Hello, and welcome to Western Sieve episode two hundred and forty. Montezuma and
Cortez. Last time, Cortes and his band of conquistadors plus lots of Native
American allies, made it from the coast to the heart of Tinoshti Clan itself.
In doing so, Cortes directly violated the orders given to him by Governor
of Alasquez. In order to stave off any reckoning, Cortes sent his own
mission directly to Spain with instructions to get post facto recognition for his efforts.
The problem was what exactly had he done so far? Sure he had made
it all the way to the Mexica capital, that alone was quite the accomplishmant.
He had reapportioned, I guess a not insignificant amount of gold and silver.
He had allied himself with several powerful Mesoamerican allies, but the Mexica Empire
was very much independent and intact. If Montezuma chose to kill Cortes, now
be a minor footnote to history. Quartz truly becomes the Cortez we all know
from history because of what is going to happen in today's episode. Today Cortez
really starts gambling. If the night of November the eighth was unusually quiet and
technosht Clan, the morning was business as usual, an early riser might have
noticed young boys hurrying to the Great Pyramid with coals for the braziers, or
girls carrying tortillas for the priests eat. Merchants from far away would have been
slowly arriving to the markets in their canoes. For the moment, the citizens
of ten Nusheti Klan met all the Kunquistador's needs. This wasn't a small thing.
There were hundreds of conquistadors plus a few thousand men from Plascala. For
a pre modern society, feeding that number of people was not simple, but
they did it. The Europeans feasted on tortillas, turkeys, and fresh eggs.
Their horses were fed and bedded down. Even their dogs were taken care
of. For the moment, the Mexica did this without resentment. For the
moment, Cortes and his followers meant the next several days, resting and seeing
the sights, Cortes didn't know what his next step should be. Quote unquote,
take Montezuma dead or alive. Sounds all well and good. While he
and his followers had been safe and sound on the coast, suddenly surrounded by
Mexica, and the knowledge that Mountezuma might at any moment order the drawbridges raised,
Quartees was suddenly a lot less sure. Cortez soon found out how large
the city was, how it was divided into four quarters, how large avenues
meeting in the central square separated these districts, how each quarter had its own
main temple the headquarters of the district governors, and how these districts themselves divided
into smaller zones. But Quartes was slower to discover the size of the full
Montezuma's empire. He knew that it had reached the Gulf of Mexico, but
he took some time to appreciate that it extended to what they thought of his
quote unquote, the southern Sea. He thought that the territory was nearly as
big as Spain, a calculation which overestimated the enterprise for the Empire of Mexico
was about one hundred and twenty five thousand square miles in comparison with spain size
of three hundred thousand, but the total area with a culture comparable to that
of old Mexico, that is, including places like Tuscala and the Yucatan,
would have given this new world half a million square miles. That next day,
Montezuma received Cortez in his palace. He treated Quartez with deference, kind
of like one might expect for a foreign dignitary. Quartez, through his translator,
Marina, obviously, then gave the usual speech about the values of Christianity.
Montezuma listened through the finer points of Christianity, though they were probably a
bit lost on him. At the end of the first meeting, the two
men just took their leave of one another. It's probably hard to say who
left the room more perplexed. Now it's worth noting briefly here just how crucial
Marina was to Cortes. That to him, this was a bad thing.
Cortes did not like how dependent he wasn't as female interpreter, and a female
part is important in that sentence. The fact that Cortes was dependent on anyone
irked him. That he was dependent on a teenage girl drove him absolutely nuts.
Without Marina, however, Cortes never could have succeeded. In fact,
it soon became clear that Marina had what we would call a gift for language,
as she soon began to learn Spanish as well. Now, after the
amazement of seeing the city for the first time, were off the captains,
and several of those from the slots Khans, many of whom seemed to have
been in Tenoshti Klan, came to see Cortez. They told him that he
would never be able to escape the city and carry off all the jewels and
gold of which they already been given. They further warned that the Mexica were
most likely planning to kill him. Several Spaniards began to talk of being caught
in a spider's web. One of the men, a certain Ordas, said
that he had seen from the roof how easily the Mexican could cut off their
retreat simply by raising the drawbridges. In fact, looking south from the roof
of the palace, Cortes would have noted that the Mexica had already raised one
or two of the bridges on the causeway. All the same, Cortez was
probably still mulling over a direct attack on Montezuma when some bad news arrived from
the coast. While he had been gone. The normal Mexica envoys showed up
demanding tribute. This was nothing out of the ordinary. Juan de Escalante,
however, the man Cortez had left in charge, refused to pay the tribute
on behalf of his touton allies. Perplexed, the envoys left. Frankly,
the whole affair probably should have ended right there, but as Galante decided he
would try to push the issue. He sallied forth and met the envoys with
their troops outside town, demanding gold, sort of flipping the scripts. The
representative said they didn't have any gold, which, for the record, they
didn't. Still, Ascalante decided to make an example of these men an attacked.
