The Vermont Transcript

Hernando Cortez.

BY JAMES PARTON.

In the year 1502, at the small county town of Medellin, in Spain, there lived an idle, dissolute youth of seventeen, who was the torment of his parents, and the leader of all the mischief going on in that neighborhood. His parents were of the highest respectability, though reduced in circumstances, and they had given their son the best education within their means. During his infancy and childhood, he had been so sickly that no one expected he would live to mature age; but as he grew older he grew stronger, and at seventeen he was a man in stature, and sufficiently robust. He was then at home, having left the college of Salamanca without permission, and was passing his time in love intrigues and dissipation, regardless of the remonstrances of his father and the entreaties of his mother. When, therefore, he declared his intention of joining an expedition about to sail for America, the good people of Medellin, especially those who had daughters, were not sorry to hear it. His father had intended him for the legal profession, which the youth disdained. No career attracted him except one of adventure in the New World, which had been discovered ten years before. A few days before the time appointed for the sailing of the fleet, the young man had a love affair in the true Spanish style. In those days, Spanish girls were kept almost as secluded, and guarded almost as carefully, as the ladies in the harem of a Turk. Therefore, when a young man fell in love, instead of ringing the door-bell and sending in his card, he often made a rope-ladder, and surveyed the residence of the young lady, with a view to ascertain the best mode of getting upon her balcony, or into her window. Our adventurer proceeded in this manner. In scaling the wall of the garden which enclosed the house wherein lived the object of his passion, he fell to the ground, and injured himself so seriously that he could not sail with the expedition. It was long before he recovered his health, and still longer before another good opportunity occurred of going to America. This is the first recorded adventure of Hernando Cortez, the renowned conqueror of Mexico. History introduces him to us falling from a wall, in the dim light of a Spanish evening. Two years after, being then nineteen, he took passage in a merchant vessel, and, after a most tempestuous passage, reached the island of Hispaniola, then the seat of Spanish power in America. He was at that time a very handsome young man, graceful, self-confident, a superior swordsman, and horseman, and highly accomplished in all warlike exercises. On leaving the ship, he went at once to the house of the governor, a friend of his family. The governor being absent upon an expedition, his secretary received Cortez with politeness, and, by way of encouraging a new comer, assured him that the governor, upon his return, would doubtless allot to him a liberal tract of land. "Land!" said Cortez. "I come to find gold, not to plough the ground like a peasant." Nevertheless when the governor offered him a portion of land and a number of Indians as slaves, there being nothing better to take at the time, Cortez accepted them, and became a planter. The governor also named him notary of the town, an office of some little emolument. Without entirely neglecting his business he now resumed his dissolute habits and spent most of his time in love intrigues, which involved him in several duels. After seven years of a life like this, he joined the forces destined for the conquest of Cuba under Velasquez and displayed, in that affair, so much dash, activity, courage and gayety, that he became a favorite of Velasquez who named him his secretary. This friendship was soon changed into fierce hostility. Cortez, in the course of his amorous adventures, had given a promise of marriage to a young lady, which he was not inclined to keep. Governor Velasquez insisted on his fulfilling the promise. Cortez, angry at this interference with his pleasures, joined himself to the enemies of Velasquez, and prepared to go to Spain to intrigue for his recall. The governor, discovering the plot, arrested Cortez and would have hanged him, it is said, but for the intercession of friends. He threw him into prison, and caused him to be chained. Twice Cortez escaped, and was twice re-captured, and at length was glad enough to accept his liberty on condition of marrying the girl he had betrayed. The governor endowed the young couple with an extensive tract of land in Cuba, and a large number of Indians. Being now a married man, he carried on his plantation with great vigor, imported cattle from Spain, and raised better crops than his neighbors. Gold having been discovered upon his land, he kept many of his Indians at work in mining it, and so gradually became a man of considerable wealth. He is said to have been a hard taskmaster. "God alone knows," writes a Spanish historian, "how many Indian lives his gold cost him, and God will hold him to an account for them." In such labors his life passed until he was thirty-three years of age, and there was no prospect, at that time, of his ever emerging from obscurity. So far as we know, he expected to live and die a planter and miner. But in 1518 there returned to Santiago, after an absence of seven weeks, a small fleet which Velasquez had sent out to explore the coasts of the adjacent continent. This fleet brought wonderful and most thrilling intelligence. Mexico had been discovered!