The Mastering of Mexico/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
How Montezuma visited the chief temple; his nephew, Cacamatzin, conspired against him; and finally how the caciques swore allegiance to our king; what the Spaniards whom Cortes sent out to find gold, reported. Montezuma's gift of the vast treasure of his fathers and its division among us.
In these days, also, Montezuma told Cortes that he wished to pay his devotions and make sacrifices at his chief temple, not only in fulfilling his religious duties but also to convince his caciques, and especially his nephews, who daily begged him to permit them to rescue him, that by his own choice and the consent of Huitzilopochtli he stayed with us. Cortes told him he might go and welcome, but if the caciques and papas should attack our soldiers or make any disorder to release him, our men would at once take his life. Moreover, he must not sacrifice any human being, for that was a sin against the true God we had made known to him. Neither could Cortes refrain from adding that it would be better for him to pray before our altars and the image of Our Lady.
Montezuma pledged that he would not sacrifice any humans, and then set out in pomp of state, on his litter, with many caciques carrying his staff of authority in front of him, and with four of our officers, scores of our soldiers, and Padre de Olmedo to hold him to his pledge about sacrifices. When we neared the temple of Huitzilopochtli, his nephews and other chieftains assisted the monarch from his litter and carried him on their shoulders, all the caciques in reverence keeping their eyes on the ground as he passed. At the foot of the temple many papas waited to aid him in mounting the steps. The monarch was not long at his devotions and went back appearing in better spirits, and giving each of us who had gone with him presents of gold. But we found that the night before the papas had sacrificed four Indians in spite of all our captain and Padre de Olmedo had done and said. All we could now do was to feign ignorance of their deed, for Montezuma's nephews, intent on rebellion, had roused Mexico and other great towns.
The good reader will recall that some chapters back I told how Montezuma's nephew, Cacamatzin, lord of Texcoco, the largest town in all that country after Mexico, came toward us four hundred Spaniards as we drew near the capital city and, with show of regal pomp, bade us welcome in behalf of his uncle. When this prince now knew that with Montezuma imprisoned we were taking all the power we could get—even that we had opened, although we had not taken anything from it, the chamber where lay the treasure of his grandfather—he determined to end our dominion. He called to council all the caciques who were his vassals, and with them relatives who were princes of other towns and provinces, especially the lord of Matalcingo, a man of courage, so nearly related to Montezuma that many said he was the rightful heir to the monarchy.
While Cacamatzin was negotiating with these chieftains to fix a day when they should fall upon us with their united armies, the cacique of Matalcingo said that if Cacamatzin would assure him of his elevation to the throne, he and all his relatives and all his people would be the first to take up arms and turn us out of the city, or put us to the sword. Cacamatzin answered the cacique of Matalcingo, however, that the crown belonged to him as nephew of Montezuma and, if he of Matalcingo did not wish to join, himself, Cacamatzin and all the others would be able to overcome us without his aid. Of all this Montezuma duly received intelligence from the aggrieved cacique of Matalcingo.
The monarch, extremely prudent and unwilling to see his city in blood and rebellion, told Cortes of the conspiracy, of which we had, indeed, heard in general terms. The advice of Cortes was that Montezuma should put his Mexican troops under our captain's command and we should fall upon Texcoco and destroy the town. It was clear this advice did not suit the monarch, and Cortes sent Cacamatzin word that we wished to have him for a friend, but if he began war it would mean his death. He was a young hotbrain, however, this Cacamatzin, and others of the same sort strengthened him in his opinions, and he sent haughty answers to all the warnings our captain offered. At length, when his insolence had become too gross for endurance, when Montezuma had sent trustworthy messengers begging Cacamatzin to come and confer with him, saying the abiding in our quarters lay wholly with himself and Malinche had twice told him to return to his own palace, but he had refused to go because the papas had said he must stay with us, if he would not be a dead man—and when Cacamatzin had again summoned his caciques and In a haughty and traitorous speech had assured them that he would kill us all within four days, and his uncle, Montezuma, had a rabbit's heart, otherwise he would have attacked us as we were coming down the mountains, as he had advised him doing—and after many plans and promises of what he, Cacamatzin, would do for their enriching when he should get the lordship of Mexico—and after the caciques had refused to join him in his traitorous design, and he had sent word to Montezuma that he might have spared himself asking him, Cacamatzin, to make friends with those who had done the monarch dishonor, possible only because we were enchanters and had stolen away his reason and energy by wizardry given us by our gods and the great Spanish Lady whom we called our protectress—only after Montezuma had heard and considered his nephew's insolence and excesses, did he give trusted caciques his seal and orders to go to Texcoco and seize and bring the young hothead to Mexico. When this was accomplished, Cacamatzin became the prisoner of Cortes.