During the fighting, Ascalante's allies deserted him. He managed to retreat and
burn a nearby town for good measure, but was mortally wounded and died shortly
thereafter. While this was certainly bad news for Cortes, he decided to take
these lemons and make lemonade. He would use the incident as a pretext for
demanding a crucial audience with Montezuma. Coutez went to see Montezuma on November the
fourteenth, fifteen nineteen. He took several captains with him and about thirty other
armed men. On arrival in the throne room, Cortes began to banter with
Montezumez he usually did. The emperor, who didn't sense anything out of the
ordinary, offered Cortes some jewels and even one of his daughters. In fact,
he proposed several noblemen's daughters for Cortez' men. Cortez turned these down,
and he always turned down these offers by the way, claiming that he couldn't
take a consort who wasn't baptized. Cortes then changed the subject sharply, and
so that he was astonished that Montezuma would even send captains against the garrison which
he, Cortez had left at Vera Cruz. He Cortes had done everything possible
to help Montezuma, but now the opposite of what he had desired had transpired.
Precisely the same chain of events had occurred at Cholula, he observed icily
remember by the way he slaughtered all the leaders at Cholula. Cortez said that
he was willing to forgive everything if Montezuma would accompany him without making a scene
to the European lodgings, but if you were to cry out or make any
noise at all, that his captains would immediately kill him. Montezuma was terrified
at this point. He was caught between a rock and a hard place.
Certainly, he didn't want to be killed right then and there, but he
recognized that him being a prisoner was problematic. He said, quote, my
person is not such that I could be made a prisoner of even if I
would like it, my people would not suffer it. End quote. An
argument ensued that actually lasted most of the day and why somebody doesn't bust in
and help Montezuma at this point, I'm not really sure, but at some
point the various European captains and the records murky is to who. But they
start to get nervous that something's going to happen, and they realize that they've
got to get Montezuma out right now and back to their own lodgings, which
they can barricade, or they're going to be badly outnumbered. Where they were
now, Montezuma was still trying to get out of this. He proposed his
son and two daughters as hostages. I mean what would his counselors say if
he was taken away as a prisoner, But Cortez was insistent. He said
that there was no alternative. The emperor had to come with them. Montezuma
would have to stay with the Europeans until they could get to the bottom of
what had happened in Phara Cruz. In the meantime, Cortez told him Montezuma
would be able to carry out the administration of his empire from the lodgings of
the European at the Palace of Ashatal. Montezuma ultimately agreed to go with Cortez.
He told his men to stand down, that he had consulted with the
gods and decided for his health to spend a few days with Cortez. Now,
the guards outright asked Montezuma if they just wanted them to kill Cortes and
his men right then and there. He told them no, Cortes had just
taken captive the most important man in the Mexico world. He was an enormous
coup for Cortez, and his actions were very much in keeping with the Renaissance
notion that great men could accomplish great things if they were willing to rest a
lot. Now, Montezuma quickly became accustomed to his jailers. I suppose today
we would probably diagnose him with Stockholm syndrome, though certainly no one thought that
at the time. I should point out from the records that we have,
and most of them are Spanish records, but from what we do have,
Montezuma did genuinely seem to like Cortez. Cortez and many of the other Europeans
made him laugh. He especially liked the young page named Ortegia, who new
Spanish and had learned a little natal. In addition to all the jokes,
Cortez would lecture Montezuma daily and probably endlessly, about the nature of Christian theology,
especially the relationship between the Trinity. One has to imagine that part of
Montezuma's day was a lot less humorous jokes and lectures aside, Montezuma's capture was
a huge crisis for the Mexica Empire. The emperor was essential to the direction
of Mexican society. He was supposed to speak directly on behalf of the gods.
