"Friends and foes in dumb surpriseWith parted lips and straining eyesStood gazing,"—
"Friends and foes in dumb surpriseWith parted lips and straining eyesStood gazing,"—
but not "where he sank," for sink he did not.[17]Planting his lance on the wreckage in the waters of the breach, after the manner of a leaping-pole, the heroic Spaniard collected his energies, leapt forward, and passed the chasm at a bound. To this day, in the City of Mexico, the spot exists, and is known as thepuente de Alvarado.
17 It is stated that the Aztecs paused in admiration of this feat, whilst "the Son of the Sun," as they termed Alvarado, from his fair hair and rubicund visage, performed this extraordinary leap; considering it miraculous.
Away off the causeway into the grey dawn of morning passed the remnant of the routed army, wounded, bleeding, starving, their comrades gone, some to death, some to the sacrifice, and annihilation threatening all. Baggage and artillery were gone, not a carbine was left, and Cortes, seating himself upon the steps of a ruinedtemple on the shore, wept bitter tears of sorrow and vanished fortune. So passed theNoche Triste.
The next great event of this remarkable campaign was the battle of Otumba. The wretched soldiers, having obtained what rest and nourishment were possible, continued their retreat around the northern part of the lake valley; passed beneath the shadow of the pyramids of Teotihuacan—standing ever there ruined and wrapped in the mystery of their prehistoric builders—and seven days after the events of that awful night crossed the summit of the range which bounds the plain of Anahuac. Thence they set their gaze eastwards towards the coast. What was it that greeted their eyes on the plain below? A mighty army of warriors whose hosts absolutely covered the plain with glowing lance and waving plumes—the forces of the warlike Otomies. So numerous were they that, dressed in their armour of white quilted cotton, it "looked as if the land was covered with snow," as the historians put it. There was nothing for it but to face these fearful odds, and, weakened as they were, the remnant of the Spanish force, encouraged by their leader and exhorted by their priest, fell valiantly on. They were soon wrapped in the enfolding masses of the savages, who attacked them with the utmost ferocity. The cavalry fell back; the Spaniards were stricken on every side, and absolute disaster hung over them. "We believed it to be our last day," Cortes wrote to Spain afterwards. But the tide of battle changed miraculously. In a last furious charge Cortes, followed by the few officers who remained, leaped upon the foe, reached the litter of their chief, and, running him through the body with a lance, tore down the standard. This act saved the day. Stricken with panic at the loss of their leader, the Indians fell into disorder, threw down their arms, and turned and fled. Hot upon them, and thirsting for revenge, poured the Spaniards and Tlascalans—it is to be recollected that the Christians had no firearms nor artillery—and utterly routed them. The victory ofOtumba is considered one of the most remarkable in the history of the New World.
Their fortunes thus somewhat ameliorated, the Spaniards continued onward to Tlascala, where they were received with the utmost hospitality, and there they recuperated their shattered energies. Further alliance was entered into with these people, despite embassies from the Aztecs. Further operations were successfully conducted against the powerful Tepeacans—allies of the Aztecs—who were beaten, and transferred their allegiance to the men of Castile. These successes were followed by others; the Tlascalans in a severe battle defeated a large force of the Aztecs; numerous other tribes, influenced by these matters, sent to offer their allegiance, and a vast part of the country was soon under the authority of the Spaniards. The intrepid and persistent spirit of Cortes, undismayed by the reverses which the attempted conquest of Mexico had cost him and his followers, now laid his plans for a further campaign against the lake-city of Anahuac. Over Tenochtitlan there had reigned a master-enemy, to whose work had been due the frightful reverses of the "sorrowful night" and the battle of Otumba. This was Cuitlahuac, brother of Montezuma. But having saved his capital from falling before the detested white men, this capable prince expired from smallpox—a disease introduced into the country by the invaders—after a few months' reign. In his stead now arose the famous Guatemoc, Montezuma's nephew, and he also had sworn a deep hatred against the ravishers of his country.
Up, up once more, away over the rocky fastnesses of the sierra, followed by his allies, the flower of the armies of Tlascala, Tepeaca, and Cholula, Cortes and his Spaniards pressed. But his measures this time had been taken with care and forethought. The resources of the country furnished sinews of war. Twelve brigantines were put under construction by the Spanish shipbuilder who was among the forces, timber and pitchbeing obtained from the mountains near at hand, and the ironwork and rigging of the destroyed navy of Vera Cruz used for their outfitting. This astonishing piece of work was performed by the Tlascalans, and the ships, carried from Tlascala to the shore of Texcoco, were floated thereon by means of a canal dug by these magnificent allies of the Spanish Crown. The building of ships in a forest and carrying them in pieces for sixty miles over mountains and plains to the water, is a feat which may well command our admiration even to-day!
