Part 703

"This Province is in the form of a circle, surrounded on all sides by lofty and rugged mountains; its level surface comprises an area of about 70 leagues in circumference, including two lakes, that overspread nearly the whole valley, being navigated by boats more than 50 leagues round. One of these lakes contains fresh, and the other, which is the larger of the two, salt water. On one side of the lakes, in the middle of the valley, a range of highlands divides them from one another, with the exception of a narrow strait which lies between the highlands and the lofty Sierras. This strait is a bow-shot wide, and connects the two lakes; and by this means a trade is carried on between the cities and other settlements on the lakes in canoes without the necessity of travelling by land. As the salt lake rises and falls with its tides like the sea, during the time of high water it pours into the other lake with the rapidity of a powerful stream; and on the other hand, when the tide has ebbed, the water runs from the fresh into the salt lake. This great city of Temixtitan [Tenochtitlan—Mexico] is situated in this salt lake, and from the main land to the denser parts of it, by whichever route one chooses to enter, the distance is two leagues. There are four avenues or entrances to the city, all of which are formed by artificial causeways, two spears' length in width. The city is as large as Seville or Cordova; its streets, I speak of the principal ones, are very wide and straight; some of these, and all the inferior ones, are half land and half water, and are navigated by canoes. {2162} All the streets at intervals have openings, through which the water flows, crossing from one street to another; and at these openings, some of which are very wide, there are also very wide bridges, composed of large pieces of timber, of great strength and well put together; on many of these bridges ten horses can go abreast. … This city has many public squares, in which are situated the markets and other places for buying and selling. There is one square twice as large as that of the city of Salamanca, surrounded by porticoes, where are daily assembled more than 60,000 souls, engaged in buying and selling; and where are found all kinds of merchandise that the world affords, embracing the necessaries of life, as for instance articles of food, as well as jewels of gold and silver, lead, brass, copper, tin, precious stones, bones, shells, snails, and feathers. … Every kind of merchandise is sold in a particular street or quarter assigned to it exclusively, and thus the best order is preserved. They sell everything by number or measure; at least so far we have not observed them to sell any thing by weight. There is a building in the great square that is used as an audience house, where ten or twelve persons, who are magistrates, sit and decide all controversies that arise in the market, and order delinquents to be punished. … This great city contains a large number of temples, or houses for their idols, very handsome edifices, which are situated in the different districts and the suburbs. … Among these temples there is one which far surpasses all the rest, whose grandeur of architectural details no human tongue is able to describe; for within its precincts, surrounded by a lofty wall, there is room enough for a town of 500 families. Around the interior of this enclosure there are handsome edifices, containing large halls and corridors, in which the religious persons attached to the temple reside. There are full 40 towers, which are lofty and well built, the largest of which has 50 steps leading to its main body, and is higher than the tower of the principal church at Seville. The stone and wood of which they are constructed are so well wrought in every part that nothing could be better done. … This noble city contains many fine and magnificent houses; which may be accounted for from the fact that all the nobility of the country, who are the vassals of Muteczuma, have houses in the city, in which they reside a certain part of the year; and, besides, there are numerous wealthy citizens who also possess fine houses."

_H. Cortés, Despatches [Letters] (translated by G. Folsom), letter 2, chapter 5. _

"We had already been four days in the city of Mexico, and neither our commander nor any of us had, during that time, left our quarters, excepting to visit the gardens and buildings adjoining the palace. Cortes now, therefore, determined to view the city, and visit the great market, and the chief temple of Huitzilopochtli. … The moment we arrived in this immense market, we were perfectly astonished at the vast numbers of people, the profusion of merchandise which was there exposed for sale, and at the good police and order that reigned throughout. … Every species of goods which New Spain produces were here to be found; and everything put me in mind of my native town Medina del Campo during fair time, where every merchandise has a separate street assigned for its sale. … On quitting the market, we entered the spacious yards which surround the chief temple. … Motecusuma, who was sacrificing on the top to his idols, sent six papas and two of his principal officers to conduct Cortes up the steps. There were 114 steps to the summit. …Indeed, this infernal temple, from its great height, commanded a view of the whole surrounding neighbourhood. From this place we could likewise see the three causeways which led into Mexico. … We also observed the aqueduct which ran from Chapultepec, and provided the whole town with sweet water. We could also distinctly see the bridges across the openings, by which these causeways were intersected, and through which the waters of the lake ebbed and flowed. The lake itself was crowded with canoes, which were bringing provisions, manufactures and other merchandise to the city. From here we also discovered that the only communication of the houses in this city, and of all the other towns built in the lake, was by means of drawbridges or canoes. In all these towns the beautiful white plastered temples rose above the smaller ones, like so many towers and castles in our Spanish towns, and this, it may be imagined, was a splendid sight."

_Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Memoirs (translated by Lockhart), chapter 92 (volume 1)._

MEXICO: The same as viewed in the light of modern historical criticism.

