24.Durán LXIX, LXXIV (1967 [1581]; 1994 [1581]: especially 497–98, 530). Ixtlilxochitl: Ix13: 19, 21.
25.I was guided to this Nahuatl drama by Sell and Burkhart (2004: 118–45; quote on 124–25) and Burkhart (2008); my analysis of the play is slightly different from Burkhart’s, but nonetheless indebted to her; in quoting from the play here and later in this book I rely on Sell and Burkhart’s translations (their grasp of Nahuatl is far superior to mine). The parallel passage in the Florentine Codex where Montezuma rants against messengers and priests is in FC, XII: 100–3.
26.Aguilar (c.1560; J. Díaz et al. 1988: 179; Fuentes 1963: 147) (gente barbada y armados); Thomas (1857: 47 [Act III, Sc. 2]).
27.Carrasco (1992: 147) (in the original, postconquest elaboration is italicized). See Carrasco (1982) for a full-length study of the evidence, arguing for a somewhat different position than mine; also the citations to my Quetzalcoatl discussion in Chapter 3.
28.Escoiquiz (1798, I: 309) (persuadido / Estoy de que el gran Rey que os ha enviado / Desciende en linea recta del temido / Quezalcoal [sic], autor del dilatado / Imperio Mexicano). This epic poem on the Conquest of Mexico is in the form of ottava rima, first used by Boccaccio in the fourteenth century and used mostly by Italians as a format for heroic poetry; a full canto of 114 stanzas is devoted to the Meeting (I, 292–331). Typical rendering: Ranking (1827: 326–27). For a discussion of the significance of Montezuma’s tears, see below (also Chapter 6 and Allen 2015).
29.“Obviously”: Marks (1993: 129). Dialogues: Novo (1985: 49–59, quotes translated from p. 51) (MALINCHE.—. . . Ellos aguardaban, por muchas generaciones atrás, el regreso de Quetzalcóatl. CARLOTA.—Y le creyeron llegado, con Cortés. MALINCHE.—Llegó en él. Para mí, al menos). I am grateful to Megan McDonie for drawing my attention to the dialogues by Novo (1904–74).
30.Cervantes de Salazar (1914 [1560s]: 274 [Bk. 3, Ch. LXIII]) (Dioses deben ser estos, que vienen de do nasce el sol . . . Estos deben de ser los que han de mandar y señorear nuestras personas y tierra); Herrera (1601: 226; Dec. II, Bk. VI, Ch. 5) (sospira[n]do dezian: Estos deuen de ser los q han de mandar, y señorear nuestras personas y tierras, pues siendo tan pocos, son tan fuertes que han vencido tantas gentes).
31.Robertson (1777, II: 52, 53); García (1729 [1607]: 164), who used Herrera (1601: 163; Dec. II, Bk. V, Ch. 12), who drew from Gómara (1552: Chs. 66, 92; 1964: 140–42, 184–86); Marks (1993: 129).
32.FC, XII: 116–17; Monterde (lived 1894–1985) (1945: 30) (Estaba anunciado que vendrías a tu ciudad, que regresarías a ella, y eso se ha realizado. Seas bienvenido; que descanse tu cuerpo. Nuestro señor ha llegado a su tierra. . . . Tranquilízate, señor: todos te amamos).
33.Ogilby (1670: 86; similar passage on 258).
34.The Sepúlveda quotes have been regularly quoted in recent studies: e.g., Pagden (1982: 117); Clendinnen (1991b: 50 [2010 reprint: 65), Restall (2003: 15), and Gillespie (2008: 25). Also see Elliott (1989: 36–41); Lockhart (1993: 17); Fernández-Armesto (1992: 296). Gómara: “Montezuma must have been a cowardly little man” (1952: Ch. 89; 1964: 179; Schroeder et al. 2010: 222) (hombre sin corazón y de poco debía ser Moteczuma).
35.Ix13: 25; FC, XII: 80, 84; Tlatelolco account presented in a translation/ summary, with some commentary, by Terraciano (2010; quote on 15).