The subjugation of the Aztec city proved to be a protracted and bloody task. The only method by which it could be compassed was that of laying waste the surrounding places on the lake and the holding of the environs of the city in a state of siege. Cortes established his centre of operations in the city of Texcoco, capital of the nation of the same name, on the eastern extremity of the lake, and the young Prince Ixtlilxochitl, whom he installed upon the throne of that kingdom, was his powerful ally. Indeed, it was only the disaffections of the outlying peoples, who generally abhorred the Aztec hegemony, that enabled the Spaniards to carry on their operations, or, indeed, to set foot in the country at all.
A series of severe struggles began then, both by land and water—burning, slaughter, and the destruction of the lake towns. The Aztecs, with their great number, raining darts and stones upon the invaders at every engagement, attacked them with unparalleled ferocity both by forces on shore and their canoes on the lake. The Spaniards took heavy toll of the enemy at every turn, assisted by their allies the Tlascalans, as savage and implacable as the Aztecs, whom they attacked with a singular and persistent spirit of hatred, the result of long years of oppression by the dominant power of Anahuac. Cortes, on every occasion when it seemed that the last chance of success might attend it, offered terms to the Aztec capital, by no means dishonourable, assuring them their liberty and self-government in returnfor allegiance to the Crown of Spain and the renouncing of their abominable system of sacrificial religion. These advances were invariably met by the most implacable negatives. The Aztecs, far from offering to yield, swore they would sacrifice, when the day was theirs, every Spaniard and Tlascalan on the bloody altars of their gods; and as for entering into any treaty, the last man, woman, and child would resist the hated invaders until the last drop of blood was shed and the last stone of their city thrown down. This vaunt, as regards the latter part, was almost literally carried out, and to some extent as regards the former.
During the earlier part of the siege a welcome addition was made to the Spanish forces. Three vessels from Hispaniola arrived at Vera Cruz, and the two hundred men, artillery, gunpowder, and quantity of horses they brought placed the Spaniards again in possession of superior arms. Previous to this the brigantines had arrived, transported by the Tlascalans, eight thousand bearers loaded with timbers and appliances, "a marvellous sight to see," wrote Cortes to the king. "I assure your Majesty that the train of bearers was six miles long." It is related by a subsequent historian, in 1626, that tallow being scarce for the shipwrights' purposes, it was obtained from the dead bodies of Indians who had fallen in the fights; presumably by boiling them down.[18]
18 This obtaining ofsebo humano, or "human tallow," by the Spaniards seems to have been practised in Peru also, according to stories told me by the natives of the Andes, and recorded in my book, "The Andes and the Amazon."
Plans were then laid for an attack upon the island-city. But before this it was necessary to subjugate some troublesome Indians to the west, and the expedition to Cuernavaca was successfully carried out. A remarkable incident of this was the surprise attack upon the enemy in an impregnable position, by the crossing of a profound chasm by means of two overhanging trees, which were utilised as a natural bridge by some Tlascalans and the Spaniards, who passed the dangerous spot bythis method. Return was then made to Xochimilco on the fresh-water lake of that name, adjoining at that time that of Texcoco on the south. The name of this place in the Aztec tongue signifies "The Field of Flowers," for there were numbers of the singularchinampas, or floating-gardens, which were a feature of the aquatic life of the Mexicans, existing upon this lake.
The siege operations were conducted vigorously both by land and water. Again before the eyes of the Spaniards stretched that fatal causeway—path of death amid the salt waters of Texcoco for so many of their brave comrades upon theNoche Tristeof their terrible flight from Tenochtitlan. And there loomed once more that dreadedteocalli, whence the war-drum's mournful notes were heard. Guarded now by the capable and persistent Guatemoc, the city refused an offer of treaty, and invited the destruction which was to fall upon it. From theazoteas, or roofs of their buildings and temples, the undaunted Mexicans beheld the white-winged brigantines, armed with those belching engines of thunder and death whose sting they well knew: and saw the ruthless hand of devastation laying waste their fair town of the lake shore, and cutting off their means of life.