Now he was someone's captive. What did this mean for the proper order
of things. What did it mean for the functioning of Mexican society and their
government. Certainly there would have been many anxious people in Technoshticlan that fall.
Adding to the anxiety, the Mexican official who had engaged in battle with Escalante
and several men who fought with him were brought to technosht Clan as prisoners.
Montezuma weakly handed these men over to Cortes. At first, the official denied
that Montezuma had anything to do with the incident, but then under torture,
he changed his tune. Still, Cortes told Montezuma, while he was within
his rights to have Montezuma put to death and in there, he was so
fond of him that he would never dream of having anyone harm him. Then
he turned around and had the official from Verta Cruz and all his sons burned
at the stake before the Great Pyramid. This technique of varying supposed kindness with
naked brutality kept Montezuma off balance and secured his continued cooperation. Shortly thereafter,
Cortez removed the iron shackles keeping the Mexican emperor in place. He told Montezuma.
He was free to go, but, perhaps afraid of how his people
now perceived him, Montezuma chose to stay with Cortez for some weeks. Yet
Montezuma at least seemed to rule. The city returned to something like normality.
Nightly dancing and singing continued in the temples, the law courts issued judgments.
The regular ordinary life of the Mexicans continued. Montezuma also continued making sacrifices.
Cortez wrote in his journal about how much he hated this, but he couldn't
do anything about it for the moment, so he just pretended not to notice.
I'd have to imagine that's horri I've never been to a human sacrifice,
and I hope never to be, but I'd have to think it's hard to
pretend not to notice one going on. Despite outward appearances, Montezuma's own character
had changed. It was no longer the proud and ruthless Mexican empire. He
was now pliable, undecided, and subservient, if perhaps underneath subtle and trustworthy.
He passed the days with Cortes as a young boy might pass the days
with a doting grandfather. Cortes played Mexican games with Montezuma, which as an
aside, Cortes seems to have really enjoyed. Cortez tried to teach Montezuma as
much as he could about Spanish customs. He even showed him how to use
a crossbow, something that delighted Montezuma endlessly. In his journal, Cortes wrote
about Montezuma in fawn terms. Montezuma returned the gesture, describing how he quote
loved Cortez like a brother. Around the same time, Cortez decided he would
have a series of boats constructed to be able to take quote three hundred men
and horses to the mainland end quote. Remember, the Mexicans could always pull
up the drawbridges on the causeway and trap the Spaniards on the island. Cortez
wanted to take away this trump card, so in November he decided to have
several boats built to ameliorate this disadvantage. The Mexican Empire during most of this
period continued to function normally. Tribute flowed, long distance trade continued. As
Cortez himself put it, quote harmony and order was maintained, but all good
things must come to an end. I should put good in air quotes there
I guess, in this case the cause of the conflict that would lead to
significant bloodshed in the streets of Tenoshti Klan were two tales as old as time,
religion and gold. The fight over religion derived, as you probably expected,
from the issue of sacrifice. Cortes wanted to bring the practice to an
end, but to this point he hadn't been successful. He also wanted to
put a crucifix in a picture of the Virgin Mary at the summit of the
Great Temple. This hadn't happened either. As for the gold, Cortes continued
to press Montezuma at to the location of his gold mines. The emperor did
allow Cortes access to some of the tribute books, showing which parts of the
empire paid their taxes in gold. Quote. In Montezuma's income books, we
looked up which were the provinces from which he drew gold as tribute, and
where there were mines cacao and cotton cloaks. Then quote, it's of course
worth noting that gold meant a lot less to the Mexica than it did to
the Spanish. That being said, Montezuma was no fool. He certainly did
not disclose to the Europeans the location of all of his gold mines. Some
he kept secret, so the regions Montezuma did disclose. Cortes sent expeditions of
men to determine the value of the minds. If he was going to steal
the wealth of old Mexico, he might as well do a full accounting first.
Well this was going on, Cortes continued working to consolidate his power.
