Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican/Volume 1/Book 1/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
1521.
The return of Cortéz to his camp, after all the toils of his arduous expedition, was not hailed with unanimous delight by those who had hitherto shared his dangers and successes, since the loss of the capital. There were persons in the small band of Spaniards,—especially among those who had been added from the troops of Narvaez,—who still brooded over the disaffection and mutinous feelings which had been manifested at Tlascala before the march to Tezcoco. They were men who eagerly flocked to the standard of the conqueror for plunder; whose hearts were incapable of appreciating the true spirit of glorious adventure in the subjugation of an empire, and who despised victories that were productive of nothing but fame.
These discontented men conspired, about this period, under the lead of Antonio Villafaña, a common soldier; and it was the design of the recreant band to assassinate Sandoval, Olid and Alvarado, together with Cortéz, and other important men who were known to be deepest in the General's councils or interests. After the death of these leaders,—with whose fall the enterprise would doubtless have perished,—a brother-in-law of Velasquez, by name Francisco Verdugo, who was altogether ignorant of the designs of the conspirators, was to be placed in command of the panic-stricken troop, which, it was supposed, would instantly unite under the new general.
It was the project of these wretched dastards to assault and despatch the conqueror and his officers whilst engaged in opening despatches, which were to be suddenly presented, as if just arrived from Castile. But, a day before the consummation of the treachery, one of the party threw himself at the feet of Cortéz and betrayed the project, together with the fact, that, in the possession of Villafaña, would be found a paper containing the names of his associates in infamy.
Cortéz immediately summoned the leaders whose lives were threatened, and, after a brief consultation, the party hastened to the quarters of Villafaña accompanied by four officers. The arch conspirator was arrested, and the paper wrested from him as he attempted to swallow it. He was instantaneously tried by a military court,—and, after brief time for confession and shrift, was swung by the neck from the casement of his quarters. The prompt and striking sentence was executed before the army knew of the crime; and the scroll of names being destroyed by Cortéz, the memory of the meditated treachery was forever buried in oblivion. The commander, however, knew and marked the men whose participation had been so unexpectedly revealed to him; but he stifled all discontent by letting it be understood that the only persons who suffered for the shameful crime had made no confession! He could not spare men from his thin ranks even at the demand of justice; for even the felons who sought his life were wanted in the toils and battles of his great and final enterprise.
It was on the 28th of April, 1521, amid the solemn services of religion, and in the presence of the combined army of Spaniards and Indians, that the long cherished project of launching the brigantines was finally accomplished. They reached the lake safely through the canal which had been dug for them from the town of Tezcoco.
The Spanish forces, designed to operate in this last attack, consisted of eighty-seven horse and eight hundred and eighteen infantry, of which one hundred and eighteen were arquebusiers and crossbowmen. Three large iron field pieces and fifteen brazen falconets formed the ordnance. A plentiful supply of shot and balls, together with fifty thousand copper-headed arrows, composed the ammunition. Three hundred men were sent on board the twelve vessels which were used in the enterprise, for unfortunately, one of the thirteen that were originally ordered to be built, proved useless upon trial. The navigation of these brigantines, each one of which carried a piece of heavy cannon, was, of course, not difficult, for although the waters of the lake have evidently shrunken since the days of the conquest, it is not probable that it was more than three or four feet deeper than at present.[1] The distance to be traversed from Tezcoco to the capital was about twelve miles, and the subsequent service was to be rendered in the neighborhood of the causeways, and under the protection of the walls of the city.
The Indian allies from Tlascala came up in force at the appointed time. These fifty thousand well equipped men were led by Xicotencatl, who, as the expedition was about to set forth by land and water for the final attack, seems to have been seized with a sudden panic, and deserted his standard with a number of followers. There was no hope for conquest without the alliance and loyal support of the Tlascalans. The decision of Cortéz upon the occurrence of this dastardly act of a man in whose faith he had religiously confided, although he knew he was not very friendly to the Spaniards, was prompt and terribly severe. A chosen band was directed to follow the fugitive even to the walls of Tlascala. There, the deserter was arrested, brought back to Tezcoco, and hanged on a lofty gallows in the great square of that city. This man, says Prescott, "was the only Tlascalan who swerved from his loyalty to the Spaniards."