36.Muñoz Camargo (1892 [1592]: 215 [Bk. II, Ch. VI, opening paragraph]) (nuestros españoles y los de Tlaxcala; tan gran victoria y tomado Cholula; el capitán Cortés fué muy bien recibido de parte del gran Señor y Rey Moctheuzomatzin y de todos los Señores Mexicanos).
37.Gemelli (1704: 558–59). Here Gemelli, like Ranking (quoted earlier) and others, is taking the story of Montezuma weeping at the second Surrender and applying it to the first; see my discussion in Chapter 6 (but also see Allen 2015).
38.Lasso (1594: ff. 232r, 223r, 231r, 232r) (A nadie es dada tal licencia . . . donde es recebido con grande aplauso del Rey Moteçuma, y su Corte . . . inuicto y alto . . . el gran Moteçuma poderoso).
39.“No Greek”: I translated this particular passage from the manuscript copy (JCB Codex Sp 63: f. 155r; Chimalpahin n.d.), but also see Gómara (1552: 83; 1964: 171) (nunca Griego, ni Romano ni de otra nacion despuez que ai reyes hizo cosa tan igual que fernando Cortes en prender a Muteczuma rey poderosisimo en su propria casa, en lugar fortisimo, entre infinidad de gente no teniendo sino quatro cientros, y cinquenta compañeros españoles, y Amigos). Illustration: “Spanish Gratitude,” showing Montezuma being “Fetter’d,” was used in various publications from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The example in the Gallery is from The American Traveller, first printed in London in 1741, an account of early Spanish explorations and conquests in the Caribbean up to 1518 (thus ending before Cortés reached Mexico). Another example, almost identical but without a caption, is in a French edition of Solís (1704: facing vol. 1, p. 408). Another very similar version is the 1798 Spanish edition of Solís.
40.Thomas (1857: 51–52 [Act IV, Sc. 1]).
41.Abbott (1904 [1856]: 36, 181–88). On the “Black Legend”: called such since the phrase was coined to describe it in 1914, with the phrase a battleground of debate over Spanish colonialism; see my discussion and citations in Chapter 7.
42.Dilworth (1759: 66–68; 1801: 85–88). Robertson (1777, II: 53; also quoted above) used almost identical phrasing.
43.Dilworth (1759: 68–69, 80, 88–92; 1801: 89–90, 110, 115–18).
44.Two Nahua towns: DC, I: 60–76 (quote on 71; las malicias del gran Montezuma se componía de que teniéndonos allí hospedados y hacienda falso cariño); this document is in the genre of a primordial title, but styled as a merced by Cortés to the two towns, created to “prove” the immediate conversion and loyalty of these towns. Recent retelling: Koch (2006: 197).
45.“Filled” to “allies”: Solís (1798, II: 201–2) (por ambos lados poblada de innumerables indios; gritos y ademanes; sus mayores fiestas; victoreaban y bendecían á los nuevos amigos). “Some” to “affection”: Aguilar (c.1560; J. Díaz et al. 1988: 179; Fuentes 1963: 142); Díaz CXC (also cited by Thomas 1993: 251, 253) (todos los principales le salieron a recibir con danzas y bailes y regocijos y mucho bastimento).
46.Vargas Machuca in Lane (2010 [1612]: 94) (also see Lane 2008).
47.“Joy”: From the preface to a French edition of Solís (1704: unnumbered prefatory p. 7) (Cortez revint à Mexique, où il fut reçû par les Habitans, avec les mêmes démonstrations de joie, qu’ils auroient pû témoigner pour un de leurs Empereurs). “Triumphant”: Escoiquiz (1798, III: 337 [original given in Ch. 3 epigraph note]).
