CHAPTER VIII.
ORDINANCES AND STATESMANSHIP OF CORTÉS.
1523-1524.
Cortés as Governor — His Ordinances — Armament of Settlers — Promoting Agriculture — Pallas and Demeter — Antillean Jealousy — Social Reforms — Sumptuary Laws — Taking Wives — Cortés Shoulders his Cross — Suspicious Death of Catalina — Local Government — Efforts to Exclude Lawyers — Removal of Vera Cruz — Markets and Trade Regulations — Royal Officials Arrive — Traits and Intrigues — Colonial Policy — Enslavement of Native Americans — Suppression of Repartimientos Opposed — Encomienda Regulations — Work and Pay of Serfs — Entrapping Slaves — Representations of the Council — Extorting Tribute.
We have seen Cortés as a brave soldier, an able general, and astute diplomat; we have beheld him deluding his patron, manipulating to his own purpose the conflicting elements of a horde of adventurers, pitting one people against another to fight his battles or neutralize dangers, and leading his soldiers through strife and hardships to the overthrow of a great empire. Glimpses even of statesmanship we have had in his creation of municipalities, his acts of king-making, and his regulations for the army, which tend in no wise to diminish our admiration for the man. These last-mentioned qualities were now to be more widely tested. The conquest was achieved. From sea to sea once more must bow all nations before Tenochtitlan, only there was a stronger than Montezuma on his throne, one who to the natives of New Spain seemed a god, a descendant of the sun soon to consume their very identity. And now while military rule still prevailed, it was necessary to pave the way for a peaceful administration, and the development of those
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