From all this the reader may well imagine on how short a thread our lives hung. Every day we heard nothing but how they were planning to cut us off to a man and eat our flesh. The mercy of God was all that saved us. To God alone were we Indebted that the excellent Montezuma furthered our affairs. How great a ruler he was!—that his subjects, even in his confinement, faithfully obeyed his commands! In everything we saw him do he was indeed a great monarch, and we not only treated him with respect, we really loved him, and told him of the power of our king; and Padre de Olmedo spoke to him constantly about our holy religion.
When all the cities were again at peace, Cortes reminded Montezuma that, before we entered Mexico, he had offered to pay tribute to our king, and that now he understood our king's power, and the number and magnificence of his vassals, it would be well if he and his subjects gave their pledge and tribute. Montezuma said he would gather his caciques and advise with them. Within ten days he had assembled nearly all those of the country round about. The cacique of Matalcingo, however, most nearly related to Montezuma, as I have said, and probable successor of the monarch, did not come. He sent word that he was unable to pay tribute and so would not come to the meeting—in fact, on what he got from his province he was scarcely able to live himself. Angry at this answer, Montezuma sent warriors to take the cacique prisoner, but he, warned of the approach of the band, fled to the interior of his province and kept himself out of reach.
To the other caciques Montezuma recalled the tradition handed down by their forefathers, written down in their books of records, that a people should some day come from the quarter where the sun rose to rule their lands and end the Mexican dominion; those men he believed were we; the papas had asked Huitzilopochtli about it and had offered sacrifices, but the gods no longer answered as they used to do; all that they could conclude was that what Huitzilopochtli had told them before he meant as his answer now, and now they must take his meaning to be that they should give their pledge to the king of Spain, whose subjects these teules were.
"For the present," continued Montezuma, "we cannot do otherwise. We must wait and see if our gods hereafter give a better answer. For the present I wish and beg you to give some proof of allegiance. I ask that no one refuse. Malinche has importuned me on this point. During the eighteen years I have been your ruler you have been loyal to me. I have broadened your territories and given you wealth. If I am now captive, it is because the great Huitzilopochtli has willed it."
After this reasoning and statement of Montezuma, the caciques declared that they would do as he wished, but they broke into tears, and Montezuma himself wept most of all. The next day, in the presence of Cortes and his officers, they gave their pledge to our king, all in the same deep grief of yesterday. Even we ourselves, from the love we bore Montezuma, were softened at the sight of his tears, and wept with him. We strove to redouble our attentions to him, and our captain with the Padre de Olmedo scarcely left him a moment.
One day Cortes was, as usual, sitting with Montezuma, when through our interpreters. Donna Marina and Aguilar, he asked of the monarch where the mines were, and the rivers, in which they found their gold, and by what method they collected what they had brought him in dust. Our captain said he wanted to send out two of his men proficient in mining.
The gold, Montezuma replied, came mostly from a province, Zacatula, on the south coast, ten or twelve days' journey from Mexico. There they washed the earth in gourds and the gold sank to the bottom of the vessel. Then they also brought him gold from another province, Tustepec, near where we had landed on the north coast, where natives gathered it from beds of rivers and also worked good mines in a land near by not subject to him. If Cortes wished to send some of his men there, Montezuma continued, he would give caciques to go with them. Thanking the monarch for his offer, Cortes dispatched Gonzalo de Umbria to Zacatula, and a young officer, Pizarro (Peru was still unknown), to the mines in the north. Soldiers accompanied each officer, who was given forty days to go and return.
At this time, too, the great Montezuma gave our captain a hennequen cloth on which draughtsmen had very accurately painted all the rivers and bays along the coast from Panuco to Tabasco, for towards a distance of five hundred and sixty miles, and also the river Coatzacoalcos. We knew well all the harbors and bays described on the cloth from our voyage with Grijalva, but we knew little of the Coatzacoalcos, which the Mexicans said was broad and deep. Cortes determined to send some one to take soundings at its mouth and learn what sort of country was about it. Diego de Ordas, a man of intelligence and courage and one of our officers, proffered his service and asked for soldiers and caciques to keep him company. Cortes was loth to part with Ordas, for a man of such good counsel he wished to keep near. But at last, in order not to displease him, our captain gave consent. Montezuma then cautioned the officer to be on his guard, for the people of that country were very warlike and not subject to him, and therefore if harm should befall him, he, the monarch, should not suffer reproach; on the frontiers, before entrance to the province, he would meet garrisons of Mexican warriors, and if he, Ordas, had need of them, he should take them for his company.
