Colonization and Christianity. William Howitt
the ground, knew only too well that all their talk of love and kindness to the islanders was the grossest falsehood. The Pope’s bull could not blind them to that; and though the misery they inflicted is past, Europe still needs the warning of their deeds, to open its eyes to the nature of much of its own morality.
Cortez commenced his career against Mexico with breach of faith to his employer. It was villain using villain, and with the ordinary results. Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, who had sent out Grijalva, roused by the description of the new and beautiful country which he had coasted, now sought for a man, so humble in his pretensions and so destitute of alliance, that he might trust him with a fleet and force for the acquisition of it. Such a man he believed he had found in Hernando Cortez—a man, like many other men in Spain, of noble blood, but very ignoble fortune—poor, proud, so hot and overbearing in his disposition and so dissipated in his habits, that his father was glad to send him out as an adventurer. Ovando, governor of Hispaniola, the notorious betrayer of Anacoana, and murderer of her chiefs, was his relation, and received him with open arms as a fit instrument in such work as he had to do. Cortez attended Velasquez in that expedition to Cuba in which the cazique Hatuey was burnt at the stake for his resistance to their invasion, and died bearing that memorable testimony to Spanish Christianity. Velasquez, who had acted the traitor towards Diego Columbus, whose deputy in the government of Cuba he was, had however scarcely sent out Cortez, when he conceived a suspicion that he would show no better faith than he himself had done. Scarcely had Cortez sailed for Trinidad, when Velasquez sent instructions after him, to deprive him of his commission. Cortez eluded this by hastening to the Havanna, where an express also to arrest him was forwarded. Cortez, fully justified the suspicions of Velasquez; for, from the moment that he found himself at the head of a fleet, he abandoned every idea of acknowledging the authority which had put it into his command. He boldly avowed his intentions to his fellow adventurers, and as their views, like his own, were plunder and dominion, he received their applause and their vows of adherence. Thus supported in his schemes of ambition, he set sail for the Mexican coast, with eleven vessels of various burdens and characters. His own, or admiral’s ship, was of a hundred tons, three of seventy or eighty tons, and the others were open boats. He carried with him six hundred and seventeen men; amongst whom were to be found only thirteen muskets, thirty-two cross-bows, sixteen horses, ten small field-pieces, and four falconets. Behold Cortez and his comrades thus on their way to conquer the great kingdom of Mexico, bearing on their great banner the figure of a large cross, and this inscription—Let us follow the Cross, for under this sign we shall conquer!
“So powerfully,” says Robertson—to whose curious remarks I shall occasionally draw the attention of my readers—“were Cortez and his followers animated with both these passions (religion and avarice) that no less eager to plunder the opulent country whither they were bound, than zealous to propagate the Christian faith (!) among its inhabitants, they set out, not with the solicitude natural to men going upon dangerous services, but with that confidence which arises from security of success, and certainty of the divine protection.” No doubt they believed the cross which they followed was the cross of Christ, but every one now will be quite as well satisfied that it was the cross of one of the two thieves, a most fitting ensign for such an expedition. Cortez, indeed, was a fiery zealot, and frequently endangered the success of his enterprise by his assault on the gods and temples of the natives, just as Mahomet or Omar would have done; for there was not a pin to choose between the faith in which he had been educated, and that of the prophet of Mecca. One followed the cross, the other the crescent, but their faith alike was—the sword.6
After touching at different spots, to remind the natives of the Christian faith by “routing them with great slaughter,” and carrying off provisions, cotton garments, gold, and twenty female slaves, one of whom was the celebrated woman, called by the Spaniards Donna Marina, who rendered them such services as interpreter, they entered, on the 2nd of April 1519, the harbour of St. Juan de Ulua. Here we are told by the Spanish historians, that the natives came on board in the most friendly and unsuspicious manner. Two of them were officers from the local government, sent to inquire what was the object of Cortez in coming thither, and offering any assistance that might be necessary to enable him to proceed in his voyage. Cortez assured them that he came with the most friendly intentions, to seek an interview with the king, of great importance to the welfare of their country; and next morning, in proof of the sincerity and friendliness of his views, landed his troops and ammunition, and began a fortification. This brought Teutile and Pilpatoe, as Robertson calls them, or Teuhtlile and Cuitlalpita, according to Clavigero, himself a Mexican, the local governors, into the camp with a numerous attendance. Montezuma, the emperor, had been alarmed, as well he might, by the former appearance of the Spaniards on his coast, and these officers urged Cortez to take his departure. He persisted, however, that he must see Montezuma, being come as an ambassador from the king of Spain to him, and charged with communications that could be opened to no one else—falsehoods worthy of a robber, for he not only had no commission from the king of Spain, but was in open rebellion to the Spanish government at the moment. To induce him to depart, these simple people resorted to the same unlucky policy as our ancestors the Saxons did with the Danes, and presented him with a present of ten loads of fine cotton cloth, plumes of various colours, and articles in gold and silver of rich and curious workmanship, besides a quantity of provisions. These not only inflamed his cupidity to the utmost, but another circumstance served to convince him that he had stumbled upon a different country to what any of his countrymen had yet found in America; and stimulated equally his ambition to conquer it. He observed painters at work in the train of Teuhtlile and Pitalpatoe,7 sketching on cotton cloth, himself, his men, his horses, ships and artillery. To give more effect to these drawings, he sounded his trumpets, threw his army into battle array, put it through a variety of striking military movements, and tore up the neighbouring woods with the discharge of his cannon. The Mexicans, struck with terror and admiration at these exhibitions, dispatched speedy information of all these particulars by the couriers, and in seven days received the answer of the emperor, though his capital was one hundred and eighty miles off, that Cortez must instantly depart the country. But had he had the slightest intention of the kind, the unlucky courtesy of the emperor would have changed his resolve. To render his command the more palatable, he sent an ambassador of rank, with a hundred men of burden carrying presents, and they again poured out before Cortez such a flood of treasures, as astonished him and his greedy followers.
There were boxes full of pearls and precious stones; gold in its native state, and gold wrought into the richest trinkets; two wheels, the one of gold, the other of silver. That of gold, representing the Mexican century, had the image of the sun engraved in the middle, round which were different figures in bass-relief. Bernal Diaz says the circumference was thirty palms of Toledo, and the value of it ten thousand sequins. The one of silver, in which the Mexican year was represented, was still larger, with a moon in the middle, surrounded also with figures in bass-relief.8 Thirty loads or bales of cotton cloths of the most exquisite fineness, and pictures in feather-work of surprising brilliancy and art. These were all opened out on mats in the most tempting manner; and besides these, was a vizor, which Cortez had desired at the last interview might be filled with gold dust, telling the officer most truly—that “the Spaniards had a disease of the heart which could only be cured by gold.”
Cortez took the presents, and coolly assured the ambassador that he should not quit the country till he had seen the emperor. A third message, accompanied by a third and more peremptory order for his departure, producing no greater effect, the officers left the camp in displeasure, and Cortez prepared to march into the country.
But before he commenced his expedition there were a few measures to be taken. He was a traitor to the governor of Cuba who had sent him out; and the governor had still adherents in the army, who objected to what appeared to them this rash enterprise against so powerful and populous an empire. It was necessary to silence these people, and his mode of doing this reminds one of the solemn artifices of Oliver Cromwell. He held out to the soldiers such prospects of booty as secured them to his interests, and on the discontented remonstrating with him, he appeared to fall in with their views, and gave instant orders for the return home, at the same time sending his emissaries amongst the soldiers to exasperate them against the return. When the order for re-embarkation