48.Valadés (1579: 105 [error for 205]) (my translation from Latin: in cuius facti faelicisque victoriae memoriã ciues anniuersarium festum solemnesq; supplicationes celebrant; also see a Spanish translation in Palomera 1988: 415). For Spaniards, the significance of a city entrance meant that the lack of an entrance was important too. In March 1530, Cortés was forbidden to enter Mexico City, by order of the queen (acting as regent while Carlos V was absent from Spain). The new colony was in the hands of a royally appointed administration, and a new president and set of judges were on their way to take office. Until they had arrived, neither “you,” Cortés was told, “nor the marquesa, your wife, may enter the city of Mexico, nor may you approach it closer than ten leagues.” The myth of surrender and Cortés’s achievement had already become deeply rooted legend; even his denial of entry into the city was an inevitable echo and affirmation of his supposedly triumphal entry at the Meeting (CDHM, II: 30; vos ni la marquesa, vuestra mujer, no entreis en la cibdad de Mexico, ni os llegueis a ella con diez leguas alrededor). Failure to comply meant a fine of ten thousand castellanos. Cortés acknowledged the order, by kissing it and touching it to his head, in Tlaxcallan in August that year. Spanish history of the centuries surrounding the Spanish-Aztec War is replete with examples of triumphal entries; there are many examples just from Cortés’s lifetime. For example, the same year that he reentered Tenochtitlan in triumph (1526), an elaborate, ritual
meeting took place on the Portuguese-Castilian border between a huge embassy of Spanish aristocrats and Isabella of Portugal, who was on her way to marry Carlos V; while not a triumphal entry in the sense of a war victory, the marriage was a diplomatic triumph and Isabella’s entry into Castile was treated by both sides with the pomp and circumstance that imbued triumphal entries in Iberian culture. Four months later the newlyweds traveled to honeymoon in Granada, entering the city in full triumphal celebration—complete with an elaborate greeting at the gates, specially constructed arches, dancing Moriscos, and bullfights (with human, as well as bovine, fatalities) (Goodwin 2015: 54–56, 64, 68). The echoes of the 1492 triumphal entry of Carlos’s grandparents were explicit and obvious to all, but the day surely also evoked other victories over heathen cities—ones hoped for (against the Ottomans, for example) and ones in recent memory (against the Aztecs, for example). Ten years later, Carlos made another elaborate and expensive triumphal entry, this time into Rome—intended to highlight his status as Holy Roman Emperor (and also, as a peaceful ceremony, to heal the wounds of the 1524 sack of the city by imperial troops) (Brandi 1980 [1939]: 370–71).
49.RC; AGI Justicia 220 through 225; DC, II.
50.AGI Patronato 184, ramo 46 (old citation 2, caja 2, legajo 5); ENE, VII, #369: 31–36; translations mine but also see Stabler and Kicza (1986); Las Casas (2003 [1552]) (nos llama a los conquistadores tiranos y rrobadores y indinos del nonbre de xpianos . . . y en el senorio de V. Mag. Pone escrupulo y que sin liçençia pasamos a esta ptes).
51.(el justo titulo de V. Mag. en este nuevo mundo . . . y los murmuradores callen . . . ydolatrica . . . expurçissima y nefanda sodomia . . . no era legitimo senor . . . deshizo la compania hecha de sus pasados . . . todos los señores de la tierra fueron con nosotros . . . les hazia libres de todo cautiberio y servidumbre de los mexicanos).
52.Suárez de Peralta (1949 [1589]: 59) (dijo estas palabras, según las cuentan indios viejos, a quien yo las oí, y al algunos conquistadores, especialmente a mi suegro Alonso de Villanueva Tordesillas, que era secretario de la gobernación del marqués del Valle, cuando lo fue; a quien de podía dar mucho crédito, por ser como era tan principal y honrado y muy hijodalgo, natural de Villanueva de la Serena).
53.LCHI Bk. 3, Ch. 116 (Las Casas 1951 [1561], III: 227; also quoted by Duverger 2005: 367). Note Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s intriguing suggestion (personal communication, January 2017) that Cortés may have been implying that Montezuma was a usurper because he did not acquire his kingdom through Christ.
