling in these fertile plains were often unseen by the traveler until he could look down upon them from some breezy terrace on the mountains.
The road took the army over some of the wildest passes. The steep side up which they clambered was here and there cleft by deep fissures; these often formed the bed of a torrent hurrying onward to the Gulf. Where the path crossed these ravines a log or a leaning tree bridged the yawning chasm, or a single arch spanned it at some dizzy height. Up, up, up these frightful steeps the long lines of men and horses wound, often in paths wide enough for only a single passenger. From different points upon the way their eyes took in some of the grandest landscapes in the world. Sunny plains stretched far below, sloping gently toward the Gulf. Here and there the white walls and the towers of some pueblo gleamed through the deep green of surrounding orchards or crowned a hilltop. It is not probable that the country was densely populated. There were no scattered farmhouses, the home of a single family, as with us, but hamlets where a number gathered for mutual protection.
Beyond this lookout place the army passed into a region of intense cold—that frigid zone which enwraps the world everywhere, if one only climbs sky ward far enough to find it. Here the vapors from the Gulf, wafted westward against the frozen mountains, were condensed, and fell ill a pitiless storm of sleet in which the troops perished. The thick garments of quilted cotton with which many had provided themselves at Trinidad were as great a protection against the icy blast as against the Mexican arrows which they were intended to ward off, but the poor half-clad Cuban porters died by scores along the way. The soldiers, benumbed with cold and suffering with hunger and thirst, were three days dragging their heavy cannon over these mountains.
After leaving this dreary region the Spaniards came to a high valley on the mountain-side, where they found houses of hewn stone larger and better built than any they had yet seen in the country. Elegantly furnished apartments were put at their disposal by a chief whom Cortez styles "lord of the valley." When this man was asked if he was a subject of Montezuma, he drew himself up proudly and asked, "Who is not a subject of Montezuma?" as though he would say, "Is he not master of the world?" Cortez insisted that His Lordship should do homage to the king of Spain, demanding some gold as a token of his obedience.
This ceremony was easily understood by the Aztec. He consented to send to Montezuma this challenge from the white man, adding,
"If Montezuma commands me to do so, I will give you not gold only, but myself and all that I possess."
The Tlascalans.
Next to the Aztecs, no tribe makes such a figure in Mexican history as the Tlascalans, a race of bold and hardy mountaineers who inhabited elevated valleys between Mexico and the Gulf. Cortez had taken a road which led him near this region. He was advised by the Totonacs to secure the good-will of this tribe, and, if possible, to enter into league with it. For generations it had been at war with the Aztecs, and never once had it been forced to pay tribute to its proud neighbors around Lake Tezcuco, although it had been completely hemmed in by them, so that Tlascala had become a little world by itself, without a single gate through which it dared to procure the products of the Mexican valley.
Cortez, who had ventured into the interior with but a handful of his own men, could not leave such a nest of warriors between him and his base of supplies on the coast. On the other hand, they might be made allies in case of war with the Aztecs. A visit to Tlascala was therefore resolved upon.
In the march to Tlascala the army came to a high battlemented wall twenty feet thick, nine feet high and six miles long, which, reaching from one mountain to another, defended one of the approaches to that country. This frontier wall was semicircular in one place and overlapped itself, making an indirect and easily-defended entrance. The stones of which this fortification was formed were so firmly cemented together that years afterward, when the Spaniards wished to level it to the ground—as they did everything that could keep alive a spark of national pride among the natives—it was found almost impossible to pry them asunder; so that the remains of these celebrated walls are to be seen to-day.
When the Spanish army marched to Tlascala, in August, 1519, this wall had not a single defender. A little way farther on the other side some Indians showed themselves, and fled without any notice of the signals of peace which Cortez caused to be made. As it afterward proved, these were scouts of a force of a thousand men, who came with loud cries of defiance and brandishing their weapons. They soon fled, and the Spaniards followed, supposing that these, like the other Indians, were terrified with the guns and the horses. This was their first experience with a Mexican ambuscade. They soon found themselves in a deep and narrow valley, surrounded by a surging mass of warriors, many of them clad in little more than paint and feathers, and all yelling as only savages can yell.
Cortez, with forty archers, thirteen horsemen and six cannon, pressed through this raging sea of enemies till he reached an open plain, where he made a stand and fought all day. Much injury was done to the savages, but the Spaniards did not lose a man. This would seem incredible but for the fact that in all their warfare these people risked everything in order to secure prisoners for sacrifice and to carry off their own slain and wounded from the battlefield. A dozen men would thus throw away their own lives in order to gain a single captive, and by the time those who thus fell were rescued it is easy to see that many more lives were forfeited.
In one of these Tlascalan battles two of the horses were killed. This fact was carefully concealed from the enemy, who, until they saw one of these creatures dead, supposed they were immortal like the gods. After their discovery of the truth one of these animals was cut up, and the pieces were sent to all the Tlascalans as an inspiriting summons to come out and conquer their common foe.
The next day, having received reinforcements from his camp, Cortez sallied forth at daybreak to make an attack on the neighboring villages, five or six of which he burned, took four hundred prisoners, men and women, and fought his way back to his camp without loss.