But the Spaniards had yet to learn to their cost the lengths of Aztec tenacity and ferocity. It will be recollected that the city was connected to the lake shores by means of four causeways, built above the surface of the water; engineering structures of stone and mortar and earth, which had from the first aroused the admiration of the Spaniards. These causeways, whilst they rendered the city almost impregnable from attack, were a source of weakness in the easy cutting-off of food supplies, which they afforded to the enemy. A simultaneous assault on all these approaches was organised by the Spaniards, under Sandoval, Alvarado, and Cortes himself, respectively, whilst the brigantines, with their raking artillery, were to support the attack by water, aided by the canoes of the Tlascalan and Texcocan allies. A series of attacks was made by this method,and at last the various bodies of Spaniards advanced along the causeways and gained the city walls. But frightful disaster befel them. The comparative ease with which they entered the city aroused Cortes's suspicions; and at that moment, from the summit of the greatteocalli, rang out a fearful note—the horn of Guatemoc, calling for vengeance and a concerted attack. The notes of the horn struck some ominous sense of chill in the Spaniards' breasts, and the soldier-penman, Bernal Diaz, who was fighting valiantly there, says that the noise echoed and re-echoed, and rang in his ears for days afterwards. The Spaniards on this, as on other occasions, had foolishly neglected to secure the breaches in the causeways as they passed, or at least the rash Alvarado had not done so with his command, his earlier lesson unheeded; and when the Christians were hurled backwards—for their easy entrance into the great square of the city had been in the nature of a decoy—disaster befel them, which at one moment seemed as if it would be a repetition of that of theNoche Triste. "The moment I reached that fearful bridge," Cortes wrote in his despatches, "I saw the Spaniards returning in full flight." Remaining to hold the breach, if possible, and cover the retreat, the chivalrous Cortes almost lost his life from a furious attack by the barbarians in their canoes, and was only saved by the devotion of his own men and Indian allies, who gave their lives in his rescue. Word, nevertheless, had gone forth among the men that Cortes had fallen; and the savages, throwing before the faces of Alvarado and Sandoval the bloody heads of decapitated Spaniards, cried tauntingly the name "Malintzin," which was that by which Cortes was known among the Mexicans. Men and horses rolled into the lake; dead bodies filled the breaches; the Christians and their allies were beaten back, and "as we were all wounded it was only the help of God which saved us from destruction," wrote Bernal Diaz. Indeed, both Cortes and the Spaniards only escaped, on these and other occasions, from the Aztecs' desire to take them alive for sacrifice.
Once more, after disastrous retreats and heavy loss, the bleeding and discouraged Spaniards lay in their camp, as evening fell. Of dead, wounded, and captured the Spaniards missed more than a hundred and twenty of their comrades, and the Tlascalans a thousand, whilst valuable artillery, guns, and horses were lost. But listen! what is that mournful, penetrating sound which smites the Christians' ears? It is the war-god's drum, and even from where the Spaniards stand there is visible a procession ascending the steps of theteocalli, and, to their horror, the forms of their lost comrades are seen within it: whose hearts are doomed to be torn out living from their breasts to smoke before the shrine of Huitzilopochtli, the war-devil of their enemies. From that high and fearful place their comrades' eyes must be gazing with despairing look towards the impotent Spanish camp, glazing soon in death as the obsidian knives of the priests performed their fiendish work. The disastrous situation of the Spaniards was made worse by the desertion, at this juncture, of the Tlascalan and other allies. Awed by a prophecy sent out confidently by the Aztec priests, that both Christians and allies should be delivered into their hands before eight days had passed (prophecy or doom, which the priests said, was from the mouth of the war-god, appeased by the late victory), the superstitious Indians of Cortes's forces sneaked off in the night.
Continued reverses, in the face of long-continued action and desire for the attaining a given end, forges in the finer calibre of mind a spirit of unremitting purpose. Blow after blow, which would turn away the ordinary individual from his endeavour, serves to steel the real hero to a dispassionate and persistent patience, and the purpose from its very intensity becomes almost a sacred cause, and seems to obtain from the unseen powers of circumstance success at last. So with Cortes and others of the Spaniards. The period prescribed by the somewhat rash prophecy of the Aztec priests and their infernal oracle having passed without anythingremarkable having taken place, the Tlascalan and Texcocan allies, upbraided and warned by the Spaniards' messengers, now sneaked back to resume the attack against the city. The Aztecs had sought to cause disaffection in outlying places by sending round the bloody heads of decapitated Spaniards and horses, but with little effect. Cortes then prepared for a final effort. The plan adopted was to be slower but surer than the former one of simple slaughter. It was determined to raze the city to the ground; to destroy the buildings step by step, fill up the canals, and so lay waste the whole area from the outside, so that unobstructed advance might be maintained.
The execution of this plan was begun. The city ends of the causeways were captured and held; street after street was demolished, and canal after canal filled up amid scenes of incessant fighting and slaughter. Day after day the Spaniards returned to their work; day after day with admirable tenacity the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan disputed the ground inch by inch, watered with the blood of themselves, their women and their children. Their supplies cut off, famine and pestilence wrought more terrible havoc among them—crowded as they gradually became into one quarter of the city—than the arms of the Spaniards and the Tlascalans. At the termination of each day's work the Spanish prepared an ambuscade for the enemy, drawing them on by seeming to retire, and massacring them with the artillery and gun-fire and lances, to say nothing of the weapons of their savage allies. On one of these occasions "the enemy rushed out yelling as if they had gained the greatest victory in the world," Cortes wrote in his despatches, and "more than five hundred, all of the bravest and principal men, were killed in this ambush." He added, and it was a common occurrence, "our allies"—the Indians—"supped well that night, cutting up and eating their captives!" During the days of this terrible siege the famous catapult was made, an extraordinary engine to discharge great stones upon the enemy. This was to enable the Spaniards to husband their powder, which was getting low,and the Aztecs watched the construction of this machine with certain fear. It was completed and set to work, but the builder, a Spanish soldier of inventive faculty, nearly played the part of the engineer hoist with his own petard, for the great stone fired rose, it is true, but went straight up and descended again upon the machine, which was ever afterwards the laughing-stock of the army.