In early January fifteen twenty, Cortes had Montezuma's summoned all the great Mexican lords
to te Nocht Klan for an audience. Now, what happened at this meeting
is all according to Cortez, so we need to take it with a grain
of salt. But with that being said, here's what, according to him,
happened. Cortez gave a lengthy speech in which he detailed how lucky everyone
was to have lived at a time when they could all come under the glorious
sovereignty of the King of Castile, Charles the fifth, and luckily they could
all become Christians in time to save their souls. How fortunate for them.
According to Cortez, their response to all this was nothing less than complete adulation
and subjugation. Evidently, the assembled nobles immediately understood how everything Cortes said was
correct, and there was no point in arguing haste clothes. My guess is
that this is how Cortes choose to interpret what he saw. In any event,
the nobility was not about to question Montezuma to his face, at least
not yet. So the Emperor and the nobility turned over children, sons,
and daughters, as I suppose, hostages. The upshot of all this for
Cortez was that he could claim Montezuma had now formally accepted Charles the Fifth as
his lord and emperor. What this meant was that Cortes could interpret any new
expedition Velasquez might send against him as against the king himself. Since Montezuma was
now a lawful vassal, it gave Cortes a stronger moral position, and,
at least, in theory, a stronger legal one. But the religious disputes
remained. Montezuma offered up the idea of a kind of compromise. Perhaps he
suggested they put the Mexican gods on one side of the shrine and the Christian
God and the other. Evidently, Montezuma had not listened to my episodes on
the Reformation. Had he, he would have known that the sixteenth century was
not known for being an era of religious compromise. No, Cortez stood firm
the idols had to go, So several days later the Mexican priests put together
ropes, pulleys, and other traptions to get the Mexican gods out of the
shrine and safely down to the ground. Took old day, but it worked.
After the Mexican idols were gone, Cortez had the shrines cleaned and the
effigies of the Virgin Mary and Saint Christopher installed atop the Great Pyramid of technosoty
Klan. Saint Christopher was a major patron center in the Middle Ages, so
that's why he ended up up there. Then, finally, per Cortez's order,
the sacrifices stopped. He would report later of this time quote, in
all the time that I remained in the city, I did not see a
single living creature killed were sacrificed. I should note the obvious qualification that he
put on that I did not see what went on outside his realm of vision.
Well, I guess we'll never know. One thing Cortez certainly did see
was gold, lots of gold. In the early part of fifteen twenty,
Cortes and the expedition as a whole held basically a financial accounting a stocking.
The gold, which had been gained both from the presence and from items seized,
was valued at one hundred and sixty thousand pacos. The royal fifth therefore
was named as thirty two thousand pasos. This was exclusive of gold and silver
jewelry, which must have been worth at least seventy five thousand pacos or more
so. Then A fifth of the remainder of the first amount of gold one
hundred and twenty eight thousand pacos which Cortez took for himself would have been about
twenty five thousand, six hundred. That left one hundred and two thousand,
four hundred pacos worth of gold to distribute, but Cortes claimed he had to
reimburse himself for his expenses, including sailor's wages, the ships, the food,
the horses. Money also had to be allocated to the two priests on
the expedition to Cortes's agents in Spain and seventy men left behind Vera Cruz.
These subtractions left little to be divided. Some money, in fact, was
distributed one or two soldiers seemed to have been satisfied. Ordinary soldiers got about
one hundred pasos, and most of them looked at this as an insult.
Cortes was able to smooth it over with a lot of them a few secret
sort of under the table payments. All the estimates were arrived at after the
gold, by the way, including most of the jewelry, had been melted
down in according to practice. It's crucial to understand that by comparison to other
explorers and conquistadors, this was a huge haul. Just considered Ponce da Leon,
for example, in his property in Puerto Rico, he accumulated in thirteen
years from fifteen o nine to fifteen twenty one, just under twenty two thousand
paceos worth of gold, four thousand of which he sent to the king in
less than one year. Cortez was going to send the king thirty two thousand
paceos, eight times that amount. If Cortez needed to buy himself back into
the King's good graces, he was sure as heck going to do it now.
