About Mexico - Past and Present/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII.
THE AZTECS REBEL.
THE young Tezcucan chief, Cacama, so keenly resented the degrading position occupied by the "chief-of-men" that he withdrew to his home in Tezcuco and refused to attend the meetings which the peace party in the council held in the Spanish quarters. By Montezuma's advice, it was resolved to see what could be done to bring the young man to terms, as it was found that he was heading a conspiracy to unseat Montezuma. Tezcuco was eighteen miles from Mexico by canoe, and thirty by the lake-shore path. Cacama's home was built partly on land and partly on piles in the water, and so high above the water that the canoes could pass under and come out on the other side.
It was arranged that the visit of the council should be unexpected. They crossed the lake under cover of darkness, and, gliding under the dwelling, the whole party made an entrance by an unguarded door and surrounded the young chief before he realized his danger. He was quietly bound hand and foot and lifted into a canoe, which as quietly paddled across the lake to Mexico. On landing, Cacama was put into a litter and carried to Cortez. Other arrests were soon made, and a successor chosen by the council was installed in Cacama's place.
Montezuma's weak behavior during all this showed that he and his council recognized Cortez as a master. Montezuma was soon induced to acknowledge himself a vassal of the king of Spain, and to express his desire in a public meeting of the chiefs that all his people should yield to that monarch the obedience which they
Had once paid to him. "This," wrote Cortez, "he said weeping, with more tears than it became a man to exhibit." All the chiefs present took the oath of allegiance to the Crown of Spain. A Spanish notary wrote an account of the whole transaction, which account was sent to Charles V. This unconditional surrender of these proud warriors was in obedience to what they believed to be a decree of the gods—those mysterious beings whose will was the sum of Aztec law. The same deep-rooted superstition led them to make a further sacrifice: the tribute once paid to the council was now to flow into the Spanish treasury. Tax-gatherers were sent out in all directions, coming back in due time laden with treasures, amounting to more than six millions of dollars in gold, drawn from every place subject to Aztec rule. The secret treasure-vault into which the Spanish carpenter had blundered soon after the arrival of the invaders was now thrown open, and its contents were divided. After one-fifth had been carefully set apart for the king, the remainder was distributed among the soldiers. But the more they had, the more they wanted. Murmurs of dissatisfaction had been heard before; now they became loud and deep. Suspicions were expressed that Cortez and his leading officers were getting more than their share of the spoils. It is probable that the war of words would soon have ended in bloodshed had not trouble arisen in a new quarter.
The army had now been six months in Mexico. The Christian worship, which they at all times upheld, had been so far performed in their own quarters. But the great teocallis near by was a perpetual reminder that, while they had succeeded in treading under foot the government of Mexico, heathenism was still flourishing. Possibly human sacrifices were not offered on the high altar—Cortez declares that he put an end to these shortly after he came—but the hideous rites to which the Aztecs were devoted no doubt went on as before in other parts of the city. Soon after Montezuma's formal surrender he was informed that the Christians would no longer hold their worship in secret; they must have the use of the great temple. They wished to erect a cross on its lofty top and in the sight of all Mexico offer adoration to the one true God. Cortez writes that he then went with his men to the great temple, pulled down the idols by force, cleansed the foul and blood-stained shrines and mounted the saints therein, administering all the while a solemn lecture on the sin of idolatry. To do Cortez justice, however, he made quite a scriptural statement of his belief when Montezuma threatened him with the vengeance of his gods: "I answered through the interpreters that they were deceived in expecting any favor from idols, the work of their own hands, and that they must learn that there was but one God, the universal Lord of all, who had created the heavens and the earth, and all things else. He was without beginning and immortal, and they were bound to adore and believe him and no other creature or thing. I said everything I could to divert them from their idolatries and draw them to a knowledge of our Lord."
