Part 5 (2/2)
The news of the fall of Mexico was soon spread from sea to sea, and couriers were despatched by distant tribes and princes to ascertain the truth of the prodigious disaster. The independent kingdom of Michoacan, lying between the vale of Anahuac or Mexico and the Pacific, was one of the first to send its envoys, and finally even its king, to the capital;--and two small detachments of Spaniards returned with the new visitors, penetrating their country and pa.s.sing with them even to the waters of the western ocean itself, on whose sh.o.r.es they planted the cross in token of rightful possession. They returned by the northern districts, and brought with them the first specimens of gold and pearls from the region now known as California.
It was not long, however, before Cortez resolved to make his conquest available by the reconstruction of the capital that he had been forced reluctantly to mutilate and partly level during the siege. The ancient city was nearly in ruins. The ma.s.sive relics of idolatry, and the huge stones of which the chief palaces had been constructed, were cast into the ca.n.a.ls. The desolation was complete on the site of the ancient imperial residence. And the Indians, who had served in the work of dilapidation, were even compelled by their Spanish leader and his task masters to be the princ.i.p.al laborers in the toil of building up a city which should surpa.s.s in splendor the ancient pride of Anahuac.
Meanwhile the sagacious mind of Cortez was not only busy with the present duties and occupations of his men in Mexico, but began to dwell,--now that the intense excitement of active war was over,--upon the condition of his relations with the Spanish Court and the government in the islands. He despatched to Castile, letters, presents, and the ”royal fifth,” together with an enormous emerald whose base was as broad as the palm of his hand. With the General's missives, went a letter from his army, commending the heroic leader, and beseeching its royal master to confirm Cortez in his authority and to ratify all his proceedings. Quinones and Avila, the two envoys, sailed for home; but one of them, lucklessly, perished in a brawl at the Azores, whilst Avila, who resumed the voyage to Spain, after the loss of his companion, was taken by a French privateer, who bore the spoils of the Mexicans to the Court of Francis the First. The letters and despatches of Cortez and his army, however, were saved, and Avila, privately and safely forwarded them to the Spanish sovereign.
At the Court of Charles the Fifth there were, of course, numerous intrigues against the successful conqueror. The hatred of Velasquez had not been suffered to slumber in the breast of that disappointed governor, and Fonseca, Bishop of Burgos, who was chief of the colonial department, and doubtless adroitly plied and stimulated by Velasquez, managed to obtain from the churchman, Adrian, who was Regent whilst the Emperor resided in Germany, an order for the seizure of Cortez and the sequestration of his property until the will of the court should be finally made known.
But, the avaricious Velasquez, the vindictive Fonseca, and the _Veedor_ Cristoval de Tapia, whom they employed to execute so delicate and dangerous a commission against a man who at that moment, was surrounded by faithful soldiers and whose troops had been augmented by recent arrivals at Vera Cruz,--reasoned with but little judgment when they planned their unjust and ungrateful measures against Cortez. The commissioner, himself, seems to have soon arrived at the same conclusion, for, scarcely had he landed, before the danger of the enterprise and the gold of the conqueror, persuaded him prudently to decline penetrating into the heart of the country as the bearer of so ungrateful a reply to the wishes of a hero whose genius and sword had given an empire, and almost a world, to Spain.
Thus, at last, was Cortez, for a time, freed from the active hostility of the Spanish Court, whilst he retained his authority over his conquest merely by military right and power of forcible occupation.
But he did not remain idly contented with what he had already done.
His restless heart craved to compa.s.s the whole continent, and to discover, visit, explore, whatever lay within the reach of his small forces and of all who chose to swell them. He continually pressed his Indian visitors for information concerning the empire of the Montezumas and the adjacent territories of independent kings or tributaries. Wherever discontent lifted its head, or rebellious manifestations were made, he despatched sufficient forces to whip the mutineers into contrite submission. The new capital progressed apace, and stately edifices rose on the solid land which his soldiers had formed out of the fragments of ancient Mexico.
Whilst thus engaged in his newly-acquired domain, Narvaez, his old enemy, and Tapia, his more recent foe, had reached the Spanish Court, where, aided by Fonseca, they once more bestirred themselves in the foul labor of blasting the fame of Cortez, and wresting from his grasp the splendid fruits of his valor. Luckily, however, the Emperor returned, about this period, from eastern Europe, and, from this moment the tide of intrigue seems to have been stayed if not altogether turned. Reviled as he had hitherto been in the purlieus of the court, Cortez was not without staunch kinsmen and warm friends who stood up valiantly in his behalf, both before councils and king. His father, Don Martin, and his friend, the Duke of Bejar, had been prominent among many in espousing the cause of the absent hero, even before the sovereign's return;--and now, the monarch, whose heart was not indeed ungrateful for the effectual service rendered his throne by the conqueror, and whose mind probably saw not only the justice but the policy of preserving, unalienated, the fidelity and services of so remarkable a personage,--soon determined to look leniently upon all that was really censurable in the early deeds of Cortez. Whilst Charles confirmed his acts in their full extent, he moreover const.i.tuted him ”Governor, Captain General and Chief Justice of New Spain, with power to appoint to all offices, civil and military, and to order any person to leave the country whose residence there might be deemed prejudicial to the crown.”
On the 15th of October, 1522, this righteous commission was signed by Charles V., at Valladolid. A liberal salary was a.s.signed the Captain General; his leading officers were crowned with honors and emoluments, and the troops were promised liberal grants of land. Thus, the wisdom of the king, and of the most respectable Spanish n.o.bility, finally crushed the mean, jealous, or avaricious spirits who had striven to leave their slimy traces on the fame of the conqueror; whilst the Emperor, himself, with his own hand, acknowledged the services of the troops and their leader, in a letter to the Spanish army in Mexico.