Sometime in March fifteen twenty, Montezuma's favorite little page or Taguia, went
to see Cortez. He told him that Montezuma needed to talk to him right
away. Or Taghia added that he had noticed several secret discussions between Montezuma and
his lords which suggested that a plot might be at foot. Cortez went with
four other captains as well as the two interpreters to see the Emperor. Montezuma
that day seemed be a new man. His gods, so long silent,
had now apparently told him to declare war on the Europeans on the ground that
they had stolen gold in other things. Montezumas said that since he had become
fond of the Europeans, he wanted them to leave before his people attacked them.
He offered Cortez himself two loads of gold and one for each of his
men, sort of as a parting gift, of course, and his statement
he made no mention at all of the lost God or lost leader who Cortez
supposedly was, who disappeared in the past, nor the legend that he would
return to rule the empire, nor did he speak of the oath that Cortez
insisted that he took. He didn't even mention the King of Spain. Poof
all of that seems to have begotten, forgotten. But why the change in
Montezuma. We would have expected him to react when Cortez went to remove the
idols, but he didn't. It seems that Montezuma's own people helped him find
his backbone again. The Mexican people were insisting that Montezuma either expel or kill
the Europeans, so I suppose he didn't so much his act as just bow
to the public will. Montezuma now became insistent that Cortez leaved to Nushti klan
At. One of the ironies of this whole year long period is that both
men, Cortez and Montezuma recognize how it's in their best interest to resolve all
this without bloodshed, Yet in the end neither man is able to make that
happen. Cortez responded to Montezuma that he would love to leave, but he
had no ships. Montezuma countered by saying he would lend Cortez all his carpenters
to build the ships. Cortez came back with something like, oh, sure,
we'll go, but you're coming with us. The notion of traveling to
Spain forced Montezuma to once more pump the brakes. Whatever Cortez's plans were,
they were abruptly upended. Early in April fifteen twenty, word reached Cortez and
Montezuma that a Spanish ship had arrived off the coast of Vera Cruz. Some
men in the expedition believed that this was aid come from Spain as a result
of the efforts by the men Cortes sent to argue his case before the king,
But Cortez was more shrewd than that. He recognized that these reinforcements were
just as if not more, likely to have come from Governor Velasquez in Cuba,
in which case he warn't a pleasant surprise at all. The appearance of
Maniflos de Navarrez's fleet off the coast of Mexico in April fifteen twenty was the
consequence of the departure from there nine months before of the two men Cortes had
sent back to Spain. Now those two conquistadors left for home on the Santa
Marie de Concepcion, just out of the newly founded town of Vera Cruz.
Their mission was to go back to Spain and persuade the young King Charles to
recognize Cortes as governor and the captain general of the new territory, a territory
which he had, of course, now he had conquered. They had been
told by Cortes to go directly to Spain. Speed was essential. They had
therefore determined to travel north of Cuba and then along the Gulf Stream. This
route had been discovered six years ago during Ponce da Leone's voyage to Florida.
The plan was then to turn northeast and set sail across the ocean. This
actually very soon would become the invention a way of traveling from Spain to Cuba
and hence Mexico. But one of the two men on board, who had
property in Cuba, convinced everyone else to stop. I mean, this wasn't
totally out of the question, it was kind of more or less on the
way. They stayed there for three days, having anchored on August the twenty
third. During this stay, one of the servants caught a glimpse of the
treasure which they were taking home to Spain. He exclaimed later that he had
never seen such riches. Now, the gentleman in question was sworn to secrecy,
But the idea that that was going to happen, no, never.
It wasn't before long that word of the treasure trove of riches Cortez had accomplished
and found in Mexico had reached Governor Velasquez. Governor Vlasquez had just passed the
first six months after Cortez had left Cuba really without complaint. Life had gone
on. A few operations had found some deposits of gold to the west of
Havana. Then a modest sugar harvest came in. More tobacco grew, The
court at Santiago survived. The world and other worlds just kept on spinnen.
But then word reached Velasquez that Cortez had truly found something in Mexico. The
amount of gold he was sending back to Spain put anything Velasquez was doing in
Cuba to shame. Suddenly, Velasquez cared a lot about Cortez. He was
angry here. He had given this man everything he needed to launch a voyage
of discovery in his name, and he took it all for himself. Ridiculous.
Velasquez was going to put a stop to it, a sap. Initially,
he sent out several ships to waylay Cortez's Spanish bound messengers on the high
seas, but they missed the mark. So Velasquez went straight to the source.
