CHAPTER IV CORTES AFTER THE CONQUEST THE capture of the capital of the Aztecs was celebrated with great revelry by the conquerors, and then religious services were held, and Father Olmeda spoke of the blessings of Providence and begged the Spaniards to treat the natives with humanity. The joy of the invaders, however, was considerably diminished when they found how small was the treasure which had fallen in their possession. After deducting the royal fifth an insignificant sum was left for each man, and Cortés was accused of having defrauded his companions. Cuauhtemoctzin, it was thought by some, could reveal the place where the treasure was hidden, and as he declared that there was no revelation to make, Cortés yielded to the clamor of his men and ordered the Emperor to be put to the torture. Cuauhtemoctzin displayed the greatest fortitude and told Tetlepanquetzal, the cacique of Tacuba, who uttered groans of pain: "Am I having any pleasure, or a bath?" [¿Estoy yo en algun deleite, ó baño?] These words have been translated into the well-known saying: "Am I then on a bed of roses?" The Aztec prince under torture said that some gold had been thrown into the water. The lake, however, was searched in vain, and the great treasure of Montezuma and of his predecessors remained unfound, like that of Captain Kidd on the Atlantic Coast, and of Jean Lafitte in the blue waters of Barataria Bay in Louisiana. After the capture of Mexico the question was agitated whether the capital would be rebuilt at the same place or in some other town of the Valley, and Cortés resolved to retain the site of Tenochtitlán. He set to work immediately to rebuild the city and used a multitude of Indians for that purpose. He restored the aqueduct of the Aztecs, filled up most of the canals and constructed two additional causeways. He built his own house on the site of Montezuma's palace or tecpan, and where had stood the great teocalli a Christian church was built somewhat later. The Indians settled in districts assigned to them in the new city, but they were never to be supreme again in their own country. In the meantime Cortés had been greatly embarrassed by the machinations of his enemy Velasquez, governor of Cuba, who had obtained assurance from Cardinal Adrian, Regent of Spain, and from Bishop Fonseca, the head of the colonial office, that a person should be sent to New Spain to take command there and to investigate the conduct of Cortés. Accordingly Cristóbal de Tapia was sent from Hispaniola and arrived in December, 1521, at Villa Rica. He was a weak and avaricious man, and the general succeeded in thwarting his efforts in exercising any control in the country, and he shortly re-embarked for Cuba. Cortés sent out also from New Spain at that time his former adversary Narvaez, who had been kept a prisoner at Vera Cruz since his defeat. On May 15, 1522, Cortés wrote from Coyohuacán his third letter to the Emperor Charles V, in which he related the final capture of Mexico. He sent also to Spain the royal fifth of the treasure of the Aztecs and intrusted to two of his officers, Quiñones and Avila, the task of presenting his letter to his sovereign and pleading his cause with Charles V. Quiñones was killed at the Azores and Avila was captured by a French privateer with the greater part of the Aztec treasure, and Francis I had the great satisfaction of despoiling his powerful rival of the riches amassed for him in the New World. The King of France is said to have exclaimed then that he should like "to see the clause in Adam's testament which entitled his brothers of Castile and Portugal to divide the New World between them." Cortés was bitterly attacked in Spain by the friends of Velasquez, among whom was Fonseca himself, but was well defended by the Duke de Bejar and by his own father, Don Martin Cortés. Cardinal Adrian became Pope, and Charles V finally decided the case in favor of the conqueror. He confirmed his acts, recompensed his officers and soldiers, acknowledged their services, and made their commander Governor, Captain General, and Chief Justice of New Spain. The Conqueror was as wise after his final triumph as he had been bold and skillful during the contest. He rebuilt Mexico, as we have said, on a grand plan, repeopled it and made the important settlements of Zacatula on the Pacific, Coliman in the province of Michoacan, San Estevan on the Atlantic, Medellin, and Antigua which he intended to take the place of Villa Rica as the great port of the country. He made also interesting regulations to induce women to reside in the country. "By a singular provision," says Prescott, "he required every settler, if a married man, to bring over his wife within eighteen months, on pain of forfeiting his estate. If he were too poor to do so himself, the government would assist him. Another law imposed the same penalty on all bachelors who did not provide themselves with wives within the same period. The general seems to have considered celibacy as too great a luxury for a young country." His own wife, Catalina Xuárez, came over to meet him but died three months after her arrival in New Spain. He has been accused of having murdered her, as she was ill suited to his present exalted position, and although this opinion has been adopted by such a reliable historian as Señor Perez Verdía, it is not based on sufficient authority to charge Cortés with such a crime. The Governor, in distributing the soil among the Spanish colonists, adopted the system of repartimientos and reduced the Indians to slavery, the Ttlascalans excepted. The Emperor, in his instructions to Cortés, disavowed the act, but the latter, in a private letter, dated October 15, 1524, sent with his fourth Relation, said that he had not made the sovereign's instructions public, for the reason that the Spaniards needed absolutely the labor of the Indians, and that the lot of the latter was infinitely less hard now than during the rule of the Aztecs, when thousands of them were sacrificed to the native gods. He added that he had made regulations to protect the natives from the tyranny of their masters, and indeed the number of pure Indians living in modern Mexico proves that they were not treated by the conquerors and their descendants with sufficient harshness to destroy the race. Missionaries attended to their spiritual welfare, and they were early converted to Christianity. Under the enlightened administration of the Governor, wheat, the sugar cane, the peach, the almond, the orange, the vine, and the olive were introduced in New Spain and flourished there. Not content with the land of Anáhuac Cortés wished to extend his sovereign's domains in the New World and to find a strait which might connect the waters of the two oceans. Alvarado was sent south by land, and after desperate fighting conquered Guatemala, the country of the Quichés and Cakchiquels. An expedition under Francisco de Montejo was undertaken for the conquest of Yucatan, which was accomplished finally, many years later, by Montejo's son. Garay, governor of Jamaica, was frustrated in an attempt to take possession of Panuco, north of Villa Rica, and died in Mexico. But the most dramatic of these great enterprises was that of Cristóbal de Olid, who was sent with five ships and four hundred soldiers to conquer the provinces called las Hibueras, the modern Honduras. On his way to his destination Olid stopped in Cuba, and the partisans of Velasquez induced him to establish for himself in Honduras an independent jurisdiction. Cortés heard of his lieutenant's defection and sent Francisco de las Casas to arrest him. Las Casas set sail from Vera Cruz, but was wrecked on the coast of Honduras and was made prisoner |