The first to return to the City of Mexico were Gonzalo de Umbria and his comrades, who brought upwards of three hundred dollars in grains. The caciques of the provinces, according to Umbria's account, had taken many people to two rivers and in small vessels washed the earth and collected the gold. If clever miners were to work in the rivers, he thought, and the earth washed as they washed it in Santo Domingo and Cuba, these would prove rich mines. Two caciques of the province accompanied Umbria, and they, pledging themselves as vassals of our king, brought a present worth about two hundred dollars. Cortes was as much pleased with the gold as if it had been thirty thousand dollars, for it assured him that good mines lay in that province. and he treated the chiefs so kindly, giving them green glass beads and promises, that they went back to their homes well contented. From what we saw it was evident that Umbria and his companions had not forgotten themselves in their journey, for they came back with pouches stuffed with gold.
Neither did Diego de Ordas return with empty hands. He likewise passed through large towns, where all the people paid him respect. But he met endless complaints of the cruelties and robberies of the Mexican troops stationed on the borders, and the caciques who were with him threatened that if the garrisons continued their misconduct, they should tell Montezuma, who would send them condign punishment. At the mouth of the Coatzacoalcos Ordas found a depth of three fathoms, but further up the river became deeper and more navigable. Here also Ordas received pledges from the people declaring themselves vassals of our king, and again he heard bitter complaints of Montezuma and his garrisons of warriors. Cortes and all of us joyfully received his return and report that the country was well adapted for cattle-breeding and farming, and the harbor, although full of shallows, excellently placed for trade with Cuba, Santo Domingo and Jamaica.
With respect to Pizarro, he came back with only one soldier, but he brought over a thousand grains of gold. In the province of Tustepec, he said, and other neighboring districts, many Indians went with him to the rivers and gathered gold, two thirds of which he gave for their labor. Higher up in the hills many Indians, armed with bows, arrows, lances and shields much better than ours, had come out to meet him, declaring no Mexican should set foot in their territory, but the teules might come and welcome. Here, when the people wash for gold, the dust comes out in curly shape. Pizarro brought also caciques from that country who, bearing a present of gold, told how their people held the Mexicans in abhorrence and offered themselves as vassals of the king.
Cortes received Pizarro and the caciques with pleasant speeches and after he assured the caciques that they might rely on our friendship to serve them at all times, he dismissed them with two Mexican chiefs to see them in safety to their borders. Our captain now asked Pizarro what had become of the other soldiers he had taken in his company. Pizarro answered that he had ordered them to remain behind, for the soil seemed so fertile, the mines so rich, the people so peaceful, that he wished them to form a settlement and lay out farms for growing cacao, maize, and cotton, and breeding cattle, and to go about and examine the gold mines. Cortes said nothing at the time, but we heard later that in private he severely upbraided Pizarro for having exceeded his instructions, saying it showed a low disposition to wish to be employed in such things as breeding cattle and planting cacao, and he at once dispatched a soldier, Alonzo Luis, to summon immediately to Mexico the Spaniards Pizarro had left behind.
The samples of gold and accounts that all the country was rich led our captain, after deliberating with Ordas and other officers and soldiers, to say to Montezuma that all the caciques and towns under his rule should pay tribute to our king, and that he, most wealthy of all, should give from his treasure. Montezuma replied that he would ask all his towns for gold, but many would be able at best to give but trifling trinkets inherited from their forefathers. He then dispatched caciques, ordering each town where the gold mines were to give as many gold bars, and of the same weight, as they were wont to pay to him. He sent two bars as a sample.
Within twenty days the messengers came back. The monarch then summoned Cortes and our officers, and several of us whom he knew from our standing sentinel in his apartments, and said, "Malinche, and other officers and soldiers, I am greatly indebted to your great king for his having thought it worth his effort to send from such distant countries to make inquiries after me. But the thought that most deeply impresses me is that he must be the one who is to rule over us, according to the saying we have from our ancestors and confirmed by the answers of our gods. Therefore, take this gold for him. I have no more, for our notice to collect was short. For my share I give the whole of my father's treasure secreted in your quarters. I know that as soon as you came you saw it, and that you sealed up the opening as before. When, however, you forward this treasure to your king, say in your letter, 'This is sent you by your faithful vassal, Montezuma.' To this I will add a few chalchihuites of such enormous value that I could not give them to any save your great king. Each stone is worth two loads of gold. I also wish to send him three blow guns, with their balls and bags, for they are so rich in jewels they will certainly please him. I should like to give him all I possess, but I now have little left, for most of my gold and jewels I gave to you."
When Cortes and the rest of us heard this we stood amazed at the generosity and goodness of the monarch, and we took off our helmets and spoke our thanks. Cortes promised him in words of greatest affection that he would write our king of the splendid presents. Nor did Montezuma delay. That very hour his house stewards handed over the wealth of the secret chamber. So vast was the heap of it that we were three days in bringing it from its corners, and looking it over, and taking it from the embroideries on which it was set. To aid us we were obliged to call in Montezuma's goldsmiths, who had a town of their own near Mexico.