He dispatched a man to Spain with letters to Bishop Fonseca, the man
who had for years run the Spanish enterprises in the West Indies. Velasquez begged
Fonseca to do whatever he could to thwart Cortes's designs. Velasquez also planned an
expedition to destroy Cortes's little colony, but fate got in the way. In
October, smallpox reached Cuba. It was the first real epidemic in the New
World. By May fifteen, nineteen nearly all the indigenous tie Anos on Santo
Domingo were dead. By the end of that year, they were totally wiped
out by November. Smallpox reached Cuba. Year to the population collapsed, as
did the sugar production, which was dependent on Indian slave labor. All of
this both slowed the initial creation of an expedition to stop Cortez, and then
it supercharged it. How's that? Well? You see? Suddenly in late
fifteen nineteen, everyone was desperate to get out of Cuba. Men were more
than willing to risk everything to chase down Cortez. I mean, what did
they have to lose? They were going to die in Cuba anyway. So
Velasquez had his pick of captains, and he chose a man named Panphilio de
Nevades. Nevades was a good choice. Just this past January Nevades had gone
to what is today Panama and executed the then errant governor. Nevades had lopped
off Balboa's head and not bought twice about it. He was the perfect man
for the job. Meanwhile, Porto Carreo and Mondejo, Cortes's two agents,
had reached Spain. They arrived in October fifteen nineteen and were in Seville on
November the fifth of that same year. They did not get the heroes welcome
they expected. The treasure they brought was immediately confiscated. This time, Velasquez
was two steps ahead Diego. Velasquez sent word to his personal chaplain in Spain
to hold up Cortes's men and prevent their success, and he did just that,
luckily for Cortes and his men. Though Spain that winter was on the
verge of rebellion. We talked about this in previous episodes, but this is
during that period when the Spanish nobility, and especially the municipalities, the cities
and the towns, were badly trying to extract major compromises from Charles the Fifth,
who for his part, just wanted to get out of Spain and back
on to Germany. As a result of all this, Bishop Fonseca had been
able to control Spanish policy in the New World, much as he had done
under Ferdinand. By March fifteen nineteen, he had put together a department within
the all powerful Council of cast Stile to deal with the West Indies. Fonseca,
of course would be in charge. But the flip side to the rebellion
coin was that while the crown wanted consolidation, the towns or procuradores were seeking
to influence royal policy more and more, and just as that was sort of
holding back Fonseca's power, Cortez's men got a lucky break. It turned out
that Hannanan, Cortes's father had a connection to Charles the Fifth. He knew
his prior Almoner, the person that he went to to make absolution. So
Cortes's men teamed up with his father to see if they could find a way
around Bishop Fonseca. It helped, of course, that they had mountains of
treasure to smooth over any rough edges. Now, by the time that Porto,
Carrero and Monteo, now with Cortes's father, reached bars Salona, the
court had left for Bruches. The Emperor had, however, performed some important
businesses relating to the Indies. He had, for example, heard Las Casas's
account of the evils of the Spanish treatment of the natives in the Caribbean,
which, even if it was a tenth as violent as La Casa said it
was, must have made a strong impression on him. Charles also issued a
decree asking that the treasure which Ponto, Carrero and Montello had brought from the
New World to be handed over to the Casa de la Contracion in Seville.
Casa de la Contracion was the sort of department that was in charge of any
and all expeditions and what they got from the New world. More importantly,
still even sent a friendly message to Cortes's emissaries, saying he was pleased to
hear of their arrival, ordering them to go to court the place where I
shall be, and asked them to bring with them the Choltenock Indians and to
treat them well. Charles's moderate tone was a clear indication that Fonseca's power was
waning. Cortez's men finally caught up with the Royal court if Valadelid. They
asked for the release of the funds they had brought from Veracruz, as well
as their ship. Crucially, they also asked that Cortes be granted the title
of governor and Chief Magistrate of this new territory Ie Mexico, until Cortes could
finish conquering it. For really the first time, Cortes was giving an indication
of the crown that he intended to conquer all of Mexico, not just settle
the coast. While there is no definitive proof that Cortez's men or his father
saw Charles the Fifth personally, it seems probable that they did. That's because
in the end, the Royal council haunted on the issue, and that was
a very good thing for her non Cortez. They didn't give Cortes the titles
he sought, but they did give him back his money to use as his
emissary soft it in Spain. The Royal Council decided the wisest course of action
was to wait until it could hear from both Cortes and Governor of Alasquez.