Further severe losses were now inflicted upon the beleaguered inhabitants, as more ammunition had been obtained. Peace had again been offered by the Spaniards, and again refused by the Aztecs. An Aztec chief of high rank had been captured, and then returned to Guatemoc as a peace envoy. The Mexicans' reply was to execute and sacrifice the unfortunate emissary, and then collecting their forces they poured out upon the causeways like a furious tide, which seemed as if it would sweep all before it. But the Spaniards were prepared. The narrow causeways were commanded by the artillery, which poured such a deadly hail upon the enemy's numbers that they returned fleeing to the city.
And soon the end approaches. The division led by Cortes made a fierce assault; and whilst the battle raged the Spaniards observed that the summit of one of theteocalliswas in flames. It was the work of Alvarado's men, who had penetrated already to the plaza. Forces were joined, and the inhabitants of the city, driven into one quarter thereof, still made their stubborn and—now—suicidal stand. For the streets were piled up with corpses, the Aztecs refraining from throwing the bodies of their slain into the lake, or outside the city, in order not to show their weakness. Pestilence and famine had made terrible inroads upon the population. Miserable wretches, men, women, and children, were encountered wandering about careless of the enemy, only bent upon finding some roots, bark, or offal which might appease the hunger at their vitals. The salt waters of the lake, which they had been obliged to drink, for the Spaniards had cut the aqueduct which brought the fresh water from Chapultepec, had caused many to sicken and die. Mothers had devouredtheir dead children; the bodies of the slain had been eaten, and the bark gnawed from the trunks of trees. In their dire extremity some of the chiefs of the beleaguered city called Cortes to the barricade. He went, trusting that capitulation was at hand, for, as both he and his historians record, the slaughter was far from their choosing. "Do but finish your work quickly," was the burden of their parley. "Let us go and rest in the heaven of our war-god; we are weary of life and suffering. How is it that you, a son of the Sun, tarry so long in finishing, when the Sun himself makes circuit of the earth in a day, and so accomplishes his work speedily?"
This remarkable appeal struck renewed pity to the heart of Cortes, and once more he begged them to surrender and avoid further suffering, and the Spaniards drew off their forces for a space. But the inexorable Guatemoc, although he sent an embassy to say he would hold parley, and the Spaniards waited for him, did not fulfil the promise at the last moment. Incensed at this behaviour, the Spaniards and the Tlascalans renewed the attack with overpowering energy on the one part and barbaric savagery on the other. Contrary to the orders of the Spaniards, their savage allies gave no quarter, but murdered men, women, and children in fiendish exultation. The stench of the dead in the beleaguered city was overpowering; the soil was soaked with blood; the gutters ran as in a rain-storm, say the chroniclers, and, wrote Cortes to the King of Spain: "Such slaughter was done that day on land and water that killed and prisoners numbered forty thousand; and such were the shrieks and weeping of women and children that there were none of us whose hearts did not break." He adds that it was impossible to contain the savage killing and torturing by their allies the Tlascalans, who practised such cruelty as had never been seen, and "out of all order of nature."
At nightfall the attacking forces drew off, leaving the remainder of the inhabitants of the stricken city to consider their position. It is stated that the Tlascalans made a great banquet of the flesh of the fallen Aztecs,and that on this and other occasions they fished up the bloated bodies of their enemies from the lake and devoured them! At sunrise on the following day Cortes and a few followers entered the city, hoping to have a supplication for terms from Guatemoc. The army was stationed outside the walls, ready, in the event of a refusal—the signal of which should be a musket-shot—to pour in and strike the final blow. A parley was entered into as before, which lasted several hours. "Do you surrender?" Cortes demanded. The final reply of Guatemoc was, "I will not come: I prefer to die where I am: do your worst."
A musket-shot rang out upon the air; the Spaniards and their allies fell on to merciless slaughter: cannons, muskets, arrows, slings, lances—all told their tale upon the huddled mass of panic-stricken people, who, after presenting a feeble and momentary front, poured forth upon the fatal causeways to escape. Drowned and suffocated in the waters of the lake, mowed down by the fire from the brigantines, and butchered by the brutal Tlascalans, women, children, and men struggled and shrieked among that frightful carnage; upon which it were almost impious to dwell further. Guatemoc, with his wife and children, strove to escape, and the canoe containing them was already out upon the lake, when a brigantine ran it down and captured him. All resistance was at an end. No sign of life or authority remained among the ruined walls; the fair city by the lake was broken and tenantless, its idols fallen, and its people fled. The Homeric struggle was over; the conquest of Mexico was accomplished.