This last sacrifice of principle was too much for the Aztecs, who had borne all other innovations with comparative patience. Even the meek-spirited Montezuma told Cortez that the people could not be held in check much longer; the white men had better go while they could. Cortez received the chief's suggestion very quietly, replying that he was quite willing to leave the country immediately but for one thing: he could not go without ships, and those in which he came were now at the bottom of the sea. Others must be built, and of course that would take time. Montezuma answered that if this was all that hindered the Spaniards from going he would begin shipbuilding immediately. Montezuma gave orders that a large force of his own men should go to the coast, under the direction of Martin Lopez, a ship-carpenter who accompanied Cortez, cut down trees and proceed to build a sufficient number of ships to take every Spaniard to his own land. He thought that with this prospect before them he might be able to keep the people quiet a while longer; if not, he could not answer for the consequences. Cortez approved of this plan, and the men set out. But the Aztec discontent which made this course necessary caused many gloomy forebodings among the Spanish soldiers. The strictest watch was kept day and night; every man and every horse was ready for battle at a moment's notice.
And now a new trouble arose. Cortez was waiting with deep anxiety for news from Spain. His long letter to the king had never been answered. He had hoped that his glowing descriptions of the new empire he had conquered for his master and the rich treasures he promised would turn the scale in his favor when his quarrel with Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, should come up for settlement. But, so far as he knew, the court had taken no notice of his conquest, and he had reason to fear that delay was caused by a plot in Cuba to supersede or punish him. One messenger after another had been sent to the coast for news without avail; they were keen-eyed Indian reporters who at last brought tidings which thrilled every heart in the Spanish quarters. The despatches to the council pictured a fleet of eighteen vessels, eighty horses, nine hundred men, ten cannon and about a thousand soldiers. They showed, also, the messengers of Cortez imprisoned by these new comers.
Montezuma, who told the news, was much surprised when Cortez received it with every token of joy. The soldiers hurrahed, the cannon thundered out a salute in a way which thoroughly perplexed the Aztec chief. But the fact that the Spaniards were divided among themselves came out in time, in spite of all the efforts which Cortez made to hide it.
Angry at the presumption of Cortez in securing so rich a prize for himself, the Cuban governor had sent this force to take him prisoner and wrest this new empire from his hands. Narvaez, the commander of the fleet, was appointed to capture and supersede him. He landed where Cortez first entered Mexico, and the same Indians came flocking to his camp. It was soon seen that these white men were no friends of the conquering heroes who held Mexico in their iron grip, and the news had been discussed in secret meetings of the Aztec council before the Spanish soldiers who were under the same roof knew anything of it.
Hearing about the garrison at Villa Rica, Narvaez sent a summons to the commander to surrender. The insolent attacks made in the summons on the honor of his general so provoked the trusty Sandoval, who had charge of the fort, that he refused to allow the messenger to finish reading it, whereupon the envoy grew very angry and threatened them all with the gallows. Sandoval coolly remarked that if he insisted on reading the summons he should have an opportunity to do so to Cortez himself, and, turning to some stout Indian porters, ordered them to seize the envoys, bind them securely and carry them like so many packs of merchandise to the Spanish general.
News of this strange party reached Cortez in time for him to give them a proper reception. He sent orders to have them immediately released, set on horseback like true Spanish cavaliers, and brought to the city, not in the guise of enemies, but in that of welcome friends. He kindly apologized for the rudeness of his young captain, smoothed over his quarrel with Narvaez and treated the envoys with such courtesy that the friendship became real and lasting. His efforts to gain the confidence of Narvaez were not so successful; the latter boasted loudly that he would arrest Cortez and put Montezuma again at the head of his people.
News of this threat came to Cortez at a time when one hundred and twenty of his best men were away in the South planting the colony he had planned in more peaceful days; he wrote to them to meet him at Cholula. Then, with seventy soldiers and unencumbered with his cannon, he started for the coast. There were foes without and foes within the little garrison he left behind him, but his greatest fear seemed to be about Montezuma. What course would he take when left to himself? Cortez told the chief he was going to punish a rebel against the king of Spain, and exacted a solemn promise that during his absence the Aztecs should be as obedient to Alvarado, whom he left in command, as they had been to himself. Montezuma's friendly spirit showed itself by an offer of five thousand Aztec soldiers; these were declined with thanks. With the little force at his disposal, Cortez made a rapid march over the mountains to Cholula, where he found friends waiting impatiently to join him. The captain of this colonizing expedition, Velasquez de Leon, was a relative of the Cuban governor. Narvaez had made a great effort to break the friendship between him and Cortez, and his loyalty in such circumstances gave new courage to the anxious general. With a hundred and sixty-six men in all, and that faith in himself which he seems never to have lost, Cortez now pushed on to Tlascala, and from thence down over the shelving mountains to the lowlands where the enemy lay entrenched. There, in a raging storm whose noise drowned every other sound, he surprised Narvaez at Cempoalla, wounded and captured him, and then set himself to the task of winning the hearts of those who had crossed the sea to fight him, and succeeded in turning an army of foes into friends.