All being now prepared, Cortéz planned his attack. It will be recollected that the city of Mexico rose, like Venice, from the bosom of the placid waters, and that its communication with the main land was kept up by the great causeways which were described in the earlier portion of this narrative. The object of the conqueror, therefore, was to shut up the capital, and cut off all access to the country by an efficient blockade of the lake, with his brigantines, and of the land with his infantry and cavalry. Accordingly he distributed his forces into three bodies or separate camps. The first of these, under Pedro de Alvarado, consisting of thirty horse, one hundred and sixty-eight Spanish infantry, and twenty-five thousand Tlascalans, was to command the causeway of Tacuba. The second division, of equal magnitude, under Olid, was to be posted at Cojohuacan, so as to command the causeways that led eastwardly into the city. The third equal corps of the Spanish army was entrusted to Sandoval, but its Indian force was to be drawn from native allies at Chalco. Alvarado and Olid were to proceed around the northern head of the lake of Tezcoco, whilst Sandoval, supported by Cortéz with the brigantines, passed around the southern portion of it, to complete the destruction of the town of Iztapalapan, which was deemed by the conqueror altogether too important a point to be left in the rear. In the latter part of May, 1521, all these cavaliers got into their assigned military positions, and it is from this period that the commencement of the siege of Mexico is dated, although Alvarado had previously had some conflicts with the people on the causeway that led to his head quarters in Tacuba, and had already destroyed the pipes that fed the water-tanks and fountains of the capital.
At length Cortéz set sail with his flotilla in order to sustain Sandoval's march to Iztapalapan. As he passed across the lake and under the shadow of the "rock of the Marquis," he descried from his brigantines several hundred canoes of the Mexicans filled with soldiers and advancing rapidly over the calm lake. There was no wind to swell his sails or give him command of his vessels' motion, and the conqueror was obliged to await the arrival of the canoes without making such disposition for action as was needful in the emergency. But as the Indian squadron approached, a breeze suddenly sprang up, and Cortéz, widening his line of battle, bore down upon the frail skiffs, overturning, crushing and sinking them by the first blow of his formidable prows, whilst he fired to the right and left amid the discomfitted flotilla. But few of these Indian boats returned to the canals of the city, and this signal victory made Cortéz, forever after, the undisputed master of the lake.
The conqueror took up his head quarters at Xoloc, where the causeway of Cojohuacan met the great causeway of the south. The chief avenues to Mexico had been occupied for some time, as has been already related, but either through ignorance or singular neglect, there was the third great causeway, of Tepejacac, on the north, which still afforded the means of communication with the people of the surrounding country. This had been altogether neglected. Alvarado was immediately ordered to close this outlet, and Sandoval took up his position on the dyke. Thus far the efforts of the Spaniards and auxiliaries had been confined to precautionary movements rather than to decisive assaults upon the capital. But it soon became evident that a city like Mexico might hold out long against a blockade alone. Accordingly an attack was ordered by Cortéz to be made by the two commanders at the other military points nearest their quarters. The brigantines sailed along the sides of the causeways, and aided by their enfilading fires, the advance of the squadrons on land. The infantry and cavalry advanced upon the great avenue that divided the town from north to south. Their heavy guns were brought up and soon mowed a path for the musketeers and crossbowmen. The flying enemy retreated towards the great square in the centre of the city, and were followed by the impetuous Spaniards and their Indian allies. The outer wall of the Great Temple, itself, was soon passed by the hot-blooded cavaliers, some of whom rushed up the stairs and circling corridors of the Teocalli, whence they pushed the priests over the sides of the pyramid and tore off the golden mask and jewels of the Aztec war-god. But the small band of invaders had, for a moment only, appalled the Mexicans, who rallied in numbers at this daring outrage, and sprang vindictively upon the sacrilegious assailants. The Spaniards and their allies fled; but the panic with which they were seized deprived their retreat of all order or security. Cortéz, himself, was unable to restore discipline, when suddenly, a troop of Spanish horsemen dashed into the thick of the fight, and intimidating the Indians, by their superstitious fears of cavalry, they soon managed to gather and form the broken files of their Spanish and Indian army, so that, soon after the hour of vespers, the combined forces drew off with their artillery and ammunition to the barrack at Xoloc.
About this period, the inhabitants of Xochimilco and some tribes of rude but valiant Otomies gave in their adhesion to the Spaniards. The Prince of Tezcoco, too, despatched fifty thousand levies to the aid of Cortéz. Thus strengthened, another attack was made upon the city. Most of the injuries which had been done to the causeways in the first onslaught had been repaired, so that the gates of the capital, and finally the great square, were reached by the Spaniards with nearly as great difficulty as upon their former attempt. But this time the invaders advanced more cautiously into the heart of the city, where they fired and destroyed their ancient quarters in the old palace of Axayacatl and the edifices adjoining the royal palace on the other side of the square. These incursions into the capital were frequently repeated by Cortéz, nor were the Mexicans idle in their systematic plans to defeat the Spaniards. All communication with the country, by the causeways was permanently interrupted; yet the foe stealthily, and in the night, managed to evade the vigilance of the twelve cruisers whose numbers were indeed insufficient to maintain a stringent naval blockade of so large a city as Mexico. But the success of Cortéz, in all his engagements by land and water, his victorious incursions into the very heart of the city, and the general odium which was cherished against the central power of the empire by all the tributary tribes and dependant provinces, combined, at this moment, to aid the efforts of the conqueror in cutting off supplies from the famishing capital. The great towns and small villages in the neighborhood threw off their allegiance, and the camps, of the Spanish leaders thronged with one hundred and fifty thousand auxiliaries selected from among the recreants. The Spaniards were amply supplied with food from these friendly towns, and never experienced the sufferings from famine that were soon to overtake the beleagured capital.