This was a huge win for Cortez, as it suggested he was on an
even footing with the governor. It was as close to an outright victory for
Cortes's friends as they were going to get. As for Charles, he probably
never read the letters Cortes sent him. He did take them with him as
he left Spain, along with all the treasure that constituted his royal fifth.
As we know, he was going to need Mexico's wealth to buy the Imperial
crown in Germany. In Seville, Cortes's father would sell his son's recently returned
ship, which was technically against Cortes's express orders, but it proved to be
for the best. The money he got from the sale was enough to ship
back significant and crucial supplies. Now back in Cuba, Velasquez was not about
to sit around and wait for permission to deal with Cortez, as far as
he was concerned. His man Nevades could now do that since Cortes had violated
his express order. So Nevades sailed from Cuba in March fifteen twenty. He
set off as usual for the Yucatan and then followed the coast in Cortez's footsteps.
Every group of natives he encountered were hostile, which, as Nevades himself
correctly pointed out, was probably as the result of the way in which Cortez
had treated them. Nevades made every effort to be kind at the Totonacs and
others that he met. As he traveled. Montezuma found out Navarez had reached
Vera Cruz long before Cortez, and did not immediately tell him. However,
in the end he found it impossible to keep Cortes from the secret of Navarez's
arrival. Now why did he keep it secret? Well, perhaps he thought
Cortes would punish him if he discovered the news independently. Montezuma showed Cortes the
painted cloths illustrating the new ships that had arrived, and urged him to leave
to mosht Klan. He said to Cortes that he could see that the Spaniards
were not all united and did not hell have the same lord. He pointed
out now that there were many ships, so quote, you have no need
to build ships. You can return together to Castile, and there need be
no further excuses end quote. Now Cortez nonpulsed replied that Castilians did have the
same lord, but that the new people who arrived were probably bad people.
They might be brigands, they might be robbers, They might be people who
would bring bad luck to the land because they would steal whatever there was.
Now, of course, Cortes knew very well who these people were. He
immediately realized that the newcomers were much more likely agents of Governor vel Esquez than
people directly from Spain. Back in Veracruz, the man Cortes left in charge,
Sandoval took decisive action. He called together all the men and made them
swear an oath to support no governor other than had Ann Cortez. Then he
sent away all the sick and old men. In other words, he was
preparing for a siege. Now, that is, for his part, sent
a small party with letters addressed to the various members of Cortes's party in Betacruz,
seeking to lure them away from the Conquistador. Sandoval ordered this party arrested
and sent directly to Technoshti Klan. When these men reached the capital, Cortes
ordered them released, blaming the whole thing on Sandoval so that he could,
as usual, look like the good guy. On top of that, he
gave them a substantial quantity of gold as an enticement to change sides. It
is an indication of the wealth that could be had in Mexico. Navarez might
have some nice sounding letters from Governor Velasquez, but Cortes he had gold.
Who turned out the latter was much more effective at buying affections. Navarez,
in the meantime, sent one of his ships back to Cuba with an update
for the governor. It seems that Cortes had indeed found a wealthy civilization.
Their capital, he wrote, was in the interior of the island or continent,
or whatever the heck this was. The man he talked to said it
sounded like a modern venice, which he couldn't believe, but he would see
for himself. Soon enough. Now, back in Technoshti Klan, Cortes debated
what should be done about Navarez. Given that Navarez seemed uninterested in compromise,
and based on his prior reputation of chopping people's heads off, the course seemed
straightforward. Cortes declared, quote death to Navarez and to anyone who argues about
the matter. End quote now. As the calendar turned to fifteen twenty head
non, Cortes seemed to be in a weak position. He had a small
force to begin with when he arrived in Mexico, and since then he had
divided that force into four He had only around two hundred men in technos Declane
True, Montezuma and a few other major Mexican lords were his prisoners, but
how long could that last? Easter Sunday, April eighth, fifteen twenty came
and went. It was time to take decisive action, so Cortez set out
for the coast in early May. Unwilling to lose what he had gained a
technost Klan, he left one hundred and twenty men under the command of one
Alvarado to keep order and keep Montezuma captive. Thus he was only taking eighty
conquistadors at a number of talas collins with him. This was a huge gamble.