"In the West India Islands the Spanish discoverers found small Indian tribes under the government of chiefs; but on the continent, in the Valley of Mexico, they found a confederacy of three Indian tribes under a more advanced but similar government. In the midst of the valley was a large pueblo, the largest in America, surrounded with water, approached by causeways; in fine, a water-girt fortress impregnable to Indian assault. This pueblo presented to the Spanish adventurers the extraordinary spectacle of an Indian society lying two ethnical periods back of European society, but with a government and plan of life at once intelligent, orderly, and complete. … The Spanish adventurers who captured the pueblo of Mexico saw a king in Montezuma, lords in Aztec chiefs, and a palace in the large joint-tenement house occupied, Indian fashion, by Montezuma and his fellow-householders. It was, perhaps, an unavoidable self-deception at the time, because they knew nothing of the Aztec social system. Unfortunately it inaugurated American aboriginal history upon a misconception of Indian life which has remained substantially unquestioned until recently. The first eye-witnesses gave the keynote to this history by introducing Montezuma as a king, occupying a palace of great extent crowded with retainers, and situated in the midst of a grand and populous city, over which, and much besides, he was reputed master. But king and kingdom were in time found too common to express all the glory and splendor the imagination was beginning to conceive of Aztec society; and emperor and empire gradually superseded the more humble conception of the conquerors. … To every author, from Cortes and Bernal Diaz to Brasseur de Bourbourg and Hubert H. Bancroft, Indian society was an unfathomable mystery, and their works have left it a mystery still. Ignorant of its structure and principles, and unable to comprehend its peculiarities, they invoked the imagination to supply whatever was necessary to fill out the picture. … {2163} Thus, in this case, we have a grand historical romance, strung upon the conquest of Mexico as upon a thread; the acts of the Spaniards, the pueblo of Mexico, and its capture, are historical, while the descriptions of Indian society and government are imaginary and delusive. … There is a strong probability, from what is known of Indian life and society, that the house in which Montezuma lived, was a joint-tenement house of the aboriginal American model, owned by a large number of related families, and occupied by them in common as joint proprietors; that the dinner [of Montezuma, in his palace, as described by Cortes and Bernal Diaz] … was the usual single daily meal of a communal household, prepared in a common cookhouse from common stores, and divided, Indian fashion, from the kettle; and that all the Spaniards found in Mexico was a simple confederacy of three Indian tribes, the counterpart of which was found in all parts of America. It may be premised further that the Spanish adventurers who thronged to the new world after its discovery found the same race of Red Indians in the West India Islands, in Central and South America, in Florida, and in Mexico. In their mode of life and means of subsistence, in their weapons, arts, usages, and customs, in their institutions, and in their mental and physical characteristics, they were the same people in different stages of advancement. No distinction of race was observed, and none in fact existed. … Not a vestige of the ancient pueblo of Mexico (Tenochtitlan) remains to assist us to a knowledge of its architecture. Its structures, which were useless to a people of European habits, were speedily destroyed to make room for a city adapted to the wants of a civilized race. We must seek for its characteristics in contemporary Indian houses which still remain in ruins, and in such of the early descriptions as have come down to us, and then leave the subject with but little accurate knowledge. Its situation, partly on dry land and partly in the waters of a shallow artificial pond formed by causeways and dikes, led to the formation of streets and squares, which were unusual in Indian pueblos, and gave to it a remarkable appearance. … Many of the houses were large, far beyond the supposable wants of a single Indian family. They were constructed of adobe brick, and of stone, and plastered over in both cases with gypsum, which made them a brilliant white; and some were constructed of a red porous stone. In cutting and dressing this stone flint implements were used. The fact that the houses were plastered externally leads us to infer that they had not learned to dress stone and lay them in courses. It is not certainly established that they had learned the use of a mortar of lime and sand. In the final attack and capture, it is said that Cortes, in the course of seventeen days, destroyed and levelled three-quarters of the pueblo, which demonstrates the flimsy character of the masonry. … It is doubtful whether there was a single pueblo in North America, with the exception of Tlascala, Cholula, Tezcuco, and Mexico, which contained 10,000 inhabitants. There is no occasion to apply the term 'city' to any of them. None of the Spanish descriptions enable us to realize the exact form and structure of these houses, or their relations to each other in forming a pueblo. … It is evident from the citations made that the largest of these joint·tenement houses would accommodate from 500 to 1,000 or more people, living in the fashion of Indians; and that the courts were probably quadrangles, formed by constructing the building on three sides of an inclosed space, as in the New Mexican pueblos, or upon the four sides, as in the House of the Nuns, at Uxmal."

_L. H. Morgan, Houses and House-life of the American Aborigines (United States Geographical and Geological Survey of Rocky Mountain Region: Contribution to North American Ethnology, volume 4), chapter 10._

MEXICO: A. D. 1519-1520. Captivity of Montezuma, Cortés ruling in his name. The discomfiture of Narvaez. The revolt of the capital.