—a land inhabited, not by poor and ignorant savages, but by a people considerably civilized, who "possessed spacious and costly edifices," temples, rich garments, ornaments of gold; a people, too, who were ruled by a powerful monarch, with a disciplined army, and yet were so debased by superstition as to appease the imaginary wrath of their idols by sacrifices of human beings. How all this appealed at once to the cupidity and religious zeal of the Spaniards, can be imagined by those who know anything of the character of the Spaniards of that day. Governor Velasquez proceeded immediately to organize an expedition for the settlement and conversion of Mexico. There were two things wanting—money, and a man fit to command such an enterprise. On looking around, the governor thought he saw in Hernando Cortez a man rich enough to defray, in great part, the expense of the expedition, and endowed with the requisite energy and talents to conduct it. He sent for Cortez, revealed the project to him, and offered him the command. Cortez accepted it, and agreed to embark his fortune in the enterprise. Six large vessels were speedily equipped, and three hundred men eagerly volunteered to follow a leader already known for his courage and skill. "The orders given by Velasquez to the commander of the expedition enjoined it upon him to deal gently and liberally with the Mexicans, since the grand objects in view were, first, and above all, to convert them to Christianity; secondly, to open with them a peaceful, honest commerce; and, lastly, to get such a knowledge of the country and its waters as would be of no use to future navigators." He was directed, however, to impress upon the Mexicans a lofty idea of the goodness and greatness of the King of Spain, to invite them to conciliate that monarch by presents of gold and pearls, and acknowledge him as their sovereign lord. When the fleet was ready to sail Velasquez awoke to the danger of trusting with an important, independent command, a man so ambitious and resolute as Cortez, and he determined to remove him. Cortez, notified in time, hurried on board, raising his anchors, and put to sea; so that when Velasquez ran down to the beach at the dawn of day, November 18, 1518, to execute his intention, he saw the fleet standing out to sea, beyond the reach of his orders. Touching at several places on his way for recruits, Cortez found himself, five months after, near the port now named Vera Cruz. With one hundred and ten sailors, five hundred and fifty-three soldiers, and two hundred Indians, fourteen pieces of artillery, and sixteen horses. Disembarking, he established himself in an entrenched camp, and opened relations with the Cacique of the district, who treated the strangers with the utmost hospitality. Their first interview began with the celebration of the Mass, after which Cortez invited the Cacique and his attendants to a collation, which being ended, conversation began. Having learned from the Cacique that Montezuma, the King of the country, resided at a great city two hundred miles distant, Cortez asked permission to visit him, to which the Cacique replied that he would send his request to the king. A week after the messengers returned, bearing to the Spaniards magnificent presents, and a message from Montezuma, declining the proffered visit. A second request elicited other costly gifts, and a positive order from the king for the strangers not to approach the capital. Cortez hesitated not a moment. Feigning submission, he prepared at once to march to Mexico. Some of his followers, however, not as bold as himself, murmured, and plotted against him. Then it was that, besides repressing the mutiny with the strong hand, he resolved to make all turning back impossible. He caused all his vessels, except the smallest, to be scuttled and sunk. From that hour, there was no safety except in the total conquest of the country. Leaving at Vera Cruz a sufficient garrison, he began his immortal march August 15, 1518, with the following forces: four hundred foot soldiers, fifteen horsemen, thirteen hundred Indians to draw the cannons and carry the baggage, and seven pieces of artillery. To relate the conquest of Mexico requires volumes. That great empire fell, like Peru, because it was divided against itself. At what an enormous sacrifice of life the conquest was made, what perils Cortez escaped, what an amazing energy and genius he displayed, how much wisdom and humanity were united in him with bigotry and cruelty—to know these things, the reader must repair to one of the many works which relate the conquest of Mexico. For twenty-one years, if we deduct one short, triumphant visit to Spain, Cortez lived in Mexico, and for Mexico, fighting, organizing, governing, exploring, evangelizing. He explored the Isthmus of Darien, and discovered California. He acquired incalculable wealth, and expended the greater part of it in explorations and establishments, from which he neither received nor expected any return. Falling into disfavor with the king, he returned to Spain, and, after living in obscurity for seven years, died in 1547, aged sixty-two years. He left large sums for the establishment in Mexico of three great institutions, a hospital, a college for the education of missionaries, and a convent. His will contained one passage so curious that I will conclude by copying it. After recommending his heirs to treat the Indians with humanity, he proceeds thus: "It has been long a question whether we can, in good conscience, hold the Indians in slavery. This question not having yet been decided, I order my son, Martin, and his heirs, to spare no pains to arrive at a knowledge of the truth on this point, for it is a matter which interests deeply their conscience and mine." Who would have thought to find such a passage in the will of a Cortez? Nothing is more certain than this, that Cortez, in all that he did in Mexico, fully believed that he was an instrument in the hand of a benevolent God; for he found Mexico pagan, and left it Catholic. Massacre, rapine, devastation, the betrayal and murder of a king, the fall of an empire—these were as nothing in view of a result like this! So thought all good Spaniards of that age.