After dismantling the vessels in which they came and stowing their sails and rigging at Villa Rica, Cortez was proceeding to secure this conquest on the coast, when startling news came from Mexico. The Aztecs had rebelled. The garrison were in a state of siege; their quarters had been undermined and several of his men had been killed. The soldiers of Narvaez expected, when they came, to go to Mexico to reinstate Montezuma; they were now willing to go with Cortez to help put him down.
The troops which had been sent away on expeditions in the neighborhood were recalled in hot haste, and, leaving his sick and wounded at Cempoalla, Cortez set out. The path chosen was not the one he had traveled before. The same mountains were to be crossed, but he entered the valley near the city of Tezcuco. The country seemed to be deserted by its inhabitants. The dark forests of cypress and pine through which the road sometimes lay could not be more lonely than were some of the hamlets he passed. As the troops descended the mountain they were met by messengers from the beleaguered garrison. Alvarado implored them to hasten to his rescue. Montezuma wrote to say that he had kept his promise faithfully and was not in any way to blame for the rebellion. Both seemed hopeful that quiet would be restored when Cortez returned.
Marching around the southern border of Lake Tezcuco, Cortez approached Mexico by the same causeway over which he rode in such state the autumn before. How changed the scene now! The silence of death brooded over the waters. Scarcely a sign of life was visible anywhere till he reached the quarters where the Spanish sentinel aloft in the tower called out that the commander had come. "They received us," says Cortez, "with as great joy as though we had restored their lives to them, which they already considered as lost."
It seems that Alvarado, the hot-headed young cavalier who had been left in command, had attacked the natives during a month of special religious festivals, and that six hundred of the flower of Aztec warriors had been butchered in cold blood. The Spaniards were accused of plundering the bodies of the slain. Alvarado excused himself to his angry general for this outrage by charging the Aztecs with a plot to surprise the garrison and murder them all. The story may have had its origin with the Tlascalans, who no doubt longed to break the friendship between the Spaniards and their own lifelong enemies, in order that they might themselves have a share in the spoils of war.
Whatever may have been the occasion of the outbreak, the long-pent-up hatred of the natives had now burst forth with fury. A cry for vengeance rang through the city. The people attacked the garrison with mine and with fire. Montezuma pleaded with them in vain. At last open hostilities ceased, but the markets were closed and the water-supply was cut off, in order to starve out the Spaniards. The garrison would have perished but for a little spring of sweet water which was discovered oozing up within the enclosure. Gloomy as was the prospect, Cortez sent a messenger the next day to Villa Rica to tell of his safe arrival; but the man had scarcely started on his journey ere he returned covered with blood and bruises, saying that all the inhabitants were up in arms and the bridges were raised to cut off all hope of retreat from the Spaniards.
The Aztecs now came surging up with wild yells of defiance. The house-roofs could not be seen for the masses of people who covered them and darkened the air with arrows and stones. A volley from the guns checked but a moment the crowd in the street. The infuriated Aztecs tried to scale the walls upon which the guns were mounted, but were beaten back. Firebrands were thrown among the Tlascalan huts, whose thatched roofs burned rapidly; the flames seized on a wooden parapet on the walls, and it was necessary to tear down part of these defences and protect the breach by the guns. Night put a stop to the contest, but the Spaniards were busy till daybreak making what repairs they could.