54.No qualms: For example, in LCDT: 307–9 (also partially quoted in León-Portilla 2005 [1985]: 18–19). The judge Alonso de Zorita echoed Las Casas’s allegations in a letter to the king of 1562, but in milder terms (AGI Patronato 182, ramo 2; see quote and discussion in my Chapter 8). Debates: LCHI, Bk. 3, quoted by Goodwin (2015: 17, translation his); Gómara (1552); quote about Sepúlveda by Goodwin (op. cit.: 102), but also see Adorno (2007; 2011: 21–26, 38–42); Lane (2010: 10, 18–29); Clayton (2012: Ch. 12); Faudree (2015: 466–71). Fernández de Oviedo’s 1535 History of the Indies, reprinted in 1547 in time for the debates, was full of negative depictions of indigenous peoples as idolatrous, rebellious cannibals (1547: e.g., Books V–VI; also see chapters throughout 1959 [1535]).
55.Adelantado: This formal title (literally, “invader, conqueror”) gave the license holder the right to conquer and settle, with a strong claim to be governor of the newly acquired territories (see Restall 2003: 19–22, 38–40, 65–68). Debate: see Lane (2010: 10; and 41–57 for Sepúlveda’s twelve “objections” to Las Casas, a dozen-pointed argument on the justice of conquering the “Indians”) (González phrases are escrupulo, senorio, and este nuevo mundo). Deadly baggage: referring to the diseases and various forms of environmental and culture destruction that came with conquerors and colonists; phrase borrowed from the title of Sandine (2015).
56.Prévost (1746–59, XII [1754]: 327–28) (renferme tout-à-la-fois beaucoup d’adresse & d’ingénuité; Quoique la plûpart de ces Pieces soient ordinairement fort suspectes, on a déja remarqué que celles ci paroissent d’un autre ordre, parce que’elles tirent une espece d’autenticité, de leur resemblance dans tous les Historiens, qui doivent les avoir tirées d’une source commune).
57.There is no shortage of skeptical views of the Surrender and of Montezuma’s speech in more recent scholarly works. Townsend’s is one of my favorites: “In believing it [the Surrender] for so many years, Western historians have only shown ourselves to be more naïve than Moctezuma ever was” (2006: 86). Gruzinski’s understatement also appeals: the Surrender was “rather too sudden to be wholly credible” (2014: 114); as does Villella’s characterization of the speech as “historical ventriloquism” by Cortés (2016: 52). Over the years, the speech has been convincingly exposed as a Spanish construct by Frankl (1962), Elliott (1989 [1967]), Gillespie (1989: 180–82, 226–27; 2008), and Brooks (1995), while Clendinnen, Hassig, and León-Portilla have across various publications adopted an ambiguous position between outright rejection and acceptance. Authors more or less accepting the Cortesian account of Montezuma’s speeches and his arrest are far too numerous to cite (but a recent example in a full-length scholarly study is Thomas 1993: 280–85, and a briefer, more recent one is Oudijk and Castañeda de la Paz 2017).
58.Bacon (1973 [1612]: 158, first quote; Novum Organum [1620] in Burtt 1939: 36, second and third quotes); Lockhart (1999: 30). The late James Lockhart was my doctoral advisor, so I had long been familiar with this essay; yet I had not considered its relevance here, so I am grateful to Pablo Ibáñez for bringing it to my attention at a 2015 conference at the University of St. Andrews. For critical insight into how history and historians rely on human memory, despite it being warped, weak, and laced with imagination, see Fernández-Armesto (2015: 167–81).
59.Widely discussed in numerous sources, but a good example is Altman (2008: 2–9), in which he primarily references work by Tzvetan Todorov and Edward Branigan.
60.Examples of this phenomenon are numerous; some examples can be found published as DC, I: 60–75; Restall, Sousa, and Terraciano (2005: 66–71); Restall and Asselbergs (2007: 18–20, 83–85).