At length the day was fixed for a general assault upon the city by the two divisions under Alvarado and Cortéz. As usual, the battle was preceded by the celebration of mass, and the army then advanced in three divisions up the most important streets. They entered the town, cast down the barricades which had been erected to impede their progress, and, with remarkable ease, penetrated even to the neighborhood of the market-place. But the very facility of their advance alarmed the cautious mind of Cortéz, and induced him to believe that this slack resistance was but designed to seduce him farther and farther within the city walls until he found himself beyond the reach of succor or retreat. This made him pause. His men, more eager for victory and plunder than anxious to secure themselves by filling up the canals and clearing the streets of their impediments, had rushed madly on without taking proper precaution to protect their rear, if the enemy became too hot in front. Suddenly the horn of Guatemozin was heard from a neighboring Teocalli, and the flying Indians, at the sacred and warning sound, turned upon the Spaniards with all the mingled feeling of reinspired revenge and religion. For a while the utmost disorder prevailed in the ranks of the invaders, Spaniards, Tlascalans, Tezcocans and Otomies, were mixed in a common crowd of combatants. From the tops of houses; from converging streets; from the edges of canals,—crowds of Aztecs swarmed and poured their vollies of javelins, arrows and stones. Many were driven into the lake. Cortéz himself had nigh fallen a victim in the dreadful melée, and was rescued with difficulty. Meanwhile, Alvarado and Sandoval had penetrated the city from the western causeway, and aided in stemming the onslaught of the Aztecs. For a while the combined forces served to check the boiling tide of battle sufficiently to enable those who were most sorely pressed to be gradually withdrawn, yet not until sixty-two Spaniards and a multitude of allies, besides many killed and wounded, had fallen captives and victims in the hands of their implacable enemies.
It was yet day when the broken band withdrew from the city, and returned to the camps either on the first slopes of the hills, or at the terminations of the causeways. But sad, indeed, was the spectacle that presented itself to their eyes, as they gazed towards the city, through the clear atmosphere of those elevated regions, when they heard the drum sound from the top of the Great Teocalli. It was the dread signal of sacrifice. The wretched Spaniards, who had been captured in the fight, were, one after another, stretched on the stone in front of the hideous idols, and their reeking hearts, torn from their bosoms, thrown as propitiating morsels into the flames before the deities. The mutilated remains of the captives were then flung down the steep sides of the pyramid, to glut the crowds at its base with a "cannibal repast."
Whilst these repulses and dreadful misfortunes served to dispirit the Spaniards and elate the Aztecs, they were not without their signally bad effects upon the auxiliaries. Messages were sent to these insurgent bodies by the Emperor. He conjured them to return to their allegiance. He showed them how bravely their outraged gods had been revenged. He spoke of the reverses that had befallen the white men in both their invasions, and warned them that a parricidal war like this could "come to no good for the people of Anahuac." Otomies, Cholulans, Tepeacans, Tezcocans, and even the loyal Tlascalans, the hereditary enemies of the Montezumas and Guatemozins, stole off secretly under the cover of night. There were of course exceptions in this inglorious desertion; but it seems that perhaps the majority of the tribes departed for their homes with the belief that the tide had turned against the Spanish conqueror and that it was best to escape before it was too late, the scandal or danger of open treason against their lawful Emperor. But, amid all these disasters, the noble heart of Cortéz remained firm and true to his purpose. He placed his artillery again in position upon the causeways, and, never wasting his ammunition, contrived to husband it carefully until the assaulting Aztecs swarmed in such numbers on the dykes that his discharges mowed them down like grass as they advanced to attack him. It was a gloomy time, requiring vigilance by day and by night—by land and by water. The brigantines were still secure. They swept the lake continually and cut off supplies designed for the capital. The Spaniards hermetically sealed the causeways with their cannon, and thus, at length, was the city that would not yield to storm given over to starvation.
- ↑ The writer sounded the lake in the channel from Mexico to Tezcoco in 1842, and did not find more than 2½ feet in the deepest path. The Indians, at present, wade over all parts of the lake.