The Aztecs, who slept on the ground, close to the walls, were up before the sun and with fresh recruits renewed the attack. By a sally from the garrison they were driven back to a barricade they had thrown across the street. The Spaniards cleared this obstacle and the whole length of the street to the dyke, the Indians disputing every inch of the way. Every house was a fortress from whose roof showers of stones and darts were hurled on the Spanish coats of mail in the streets below, where a hand-to-hand struggle constantly went on. It was soon necessary to fire these dwellings, in order to dislodge the assailants. This was slow work, separated as the houses were by gardens and canals. Thus the day was spent. Though many were killed, the enemy, with unabated energy and fierce war-whoops, pursued the retreating Spaniards to their citadel, and then lay down again close to its walls, to be ready for an onslaught in the morning. All their old character had returned. The Spaniards at last had a sight of the traditional Aztecs hungry for blood and desiring no greater glory than to die a warrior's death. On renewing the attack, if all the men who climbed the wall were killed, others pressed eagerly forward to take their places.
It was now resolved to appeal to Montezuma, who sat sullenly in his apartment listening to the wild storm outside, raging at times against the very walls. The unhappy chief at last mounted the parapet and consented to speak to his people.
"They will not listen to me now," he said, sadly, "nor to your false promises, Malinche."[1]
It was even so. The Aztecs, stung to madness by the tame surrender of their chief, refused to hear him. A shower of stones was aimed at him, one of which, striking him on the temple, brought him senseless to the ground. Three days afterward he died.
This account of Montezuma's death is not believed among Mexicans; they say that with two other hostages of note he was slaughtered by the Spaniards and his dead body thrown over the wall. Cortez, who speaks very indifferently of this event, says, "I gave his dead body to two Indians who were among the prisoners, and they bore it away to his people. What afterward became of it I know not."
An unsuccessful attack made by the Spaniards greatly encouraged the Aztecs, who now advanced to the teocallis, partly occupied by Christians, who were soon driven out. About five hundred of the natives took possession of its top, and, laying in a store of provisions and stones, they prepared to fight their enemy from the height of this building, which overlooked the Spanish quarters. It was evident that this fortress must be taken, and the cavalry made a charge to clear the way for the infantry; but the horses slipped on the smooth pavement and were sent back, and some mail-clad soldiers, with Cortez at their head, succeeded in reaching the first flight of steps leading to the second terrace. The whole building was three hundred feet square at the base, and the path to the top went round and round the pyramid by five terraces, a distance of nearly a mile. Each stairway was a scene of fearful conflict, those all along each terrace hurling down stones on the heads of their assailants, who, protected by sharpshooters below, were forcing their way inch by inch to the top. Once masters of this commanding position, the Spaniards set on fire the wooden towers which surmounted the building, tumbling the war-god found there down the steep sides of the temple. Many Aztecs flung themselves over the edge of the platform in sheer despair. A great effort was made to push Cortez headlong to the terrace below, but he was stoutly defended by his men, forty-five of whom lost their lives in this three hours' battle in the air. Not an Aztec escaped.
The capture of this strong position and the fall of their idol struck dismay for a time into the hearts of the Aztecs, and Cortez now called for a parley. The chiefs came to the meeting-place, but the summons to lay down their arms met with a calm resistance. They answered that they were determined to make an end of the Spaniards if they all died in the attempt.
That night Cortez followed up his advantage by burning three hundred houses. The men who were not doing
this were up all night repairing the movable fortresses under cover of which they hoped to reach those on the house-roofs. But on dragging out these clumsy machines the next morning it was found impossible to use them. The Aztecs had fulfilled their threat of destroying the bridges over the canals; the Spaniards were now obliged to fill up these water-ways with stones from the razed buildings around them—a work on which they spent two days under a galling fire of stones and arrows. After much exhausting labor communication was opened again with the western causeway, and the cavalry went back and forth over a solid road. It was the only path to the mainland, the Aztecs having broken up every other dyke. But the Spaniards were no longer penned up.
The Aztecs now called for a truce. They promised, if they were forgiven, to raise the blockade and replace the bridges. Meanwhile, they requested that their chief priest, who had been captured in the storming of the temple, should be set at liberty to lead them in their negotiations. This was gladly done.
There seemed now to be some prospect of peace, and Cortez, who had scarcely eaten or slept since the outbreak began, sat down to take some refreshment, when a messenger came in hot haste to say that the Aztecs were attacking the garrison and that several men on guard in the street they had cleared had been killed. Cortez sprang on his horse and galloped to the spot, followed by a few horsemen, who drove the enemy right and left into the side-streets. The foot-soldiers were panic-struck and did not follow immediately, and by the time they rallied a surging; mob of Indians had closed in behind Cortez and those who were with him. Canoes loaded with warriors swarmed on each side of the causeway, which was crowded with Indians.