61.Copious: Major recent studies include Pérez-Rocha (1998); Chipman (2005); Martínez Baracs (2006); Connell (2011); Castañeda de la Paz (2013: 329–401); and Villella (2016). Also see Pérez-Rocha and Tena (2000), cited as PRT. “Service”: a Cano letter of 1546; see Pérez-Rocha (1998: 50); Villella (2016: 57). “Royal conscience”: from Cano’s so-called Origen de los Mexicanos (Vásquez 1991: 157) (si V.M. manda favorecer a estos que son de linaje, parécenos que conviene a su real conciencia, especialmente a la dicha doña Isabel, pues que era subcesora de Moctezuma el que dio la obedencia e vasallaje a V.M.).
62.Nazareo wrote two shorter letters in Latin in 1556, and a much longer one on March 17, 1566; all three are in AGI México 168 (and in facsimile in Zimmerman 1970). The quote here is from the 1566 letter (f.2r of the AGI original; also reproduced in ENE, X: 89–129; and in PRT: 333–67, quote on 342). I thank Megan Mc-Donie for help acquiring the AGI originals, and Laurent Cases for help translating the Latin (although any errors remain mine) (nostri parentes dominus Moteucçuma nosterque pater dominus Iuanes Axayaca germanus dicti Moteucçumae facile primo omnium surrexerunt in favorem hispanorum qui primo peragrarunt has partes Indiarum, quippe qui propensissimo animo ceciderunt coronae regiae maxima reverentia, dando per manus Ducis capitanei sacrae catholicae Magestati infinita bona tantam quantitatem donorum muniliumque infinita genera ex puris auris confectorum in signum aut potius indicium quo recognoverunt verum dominium vicarium altitonantis Dei vivi, ut sit unus pastor atque unum ovile). On Nazareo’s life, see Villella (2016: 73, 81–83); on these letters also see Laird (2014: 160–62). For a Franciscan summary of the College’s early decades (with don Antonio Valeriano cited as star student), see Torquemada (1614, III: 129–32; Bk. 15, Ch. 43).
63.The quotes (“superstitious,” etc.) are from Hajovsky’s (2015: 8) summary of
Sahagún’s and Durán’s depictions; but see Durán LXIII, LXVII–LXIX, LXXIV–LXXV; also Hill and MacLaury (1995) and Gillespie (2007).
64.FC; the process of its gradual availability, from the earliest publications in Spanish of portions of the codex through to its full online release, stretched from the 1880s to 2010s; also see relevant discussion, with citations, in Chapter 3.
65.Myers (2015: 17).
66.See the Gallery for a one of Maurin’s lithographs (discussed further in Chapter 7). On Pacini: Subirá in EC: 105–26. On Spontini: BnF, département Musique, X-309 (score and libretto of the 1817 version); Spontini (1809); Lajarte (1883: 153–83); Subirá in EC: 117–18. On the war: There is an extensive literature (not included here) on Napoleon’s invasion of Spain (part of the Peninsula War of 1807–14). On Cortés’s childhood house destroyed: MacNutt (1909: 2, citing Alaman’s Disertaciones).
67.Largely forgotten: “It was antiwar forces that ultimately proved victorious in the battle over the memory of the 1847 war” (Greenberg 2012: 274), with Americans choosing to celebrate the “just” war of the revolution and to ignore what Ulysses Grant called a war so “wicked” that the Civil War must have been “our punishment” for that “transgression” (ibid.). “Emphasize a relationship”: in Myers (2015: 266–67).
68.Here I am not just quoting but paraphrasing Myers (2015: 314, 315).
PART II
1.Sell and Burkhart (2004: 126–27); Sell and Burkhart justifiably titled the untitled play The Three Kings; I here use their transcription and have modified their translation (with the assistance of Christopher Valesey) for style purposes (not as a correction; their command of colonial-era Nahuatl is irreproachable).
CHAPTER 3: SOCIAL GRACE AND MONSTROUS RITUAL
1.Epigraph sources, in sequence: Solís (1724: 206); Collis (1954: 65); Escoiquiz (1798, I: 318) (Deseo estar en amistad unido / Con vuestro Rey, y aboliré contento / A su ruego en mi mesa la comida / De humana carne, de él aborrecida); Prescott (1994 [1843]: 42); Clendinnen (1991a: 2).
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