General considerations—Character of Viceroy rule—Spanish civilisation—Administration of Cortes—Torture of Guatemoc—Conquests of Guatemala and Honduras—Murder of Guatemoc—Fall of Cortes—First viceroy Mendoza—His good administration—Misrule of theAudiencias—Slavery and abuse of the Indians—The Philippine islands—Progress under the Viceroys—Plans for draining the Valley of Mexico—British buccaneers—Priestly excesses—Raid of Agramonte—Exploration of California—Spain and England at war—Improvements and progress in the eighteenth century—Waning of Spanish power—Decrepitude of Spain—Summary of Spanish rule—Spanish gifts to Mexico—The rising of Hidalgo—Spanish oppression of the colonists—Oppression by the colonists of the Indians—Republicanism and liberty—Operations and death of Hidalgo—The revolution of Morelos—Mier—The dawn of Independence—The birth of Spanish-American nations.
The history of Mexico, like its topography, shows a series of intense and varied pictures. Indeed, it ever occurs to the student of the Spanish-American past, and observer of Spanish-American hills and valleys, that the diverse physical changes seem to have had some analogy with or to have exercised some influence upon the acts of mankind there. Whether in Mexico, Peru, or other parts of North, Central, and South America, formed by the rugged ranges of the Andes, the accompaniments of prehistoric civilisation, daring conquest, bloody and picturesque revolution, and social turmoil are found. Amid these great mountain peaks and profound valleys strange semi-civilised barbarians raised their temples, and European men, arriving thither in armed bands, havetorn both themselves and their predecessors to pieces, as if some dictate of Nature had said, "Fight; for here is no peace."
Yet what was really destined to take place in Mexico was the evolution of a distinct civilisation. Three hundred years of the implanting of the seed of Spanish culture and ideals, and fifty years of drastic revolutionary tilling of the social soil, wrought a nation at length.
Transplanted from the Old World, the methods and character of Spanish life, with all its virtues and defects, rapidly took root in Mexico. The long rule of the Viceroys is steeped in an atmosphere often brilliant and attractive, often dark and sinister, always romantic and impressive. The grandees of Spain came out to rule this new country, and gave it of their best, nor disdained to spend their years therein, and a stream of capable legislators and erudite professors and devout ecclesiastics hurried to the new field which lay open to their services and powers. The patriotism and fervency of their work, whatever defects they showed from time to time, cannot fail to arouse the applause of the student of those times. The colonialrégimegave solid and enduring character to the Mexican people. It gave them traditions, history, refinement, which are a priceless heritage for them, and it builded beautiful cities and raised up valuable institutions which are the substratum of their civilisation. The wonderful vitality and extent of Spanish influence and character which flowed from these centres—Mexico, Peru, and others—over thousands of miles of rugged Cordillera and through impassable forests, was, in some respects, the most notable condition within the shores of all the New World. The stamp of the great civilisation which Spain, herself the result of a human blend of undying character, implanted within these continents is great and imperishable, and holds something for the world at large which is, as yet, scarcely suspected.
But, to return to history. In 1522 Cortes was appointed Governor and Captain-General of the great territory which Spain acquired as a result of the Conquest,and to which the name of "New Spain" was given—a designation, however, which was never able to usurp its ancient and natural one of "Mexico." The charges which had been brought against Cortes by his jealous enemies had been inquired into by an impartial group of statesmen appointed by the young King of Spain, Charles V., and set aside; and thus began the rule of Spain in Mexico. The Conquistador thus reached the summit of fame and power—the reward of his indomitable spirit of persistence in the path and project which his imagination had fired.
Therégimeof Cortes was not without benefit to the colony. A fine city arose upon the ruins of Tenochtitlan. Settlement of the country was carried on; valuable products of the Old World—among them the sugar-cane and orange and grape-vines—were introduced and cultivated; exploration of the country was pushed on a considerable scale, resulting in the discovery of the Pacific coast of Mexico. The conquest of Guatemala was carried out by Pedro de Alvarado, sent thither by Cortes, and that of Honduras by Olid. Cortes personally carried an expedition to Honduras, but disturbances in Mexico obliged him to return.
Guatemoc, the brave young Aztec defender of Tenochtitlan, fared ill at the hands of the Spaniards. To their shame it is that, after the fall of the city, they tortured him—by permission of Cortes—in order to extract information as to the whereabouts of the Aztec treasure; for the invaders had obtained disappointingly little gold. In company with one of his chiefs the Spaniards roasted the feet of Guatemoc before a fire: "Think you that I am upon some bed of delight?" was the reply of the stoic Aztec to his groaning companion in torture, who asked if he did not suffer. Guatemoc remained crippled for life by this barbarous act, but he accompanied Cortes to Honduras, and upon this expedition it was that the Spaniards executed—or murdered—him. He was accused of treachery in having endeavoured to incite a rebellion against the Spaniards, and they hanged himhead downwards from a tree. "Ah! Malintzin,"[19]the unfortunate Aztec said to Cortes after his mock trial, "vain I ever knew it to trust in your promises!"