Turning to go back, Cortez reached the bridge nearest the city, but found that it had been shifted, so that the horsemen, pushed from behind, had fallen in the chasm, which was far deeper here, out in the lake, than the shallow canals he had been filling up. The infantry, amid a storm of stones and darts, were dragging the drawbridge back into position, and Cortez was lost to sight for a time. A rumor spread that the general was dead. Both he and his horse reappeared, however, but many another brave warrior fell that day to rise not again. The Aztecs were once more masters. They held four bridges, while the Spaniards held four others, on the western causeway, nearest the mainland.
The Spaniards now resolved to leave the city. The soldiers of Narvaez had long been clamoring to go to the coast, and all were exhausted by ceaseless efforts by night and by day and unnerved by the seemingly hopeless character of the struggle with a foe which not only outnumbered them a thousand to one, but which, if every Aztec now in the city were slain, could bring a still greater force to the attack in a few hours. It was determined to fall back on Tlascala, going by the western causeway, though it led in a directly opposite direction. But it was the shortest path and partly in the possession of the Spaniards; once on the mainland, they would make their way northward around Lake Tezcuco, and finally due east to Tlascala. Cortez gave up his own horse to carry the king's treasure, but by far the largest part of what had been gained at such a cost was left behind, though a few, more greedy than the rest, loaded themselves with spoil. A son and two daughters of Montezuma, with several leading chiefs—among them Cacama, the fiery young chief of Tezcuco—were in the sad company which marched out of Mexico that night. The most important duty was the management and defence of a pontoon-bridge hastily constructed by the general's orders. This was intended to span the chasm in the causeway, which had been again uncovered and its movable bridge destroyed When the entire army had passed over this break, the bridge was to be taken up and carried to the next, and so on till all the breaks were passed.
The Spaniards started at midnight, July 1, 1520. The night was dark, and a drizzling rain fell on the silent company which hurried toward the only path of escape. Most of the dwellings in the neighborhood had been destroyed, and there were no priestly watchmen in the high towers of the temple to give the alarm, as in olden times. The Indian sentinels whom they met were soon silenced; the bridge was laid down, and the army was half over before the Aztecs took alarm. Then from far and near they came after their escaping prey, hurrying through the darkness with infuriated yells. The Spaniards pressed on till all were safely over the first opening in the causeway. Then to lift the bridge and carry it to the next! The men plied their strong pikes in vain; the heavy timbers, sunken in the mud and pressed down by the trampling feet of the fugitives, could not be lifted, and, stunned and bleeding from the stones showered upon them, the Spaniards were forced to abandon the bridge, over which the Aztecs now crowded with wild shouts of triumph. Pressed by those behind them, attacked by enemies on the lake, the front ranks fell into the yawning breach, spanned only by a single beam. Some of the horses swam over with their riders; others forded a shallow place. Many were dragged off the causeway and carried away to be slain on the altars of the war-god. The chasm was soon filled with struggling victims or the bodies of the dead horses and men, over which those in the rear made their way to the last opening.
In such peril men often forget everything but their own safety, but in this terrible night the Christians 
Cortez sat down and through the darkness watched the shattered army go by. Most of the horses were gone; all of the cannon had been left at the second bridge. Not a musket remained, nor a man who was not wounded. Most of his Tlascalan allies had perished, while scores of his brave cavaliers had for ever disappeared beneath the briny waters of Tezcuco or had been dragged away to slaughter. But Marina was safe, and Aguilar, Montezuma's daughters and Martin Lopez, the old shipbuilder, with Alvarado and others of his trusted friends, who gathered around their general. It was now his turn to weep, and the tears of Cortez were long remembered by those who know the anguish of his soul that sad night of the Spanish retreat. At Tacubaya, on one of the avenues leading out of the City of Mexico, a gnarled old cypress tree enclosed with a railing stands almost in the roadway, and marks the spot where Cortez stopped to rally his shattered army on the "sad night."