An after-breakfast battle that same day was still more remarkable as described in Spanish history. An immense army of Indians—estimated at one hundred and forty-nine thousand—attacked the temple where the Spaniards were entrenched, forced an entrance and had a hand-to-hand fight with the white men. There is no doubt that the Spaniards would have been beaten had not the Tlascalan leaders disagreed among themselves. Seven days of such hard fighting was necessary to subdue the Tlascalans.
After the retreat of the natives they sent fifty of their braves with white badges to carry provisions to the Spanish camp in token of submission. It was noticed that these messengers were looking carefully about them, as if they were examining the defences of the place. The Cempoallans, understanding Indian tactics, warned Cortez, for they were sure these men were spies. A close cross-examination followed. One after another confessed at last that this visit to the camp was only part of a plot to surprise the Spaniards that night. One of their priests had said that in no other way could they get rid of these white men. They were, no doubt, children of the sun, and could be reached only when he had withdrawn his beams. The whole party had their hands cut off, and, thus cruelly maimed, they were sent back to Tlascala with the message that by night or by day, whenever they came, they would find the Spaniards ready to give them battle.
This punishment—so much worse than death to the Tlascalan warrior—struck terror into all hearts. Long before the bleeding stumps could be shown to the council of Tlascala, Cortez was out upon another raid among the Indian villages. Supposing their plot would be successful, the warriors were hiding in the woods and thickets around the camp, and as soon as it was dark they began to gather about it in crowds. The Spaniards sallied forth and so completely surprised them that they all fled. After a little rest the Spaniards again began their work of devastation, attacking every town around the hill on which they were encamped. In view of his success in this cowardly warfare, Cortez congratulated himself that God had interfered in his behalf, enabling him to destroy ten towns and many people.
During the hottest part of this week of battles in Tlascala another party of Aztecs came to the Spanish camp to make a formal offer of obedience to the great chief in Spain. It was not their intention to give up their customs, their government or their religion; that would mean the death of their tribe. The council had empowered them to make arrangements with Cortez as to the amount and the kind of tribute they should give. This point settled, they expected the satisfied strangers to leave them in peace.
The desire which Cortez continued to express to visit the country of the envoys perplexed them. Friends with the white man they could not be, but they would give of their treasures to avoid fighting. If they failed to keep their promise, then would it not be time enough to come with an army to punish them? Montezuma's message was very plain. "Our country is barren and poor" he said. "You will have to climb rugged mountains and brave many dangers in order to visit us. Do not come."
These messengers remained in the Spanish camp during a great part of the struggle with the Tlascalans and saw what these white men were capable of doing, and used their utmost endeavors to hinder the friendship which afterward sprang up between them and the Tlascalans. This want of harmony among the tribes suited Cortez exactly.
But, with all this success, the Spaniards felt themselves to be in a desperate situation. Many of the men were ready to mutiny and leave Cortez to his fate. They were far from home, in the heart of an enemy's country; and should they succeed in fighting their way back to their base of supplies at Villa Rica, they had no vessels to take them back to their own
country in case the garrison had been overpowered by their treacherous neighbors, or, what was quite as possible, had given up because so weary of the ambitious schemes of their leader, whom many of them considered little better than a madman. But for a timely visit from the Tlascalan chief Xicotencatl, it is likely that Cortez might soon have found himself without an army. This young man came one morning in a cloud of incense, touching the ground and lifting his hand to his head. It was easy to see that his proud spirit was still unbroken, although he acknowledged that his people for the first time submitted to a foe. From fear of treachery, the invitation he brought to the Spaniards to visit Tlascala was not accepted for a week. Other chiefs row came to the camp, and their overtures seemed so sincere that the army finally took the line of march for Tlascala.
This city was eighteen miles distant from the camp at Tzompach. The country abounded with high, level valleys, which at this time were fertile and well cultivated. As the Spaniards approached the city they noted with pleasure and admiration the beautiful white houses among the trees, the well-tilled land, the luxuriant harvests and the signs of thrift everywhere. It is said that the city of Tlascala had a market where thirty thousand people bought and sold every day. It was well supplied with meat, fish, fruits and vegetables, and bath-houses and barber-shops and a well-regulated police-force were found there.
The blind old chief, Xicotencatl the elder, anxious to know what the white man was like, felt the face of Cortez and fingered his beard and his armor, finally accepting him as a friend. Soon after this the poor old man embraced the Christian faith, in token of which a great cross was erected by his orders in the market-place of Tlascala. Scenes similar to those at Cempoalla would have been enacted here but for the protestations of Father Olmedo, who succeeded—in this instance, at least—in persuading Cortez to use sermons rather than swords in converting the people.
It was in Tlascala that Cortez first heard of the longcherished hope of Feathered Serpent's return. These hunted and oppressed people were waiting for deliverance when the white men came, but, not being prepared as the Aztecs were, their sudden appearance on their frontier roused all the warlike instincts of the tribe.
The question of the white man's might once settled, the Tlascalans at once acknowledged his right to rule over them, and from that time Cortez was very generally accepted as one who had come in fulfillment of prophecy. The democratic form of government universal throughout Mexico was so evident here that Tlascala was never called anything but a republic.