Among the men who felt severely the censure implied by this just and wise conduct of Charles V., was the ascetic Bishop of Burgos, Fonseca, whose baleful influence had fallen alike upon the discoveries of Columbus, and the conquests of Cortez. His bigoted and narrow soul,--schooled in forms, and trained by early discipline, into a querulousness which could neither tolerate anything that did not accord with his rules or originate under his orders,--was unable to comprehend the splendid glory of the enterprises of these two heroic chieftains. Had it been his generous policy to foster them, history would have selected this son of the church as the guardian angel over the cradle of the New World; but he chose to be the shadow rather than the s.h.i.+ning light of his era, and, whether from age or chagrin, he died in the year after this kingly rebuff from a prince whose councils he had long and unwisely served.
CHAPTER XII.
1522-1547.
CORTeZ COMMISSIONED BY THE EMPEROR.--VELASQUEZ--HIS DEATH.--MEXICO REBUILT.--IMMIGRATION--REPARTIMIENTOS OF INDIANS.--HONDURAS-- GUATEMOZIN--MARIANA.--CORTeZ ACCUSED--ORDERED TO SPAIN FOR TRIAL.--HIS RECEPTION, HONORS AND t.i.tLES--HE MARRIES--HIS RETURN TO MEXICO--RESIDES AT TEZCOCO.--EXPEDITIONS OF CORTeZ--CALIFORNIA--QUIVARA.--RETURNS TO SPAIN--DEATH--WHERE ARE HIS BONES?
The royal commission, of which we have spoken in the last chapter, was speedily borne to New Spain, where it was joyfully received by all who had partic.i.p.ated in the conquest or joined the original forces since that event. Men not only recognized the justice of the act, but they felt that if the harvest was rightfully due to him who had planted the seed, it was also most probable that no one could be found in Spain or the Islands more capable than Cortez of consolidating the new empire.
Velasquez, the darling object of whose latter years had been to circ.u.mvent, entrap or foil the conqueror, was sadly stricken by the defeat of his machinations. The reckless but capable soldier, whom he designed to mould into the pliant tool of his avarice and glory, had suddenly become his master. Wealth, renown, and even royal grat.i.tude, crowned his labors; and the disobedience, the errors, and the flagrant wrongs he was charged with whilst subject to gubernatorial authority, were pa.s.sed by in silence or forgotten in the acclamation that sounded his praise throughout Spain and Europe. Even Fonseca,--the chief of the council,--had been unable to thwart this darling of genius and good fortune. Velasquez, himself, was nothing. The great error of his life had been in breaking with Cortez before he sailed for Mexico. He was straitened in fortune, foiled in ambition, mocked by the men whose career of dangerous adventure he had personally failed to share; and, at last, disgusted with the time and its men, he retired to brood over his melancholy reverses until death soon relieved him of his earthly jealousies and annoyances.
Four years had not entirely elapsed since the fall of Mexico, when a new and splendid city rose from its ruins and attracted the eager Spaniards, of all cla.s.ses, from the old world and the islands. Cortez designed this to be the continental nucleus of population. Situated on the central plateau of the realm, midway between the two seas, in a genial climate whose heat never scorched and whose cold never froze, it was, indeed, an alluring region to which men of all temperaments might resort with safety. Strongholds, churches, palaces, were erected on the sites of the royal residences of the Aztecs and their blood-stained Teocallis. Strangers were next invited to the new capital, and, in a few years, the Spanish quarter contained two thousand families, while the Indian district of Tlatelolco, numbered not less than thirty thousand inhabitants. The city soon a.s.sumed the air and bustle of a great mart. Tradesmen, craftsmen and merchants, thronged its streets and remaining ca.n.a.ls.
Cortez was not less anxious to establish, in the interior of the old Aztec empire, towns or points of rendezvous, which in the course of time, would grow up into important cities. These were placed with a view to the future wants of travel and trade in New Spain. Liberal grants of land were made to settlers who were compelled to provide themselves with wives under penalty of forfeiture within eighteen months. Celibacy was too great a luxury for a young country.[9] The Indians were divided among the Spaniards by the system of _repartimientos_, which will be more fully discussed in a subsequent part of this work. The necessities and cupidity of the early settlers in so vast a region rendered this necessary perhaps, though it was promptly discountenanced but never successfully suppressed by the Spanish crown. The scene of action was too remote, the subjects too selfish, and the ministers too venal or interested to carry out, with fidelity, the benign ordinances of the government at home. From this apportionment of Indians, which subjected them, in fact, to a species of slavery, it is but just to the conquerors to state that the Tlascalans, upon whom the burden of the fighting had fallen, were entirely exempted at the recommendation of Cortez.
Among all the tribes the work of conversion prospered, for the ceremonious ritual of the Aztec religion easily introduced the native wors.h.i.+ppers to the splendid forms of the Roman Catholic. Agriculture and the mines were not neglected in the policy of Cortez, and, in fact he speedily set in motion all the machinery of civilization, which was gradually to operate upon the native population whilst it attracted the overflowing, industrious or adventurous ma.s.ses of his native land. Various expeditions, too, for the purpose of exploration and extension, were fitted out by the Captain General of New Spain; so that, within three years after the conquest, Cortez had reduced to the Spanish sway, a territory of over four hundred leagues, or twelve hundred miles on the Atlantic coast, and of more than five hundred leagues or fifteen hundred miles on the Pacific.[10]
This sketch of a brief period after the subjugation of Mexico developes the _constructive_ genius of Cortez, as the preceding chapters had very fully exhibited his _destructive_ abilities. It shows, however, that he was not liable justly to the censure which has so often been cast upon him,--of being, only, a piratical plunderer who was seduced into the conquest by the spirit of rapine alone.
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