The men he was going to have to face absolutely understood fire arms and
horses. They were going to outnumber him, and they weren't going to be
easily spooked. Cortes warmly embraced Montezuma before he left. The latter begged Cortes
to let him help. He said he could send an army of one hundred
thousand plus thirty thousand porters. Surely with those numbers Cortes would prevail. Cortes
told him all needed was God. Still, as he left, Montezuma reminded
Cortez that all he needed to do was send word and Montezuma would send a
massive force to aid him. Now, of course, this was the last
thing Cortez wanted. Who knew what the Mexicans might realize they could do with
a large army at hand. It wouldn't take long for someone to figure out
they could just wipe out Cortes as well and be done with it. It
was a risk Cortez couldn't take. Cortes set out to the sea over the
same land route he took in getting to technosh declan. As he marched and
met with various Indian allies overland, Cortes realized that Montezuma knew about Navare's long
long before he told him. Cortes was furious, and this would change his
attitude towards the Mexican emperor after his return. As he marched, Cortes also
distributed a significant amount of gold to his men. The goal was clear,
keep everyone happy and loyal. Upon reaching the coast, Cortes sent an emissary
demanding that Navarrez laid down his arms and submit to Cortes's authority. It was
an imperious demand that had absolutely no chance of success. Cortes certainly knew this.
He only sent the message to give himself legal justification for the military action
he had already settled on. For a few days after Cortez reached the coast,
messages went back and forth between the two camps. Cortes did everything he
could to purchase the loyalty of Navarrez's men. According to one historian quote,
the camp of Navarez was soon awash with gold, believed to have come from
Cortes. Now neither sided in the interesting compromise, all of these negotiations were
merely maneuvering for a superior moral and legal position. All of this came to
an end on May twenty eighth, fifteen twenty. That day, Cortes arranged
his men into five companies for the battle to come. His plan was really
simple, attack in the darkness and overwhelmed Navadez before he had a chance to
respond. For his part, navades knew what was coming, having declared open
war on Quartz several days earlier. Still, Navarez seems to have totally misjudged
how far away Cortes was the evening going into the battle, and I mean
that physically, like he didn't understand how closed Cortes's army was to him.
He expected the attack to come around dawn, but Cortes and his army were
much much closer than he realized. Even when his aid burst into Navarez's tent
and informed him Cortes was on the move, he didn't spring into action.
Navarez expected Cortes to pause before he attacked, and he was wrong. Navarez
had built his headquarters on top of the pyramid outside caplan. Cortes's men moved
in the darkness, silently dispatched the sentries at the base of the pyramid and
were practically overrunning the camp itself Before anyone knew what was going on. Sandoval
led the chart argent to Navarez's tent. After a vicious struggle, resulting in
several deaths and many more maimings, they captured Navarez. Navarez, who had
lost an eye in the battle, begged for a doctor, but Cortes told
him quote, traitor, troublemaker, you have received better than your desserts and
quote then he sent him a doctor. They were both gentlemen after all.
The moment Navarez surrendered, all his captains likewise capitulated, Cortes seized all kinds
of booty, and the casualties were actually pretty high for the numbers involved.
Navarez lost fifteen men, Cortes two. Cortes then went on to dismantle Navarez's
nearby town of San Salvador, which hadn't even really started to grow yet.
For once, Cortez could exhale Velasquez had sent a significant expedition against him,
and he had fended it off with relative ease. He didn't know it yet,
but everything in Spain was also going according to plan. He had gambled
and he had won, or so it would seem. Just as the dust
settled in Veracruz, word reached Cortez from Tenochticulan. The message was from Montezuma.
Cortez needed to return to the capitol at once. Alvarado, whom Cortez
had left in charge, had killed and wounded many Indians at a festival which
Cortez himself had given permission for. The city was in full blown rebellion.
If you've enjoyed the episode and would like additional content, as always, check
out the links in the show notes. There's links there to the website,
teaching materials, add free versions of the show and Western CIV. Two point
zero full in the Peloponnesian Wars. At this point, if you'd like to
hear the whole thing over again,