There was indeed so much that when the articles were taken to pieces the gold alone, not counting the silver, was found to be worth more than six hundred thousand dollars, not including the gold given in tribute by the towns. All this treasure we ordered the goldsmiths to melt down, and they made bars of it about three fingers of the hand across. Of the other presents of immense value—the chalchihuite stones, the blow guns set with pearls and jewels, the plumes and feathers and other things—they were so rich and splendid that it would not be an easy task to describe them. At once Cortes ordered made an iron stamp bearing the royal arms of Spain, and all the gold I have spoken about was marked with the stamp, except that set with rich jewels, such as we were loth to take to pieces.
First of all, one fifth of the treasure was set apart for the king, and Cortes said another fifth should be set aside for him, as we had promised at the sand dunes when we chose him our captain general. After that, he said what he had spent in fitting out the expedition in Cuba should be taken from the heap; and also the sum due Diego Velasquez for the ships we had destroyed; and then again the travelling expenses of the agents we had sent to Spain. Next, we should deduct the shares of the seventy men who stayed behind in Vera Cruz, and the value of the horse of Cortes that had died, and the value of the mare of Sedeno which the Tlaxcalans had killed. Then for the two priests, the officers, and those who brought horses there must be double shares, and also for the musketeers and crossbowmen the same. So the nibbling went on till very little remained to each soldier as a share, and the share itself was such a trifle that many would not take it and it fell to Cortes. We could do nothing but hold our tongues. What would it have availed to ask justice? Some soldiers took their shares rated at one hundred dollars, and then made such a noise that Cortes secretly bribed them with presents and smooth speeches. A number had their purses so full that it was not long before trinkets and bars of gold were in open circulation; and heavy gambling began after Pedro Valenciano cut out and painted some playing cards from parchment, or drum skins. Many of the officers employed Montezuma's goldsmiths to work out for their wear heavy gold chains, and Cortes had made among other things a great dinner service of plate.
One single instance will show the feeling the unfair division of the gold roused in our men. Among us was a seaman named Cardenas, who had left in Spain, while he was out seeking their livelihood, a wife and children in great want. Cardenas had seen the great heap of gold in slabs, plates and dust, and when he finally found his share a mere hundred dollars, he fairly fell ill in thinking about it. Seeing him one day so low-spirited, one of his friends asked him what caused his heavy grief and sighs. "How the devil can I be otherwise?" answered Cardenas, "when I see the gold we earned with such hardships get into Cortes' hands, with his fifths, and his money for a horse that died, and the ships of Diego Velasquez, and other such tricks, while my wife and children are dying for want of food? I might have sent them a little help when our agents went to Spain, but we put in their hands all we at that time had gathered." "What gold are you speaking of?" asked his friend. "Why, that which our agents took to Spain," returned Cardenas. "If Cortes would give me my share of what is due me, my wife and children could live on it and have to spare. But Cortes makes us sign how we should send to the king, and then he sends six thousand dollars to his father, while I and other poor men fight night and day at Tabasco and Tlaxcala and Cholula, and now live with death all the time before our eyes. Cortes acts as if he were king himself, and carries off his fifths, while we remain poverty-stricken and all protest is vain." In this strain he ran on, saying we did not want too many kings, only our own. "You make yourself bitter with thoughts that avail you nothing," his comrade returned. "You know everything goes whither Cortes and his officers choose to carry it, even the food. They nearly eat themselves up, while we fare badly. But it is no use to complain. Get rid of such thoughts and pray God we do not lose our lives in this city."
Here the men had done talking, but what they said, and the like said by others, came to the ears of Cortes.[1] Thereupon he addressed us in a honied speech, telling us he did not want the fifth, but only the share promised him when we chose him our captain general; that the gold we had so far collected was a trifle to that which was to come from great cities and rich mines scattered through the land, enough to enrich every man of us. He used other arguments in phrases he knew so well how to form. But finding they had no effect, he secretly silenced some of the soldiers with gold, and others by great promises. He also ordered that the food furnished by Montezuma's stewards should be more justly divided, so that every man should have an equal share with himself. And then he took Cardenas aside and gave him three hundred dollars, and told him he should go back to his wife and children on the first ship that left for Spain.
Gold is commonly the great desire of men, and the more they have the more they want.
- ↑ The historian, Antonio de Solis, says that Bernal Diaz discusses the distribution of the Montezuma treasure very indecently, and wastes too much paper in enlarging upon the hardships the poor soldiers underwent in the distribution.
If Diaz could have read the criticism, he might answer Solis as he answered the licentiates who, on reading his manuscript, told him it would have been well if he had not praised himself and his comrades so liberally—"If we did not speak well of ourselves, who would? Who else witnessed our exploits and battles—unless, indeed, the clouds in the sky and the birds flying over our heads."