When Cortés had time to survey and to realize his position in the Mexican capital, he saw that it was full of extreme danger. To be isolated with so small a force in the midst of any hostile, populous city would be perilous; but in Mexico that peril was immeasurably increased by the peculiar situation and construction of the island-city—Venice-like in its insulation, and connected with the mainland by long and narrow, causeways and bridges, easily broken and difficult to secure for retreat. With characteristic audacity, the Spanish leader mastered the danger of the situation, so to speak, by taking Montezuma himself in pledge for the peace and good behavior of his subjects. Commanded by Cortés to quit his palace, and to take up his residence with the Spaniards in their quarters, the Mexican monarch remonstrated but obeyed, and became from that day the shadow of a king. "During, six months that Cortes remained in Mexico [from November, 1519, until May, 1520], the monarch continued in the Spanish quarters, with an appearance of as entire satisfaction and tranquillity as if he had resided there, not from constraint, but through choice. His ministers and officers attended him as usual. He took cognizance of all affairs; every order was issued in his name. … Such was the dread which both Montezuma and his subjects had of the Spaniards, or such the veneration in which they held them, that no attempt was made to deliver their sovereign from confinement, and though Cortes, relying on this ascendant which he had acquired over their minds, permitted him not only to visit his temples, but to make hunting excursions beyond the lake, a guard of a few Spaniards carried with it such a terrour as to intimidate the multitude, and secure the captive monarch. Thus, by the fortunate temerity of Cortes in seizing Montezuma, the Spaniards at once secured to themselves more extensive authority in the Mexican empire than it was possible to have acquired in a long course of time by open force; and they exercised more absolute sway in the name of another than they could have done in their own. … Cortes availed himself to the utmost of the powers which he possessed by being able to act in the name of Montezuma. He sent some Spaniards, whom he judged best qualified for such commissions, into different parts of the empire, accompanied by persons of distinction, whom Montezuma appointed to attend them both as guides and protectors. They visited most of the provinces, viewed their soil and productions, surveyed with particular care the districts which yielded gold or silver, pitched upon several places as proper stations for future colonies, and endeavoured to prepare the minds of the people for submitting to the Spanish yoke." At the same time, Cortes strengthened his footing in the capital by building and launching two brigantines on the lake, with an equipment and armament which his royal prisoner caused to be brought up for him from Vera Cruz. {2164} He also persuaded Montezuma to acknowledge himself a vassal of the King of Castile, and to subject his kingdom to the payment of an annual tribute. But, while his cunning conquest of an empire was advancing thus prosperously, the astute Spanish captain allowed his prudence to be overridden by his religious zeal. Becoming impatient at the obstinacy with which Montezuma clung to his false gods, Cortes made a rash attempt, with his soldiers, to cast down the idols in the great temple of the city, and to set the image of the Virgin in their place. The sacrilegious outrage roused the Mexicans from their tame submission and fired them with an inextinguishable rage. At this most unfortunate juncture, news came from Vera Cruz which demanded the personal presence of Cortes on the coast. Velasquez, the hostile governor of Cuba, to whom the adventurer in Mexico was a rebel, had sent, at last, an expedition, to put a stop to his unauthorized proceedings and to arrest his person. Cortes faced the new menace as boldly as he had faced all others. Leaving 150 men in the angry Mexican capital, under Pedro de Alvarado, he set out with the small remainder of his force to attack the Spanish intruders. Even after picking up some detachments outside and joining the garrison at Vera Cruz, he could muster but 250 men; while Narvaez, who commanded the expedition from Cuba, had brought 800 foot soldiers and 80 horse, with twelve pieces of cannon. The latter had taken possession of the city of Zempoalla and was strongly posted in one of its temples. There Cortes surprised him, in a night attack, took him prisoner, in a wounded state, and compelled his troops to lay down their arms. Nearly the whole of the latter were soon captivated by the commanding genius of the man they had been sent to arrest, and enlisted in his service. He found himself now at the head of a thousand well armed men; and he found in the same moment that he needed them all. For news came from Mexico that Alvarado, thinking to anticipate and crush a suspected intention of the Mexicans to rise against him, had provoked the revolt and made it desperate by a most perfidious, brutal massacre of several hundred of the chief persons of the empire, committed while they were celebrating one of the festivals of their religion, in the temple. The Spaniards at Mexico were now beleaguered, as the consequence, in their quarters, and their only hope was the hope that Cortes would make haste to their rescue,—which he did.

_W. Robertson, History of America, book 5 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 4, chapters 17-23._

MEXICO: A. D. 1520 (JUNE-JULY). The return of Cortes to the Mexican Capital. The battle in the city. The death of Montezuma. The disastrous Retreat of the Spaniards.