19 The Aztec name for Cortes.
And now the time arrives when the star of the Conquistador is to wane and set. The execution of Guatemoc had brought about a reprimand from Spain; for it is to be recollected that the Spanish sovereigns never sought the actual destruction of the American princes, and Pizarro, also, was reprimanded after his murder of Atahualpa, in Peru. Cortes, upon his return to Mexico from the Honduras expedition, found that Spain was not pleased with his administration. Enemies had been at work, and gratitude for his great services was easily set aside in the fickle favour of the monarch. A special commissioner, in the person of the licentiate Ponce de Leon, was awaiting him, appointed by Carlos V. to impeach him, as a result of grave charges of maladministration—true or untrue—which had been brought against him in Spain. In this connection it is to be recollected that Cortes, faithful to his country, had twice refused to be made King of Mexico by his own followers. Cortes, finding his enemies too strong, went to Spain to lay his case before the Emperor personally, but was denied the civil governorship of Mexico, although military control was given him, and the title of Marqués del Valle. But although he returned to Mexico, he was no longer in the dominant position of former years. Cortes returned to Spain in 1540 from Mexico, once more to lay the plaint of his unjust treatment before Carlos V., a result of his disputes with the first viceroy, Mendoza. He was treated with indifference and coldness; his life terminated in disappointment and regrets, and he died in Spain in December, 1547. So pass the actors in the drama of the Conquest. As to Guatemoc, his memory is perpetuated in the handsome statue in thepaseo de Colonof modern Mexico, whilst—strange sentiment of the race which Cortes founded—no monument to the bold Conquistador exists throughout the land.
From the time of the fall of the fortunes of Cortes in 1535 to the first cry for independence by Hidalgo in 1810, New Spain was administered by viceroys andAudiencias—the latter being a species of administrative councils consisting of a president and four members, nominated by royal decree. The first viceroy, Mendoza, and many of the subsequent officials of this rank governed Mexico for a period, and were transferred thence to the viceregency of Peru, which latter country had been brought into Spain's colonial possessions by the conquest under Pizarro, in 1532. Indeed, Pizarro a short time after that date had made his second entry into Cuzco, the Inca capital of Peru, wearing an ermine robe which Cortes had sent him. During Mendoza's period, printing was first introduced into Mexico—or, indeed, into the New World—the Mint and the University were founded, and exploration of the northern part of the country was undertaken. The rule of the first viceroy, Mendoza, was good; he was upright and capable, and his methods were in marked contrast to the excesses and cruelties practised by the firstAudiencia, which had preceded his and the secondAudiencia's régime. Bishops and priests took active part in the affairs of Mexico from the beginning, and the firstAudienciahad been involved in grave conflict with the clergy. One of the main features of the period was the system ofrepartmientosandencomiendasunder which the Indians were portioned out as serfs to the Spanish colonists. Exceeding brutality marked this system of slavery; and at an early date it became necessary to abolish the practice of branding the unfortunate serfs with hot irons, like cattle! Thus began the system of cruelty and abuse of the natives under Spanish rule—not from Spain, however, but by the colonists—whose counterpart was enacted in the South American countries contemporaneously. It is to the credit of Churchmen that they often took the part of the Indians; and a venerated name to this day among the natives of Michoacan is that of Quiroga, the first Bishop of that province, who penetrated there to endeavour tocounteract the effect of the marked abuses of Guzman, president of the firstAudiencia, who in 1527 burned to death their chief, because he would not, or could not, give up his gold. Velasquez, the second viceroy, succeeding Mendoza, also had grave questions with theAudiencia. He also was an upright man, and his death was hastened by these matters. Indeed, theAudienciaswere singularly unfortunate in their proceedings, and their rule was almost always marked by a mistaken policy exaggerated by acts of cruelty and oppression. During the time of Velasco an expedition sent by him sailed from Mexico westward, and took possession in 1564 of the Philippine Islands, which were so named after the reigning King of Spain, Philip II.
Viceroy succeeded viceroy then in the history of Mexico, and tyranny and benevolence followed each other alternately in the governing of the people. Under the cruel Muñoz, a member of theAudiencia, the son of Cortes was tortured, and gaols were filled and blood was freely shed on political and other charges. In 1571 another sinister event took place—the establishing of the Inquisition. A few years later the foundation of the Cathedral of Mexico was laid, the beautiful structure which to-day dominates the capital. A matter which was early forced upon the attention of the viceroys and city councils was the occurrence of flooding of the city and attendant epidemics and disaster; for the peculiar hydrographic conditions of the Valley of Mexico rendered it liable to floods, the first of which had occurred 1553. In 1580 plans were formulated for drainage by means of a canal which should give outlet through the surrounding hills. In 1603 this project was again brought forward and again abandoned; and in 1607 work was actually begun, with a force of nearly half a million Indians, upon the great cut of Nochistongo, which still exists and lies open to the view of the traveller upon the Mexican railway to-day.
Towards the close of the sixteenth century the ports of New Spain, especially Vera Cruz, were visited by thoseenterprising and unscrupulous sea-rovers of Britain, Drake, Cavendish, Hawkins, and others, who took toll of coast towns and plate-ships throughout the regions which Spain claimed as her own, but which pretensions were not respected by others of the maritime nations of Europe. A memorable period was this in the history of the New World, as of the Old, for this flood-tide of staunch buccaneers from Britain and Holland did but swell onward and culminate in the defeat of the Invincible Armada off the Elizabethan coast, 1588. The student of the history of Spanish America at this period will not spare much sympathy for Spain and Spanish misrule. Under Philip II. a constant drain of treasure from Mexico and Peru for the needy Mother Country had given rise to serious abuses in the mines, and silver was extracted to fabulous values and sent to Spain under the system of forced labour.
In 1622 acute questions arose between the Court and ecclesiastical authorities, as ever inevitably took place in Spain's colonial dominions. Bishops excommunicated viceroys, and viceroys fulminated banishment against bishops: riotings and beheadings followed, and royal interpositions were constantly necessary to uphold or condemn the action of one or the other side. In 1629 an appalling inundation of the City of Mexico took place, following a similar occurrence in 1622, due to the discontinuance of the drainage works which had earlier been begun; and it is stated that thirty thousand of the poor inhabitants of the valley perished as a result. Two years later acute dissatisfaction began to arise at the great acquisition of wealth and power by the clergy, and a memorial sent to Philip IV. by the municipality of Mexico begged that no more religious institutions or communities might be established, asserting that more than half the wealth of the country was in the hands of these, and that there were more than six thousand priests—most of them idle—in the country.
From the middle to the close of the seventeenth century the social life of the people developed butslowly. The main events were the conspiracy of the Irishman Lampart to secure independence for the country, the dedication of the cathedral of Mexico, the founding of the town of Albuquerque in the territory of New Mexico—to-day part of the United States, the enactment against the violation of private correspondence, the fortification of the ports on the Gulf coast against the operations of sea-rovers—among them the famous British buccaneer Morgan, the eruption of Popocatepetl (1665), the sacking of the town of Campeche by British ships (1680), the insurrection and murders by the Indians of Chihuahua and New Mexico, the piratical exploit of Agramonte and his band, who disembarked at and looted the port of Vera Cruz, imprisoning the greater part of the population in a church, the exploration of California, and the operations against the French and English settlers upon the Mexican Gulf coast. The last years of the century were disturbed by serious rioting and tumult in the capital, due to scarcity of food and the inundation of the city.
The first years of 1700 opened with some alarm for the Spaniards of Mexico, for England and Spain were at war, and it was feared that British naval operations might be undertaken against the country. The loss of a plate-ship's treasure, due to the war, caused heavier taxes to fall upon the colonists, for continued exactions marked this century, from Spain, for treasure for the prosecution of her wars. The Gulf coast was placed in a position of defence against the British, who, however, after the capture of Habana, in 1762, concluded peace with Spain in the following year. Previous to that the English Admiral Anson had captured a galleon on its way from Acapulco to Manilla, with two and a half million dollars on board. The main events of this century, in addition to the foregoing, were the explorations of the Jesuits in California (1700), the severe earthquake of 1711, the distress among the common people, due to famine and oppression, which the Viceroy, the Duke of Linares, strove to remedy. In 1734 the firstcreoleViceroy, the Marquis of Casa Fuerte, born in Lima, was appointed, and during hisrégimethe first Mexican newspaper was published. During the war between England and Spain the Viceroy Figueroa, Marquis of Gracia Real, was almost captured by the British, who gave chase to the ship in which he came from Spain. Further events were the singular phenomenon of the forming of the volcano of Jorullo in Michoacan in 1759, the celebration of peace between England and Spain in 1763, the suppression of the Jesuits and their expulsion from the country in 1767, under the Marquis de Croix; the continued exactions of the Council of the Indies for treasure from the colonists, the clearing of the Gulf of Mexico of buccaneers in 1785, the reorganisation and improvement of the city of Mexico under Padilla, Count of Revillagigedo (1789-94); the encouragement of agriculture, mining, manufacturing, road-building, exploration, improvement of sanitary conditions, and amelioration of those concerning the administration of justice, which this good viceroy carried out. But at the close of the century, under his effete successor, Branciforte (1799), a conspiracy was inaugurated, but frustrated, for the massacre of Spaniards, and the establishing of the independence of the country.
At the beginning of the great nineteenth century, the long array of viceroys, governors, and priests nears its close. The imperial authority of the Spanish sovereign, unquestioned since Cortes won the country for it, reached its natural waning, urged on and influenced by world-happenings in European lands reacting upon these remote shores of New Spain. Not only was this the case in Mexico. The decrepitude of the Mother Country, the old age and infirmity which had been creeping upon Castile through the excesses of her rulers, who learnt nothing from time or circumstance, was laid bare to the people of America throughout the vast regions held by Spain. Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Argentina—for the voice of Bolivar was ringing through the Andes—all in the first and second decades of theprogressive nineteenth century were bent upon one stern task, the throwing off of the yoke of Spain and the establishing of native administrations. The flower of the earth, the vast and rich tropics and sub-tropics of North and South America, from California, Texas, and the Rocky Mountains, Mexico, Central America, down through the great Andes of Peru and Chile to Cape Horn, was in the hands of Spain, and it slipped from the grasp of a foolish and moribund nation.
But before entering upon these events let us take a final glance and draw a summary of the three long centuries—1521 to 1821—of this great array of Imperial Governors and their rule. Since that day of August 13, 1521, when Cortes unfurled the standard of Spain over the castle of Montezuma: to the consummation of Mexican independence, the entry of Iturbide into the city of Mexico on September 27, 1821: five Governors, twoAudiencias, or Royal Commissions, and sixty-two Viceroys had guided the destiny of colonial Mexico. Many of the names of these authorities stand out in lustre as good and humane, tolerant and energetic for the advancement of the colony; merciful to the Indian population, and worthy of the approbation of the history of their time. Others were rapacious and cruel, using their power for their own ends, and showing that ruthless cruelty and indifference to bloodshed and suffering—holding the lives of natives as cheap as that of animals—which has been characteristic of Spaniards of all time. Counts, marquises, Churchmen—all have passed upon the scroll of those three hundred years; some left indelible marks for good, some for evil; whilst others, effete and useless, are buried in forgetfulness. The Spanish character, architecture, institutions, and class distinctions were now indelibly stamped upon the people of Mexico. The Aztecrégimehad passed for ever; the Indian race was outclassed and subordinate; and themestizos, the people of mixed native and Hispanic blood, were rapidly becoming the most numerous part of the civilised population of the country. Whatever of goodhad existed in the Aztec semi-civilisation—and there was much of use in their land laws and other social measures—was entirely stamped out, and the sentiment and practice of European civilisation established. It is to be recollected that Spain adopted nothing, whether in Mexico or in Peru, of the ancient civilisation. Both the Aztecs and Incas lived under a set of laws which in some cases were superior to those of the conquerors, especially those relating to landholding and the payment of taxes and distribution of wealth. Under these primitive civilisations of America poverty or starvation was impossible, as every citizen was provided for. The Spaniards, however, would have none of it, and the land and the Indians, body and soul, were the property of their taskmasters. They might starve or not, as circumstances might dictate, after the fashion of European and American civilisation even of to-day, which denies any inherent right to ownership and enjoyment of the land and its resources on the part of its citizens. But Spain stamped many institutions in Mexico with the beauty and utility of her own civilisation. She endowed it with traditions and culture; she gave it the spirit of Western ambition which bids every citizen assert his right. The Mexican of to-day owes all he has—law, literature, art, and social system, and refinement and religion—to Spain.
But let us now take our stand with Hidalgo, the warrior-priest of Mexico. The hand of Spain is still pressing on the country. The year 1810 has arrived and the father of Mexico's independence is uttering his famous cry, "VivaAmerica!vivareligion! death to bad government!" After the native place of Hidalgo this message—for such it rapidly became—was known asel grito de Dolores—"the call of Dolores." The time was ripe for the assertion of independence. Spain was invaded by Napoleon; the King had abdicated. Who was the authority who should carry on the government—or misgovernment—of the colony? asked the city Council of Mexico as they urged the Viceroy toretain his authority against all comers. Unfortunately, the Spaniards, residents of the capital, precipitated lawlessness by rising and seizing the persons of the Viceroy Iturrigaray and high ecclesiastics, and some political murders followed. But the predisposing causes for the assertion of independence were nearer home. The British colonies, away to the north-east on the same continent, had severed the link which bound them to the Mother Country. The embryo of the great republic of the United States—poor and weak then—was established, and the spirit of independence was in the air. Most poignant of all, however, was the feeling caused by Spain's treatment of the Mexicans. Instead of fomenting the industries and trade of her colonies, Spain established amazing monopolies and unjust measures of repression. The trade which had grown between Mexico and China, and the great galleons which came and went from Acapulco—a more important seaport then than now even—was considered detrimental to Spain's own commerce. It was prohibited! The culture of grapes in Mexico, where they had been introduced and flourished exceedingly well, seemed antagonistic to the wine-making industry of Iberia; Hidalgo's vineyard, upon which he had lavished enterprise and care, was forthwith destroyed by the Spanish authorities! Thus industry and commerce were purposely stunted in Mexico, as they had been in Peru, by Imperial policy, and this went hand in hand with the restriction or denial of any political rights, and the oppression of the native population in the mines and plantations. "Learn to be silent and to obey, for which you were born, and not to discuss politics or have opinions," ran the proclamation of a viceroy in the latter half of the eighteenth century, addressed to the Mexicans! Other contributory causes to the revolution were the sentiments of the great French philosophers of the eighteenth century, which had sunk into the Mexican character.