Hero Tales from History — Cortes, The Conqueror
CORTES, THE CONQUEROR
Among the millions of people who wondered at the strange stories of the new lands discovered by Columbus was Hernando, a seven-year-old son of a Spanish noble family named Cortes.
His young mind was filled with longing for adventure.
As soon as he was old enough Hernando left home to seek his fortune on the island of Santo Domingo in the new world.
The governor of this island was pleased with the manner, pluck, and energy of Cortes, and offered to sell him a large estate on easy terms.
But the young Spaniard answered haughtily, “I did not come here to plough like a field laborer; I came to get gold.
” It was not long before young Cortes saw a chance for adventure.
He went with a Spanish governor to settle the island of Cuba.
He soon became a favorite with this governor also.
An adventurer returned from the part of the mainland now called Central America and Mexico with tales of the great wealth of the people called Aztecs, and of the gold mines there.
[Illustration: HERNANDO CORTES _From a painting by Peale, in Independence Hall, Phila.
_] The governor of Cuba decided to send ships and men to conquer that country, and offered the command to Cortes, who worked like a hero to get ready for the campaign.
He equipped eleven vessels with six hundred men.
A hundred or more of these were sailors and workmen; and the rest, soldiers, some of whom were armed with muskets and some with crossbows.
There were fourteen small cannon and sixteen horses in the outfit.
As Cortes was about to sail, the governor of Cuba changed his mind and sent an order to Havana giving the command of the expedition to another officer.
But shrewd young Cortes got wind of this in time, and sailed away before the governor’s messengers arrived.
The soldiers and other men of the expedition agreed to stand by the brave leader and capture the new country for King Charles of Spain in their own name instead of the Cuban governor’s. This was exactly what that governor feared Cortes would try to do.
When the Spaniards landed on the continent the natives were afraid.
They had never seen a horse, and they thought the men on horseback were monster human beings with four legs, half man and half horse.
Yet they came bravely out of their hiding places to do battle with such frightful invaders.
Then the Spaniards fired a cannon volley and shot off their muskets so that several of the Indians fell dead.
“They are gods!
” shouted the natives in deadly fear.
“They have the lightning and thunder in their hands!
” It did not take long for Cortes to make terms with these natives, some of whom became allies and interpreters for the Spaniards.
After founding a city at the coast, which he named Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (Rich City of the True Cross), now called Vera Cruz, Cortes prepared to conquer the empire of the Aztecs with six hundred Spaniards and several thousand Mexican Indians.
Montezuma, emperor of the Aztecs, heard of his coming, and tried to make him leave the country by sending rich presents from his capital in the mountains.
But that did not stop Cortes.
In order to insure victory, the Spanish general committed a brave though desperate act.
Choosing one ship from his fleet he manned it and sent a trusted officer back--to Spain, not Cuba--with some of Montezuma’s rich presents.
With these Cortes sent other proofs of the wealth of the country which he was about to conquer and add to the empire of King Charles of Spain.
Then, after taking from the other ten ships everything the Spaniards could use in the new country, Cortes ordered those vessels burned and sunk.
Thus, having burned their bridges behind them, they had no way of escape but to go forward and fight for their fortunes, their country, and their very lives.
On the march of two hundred miles to Montezuma’s capital, the Spaniards beat the Tlascalans in battle and made friends with those Indians against the Aztec tyrant, as the Indians called Emperor Montezuma.
The Indians of the hot countries of America were not so savage as those who lived in the northern parts of the continent.
But they had a terrible religious rite which they had learned from the Aztecs.
They offered human lives to appease the sun god.
Though the Aztecs were a peaceable people otherwise, they often went to war to take prisoners for these horrible sacrifices.
Cortes broke into a temple at one place on the way and murdered the priests who were killing and offering human beings to the sun god.
He set up a cross and invited the people to become Christians or be killed.
In that way he gained many converts from among the frightened Indians.
But with Hernando Cortes this kind of conversion was but a step toward gaining gold and power for himself and for the king of Spain.
After many terrible battles, in which he massacred the helpless natives by thousands, he and his few hundred white men, with thousands of Indian allies, reached the capital of Montezuma.
Built of stone on an island in the midst of a beautiful lake, this civilized city was connected with the mainland by six long stone bridges or causeways.
The splendid capital, with its palaces and temples of hewn stone, had much of the beauty of Venice.
The city measured twelve miles around.
It was then hundreds of years old, and proved that the ancient Aztecs knew how to build great stone houses and bridges.
[Illustration: THE CAPTURE OF THE CITY OF MEXICO BY CORTES _From the painting by Alonzo Chappel_] Montezuma came out to meet Cortes, borne on a golden throne on the shoulders of Aztec nobles and officials.
He wore priceless feathers and his garments were embroidered with many-colored gems.
Even his shoes were gold.
His courtiers carried carpets to lay down before him, so that his sacred feet should not touch the ground.
How the eyes of those greedy Spaniards glittered when they beheld such signs of the great wealth of Montezuma and his people!
The white men were received with great honor.
They were served in golden goblets with a strange, rich drink which the Aztecs named chocolatl.
This delicious drink is now called chocolate or cocoa.
Montezuma told the Spaniards that their coming had been foretold by the priests for hundreds of years, ever since the visit of a pure white man, a son of the Sun who had come down from the skies.
This sun-god had told the Aztecs that he would come again with other sun-gods and reign over the empire forever.
Cortes pretended to be the long-expected “fair god” of the Aztecs, and persuaded Montezuma to visit him in the palace assigned to the Spanish leader and his officers during their stay in the city.
The people, who had no reason to believe in the Spanish soldiers, crowded around the sedan chair of their king, crying out against him because he was placing himself in the wicked hands of the strangers.
Montezuma told them not to fear, for their guests were honorable men and he was sure that all would be well with him.
But he soon found that he was not a guest but a prisoner, betrayed by a pretense of friendship.
The Mexicans came again and attacked the palace which Cortes and his men had now turned into a fortress.
During the months when the Spaniards held Montezuma as a prisoner a fierce war was waged with the Mexicans.
While Cortes and his army were in such desperate straits, word came that the governor of Cuba had sent ships and nearly a thousand men to bring the general and his followers back, to be punished as deserters.
Cortes and a picked band crept out of the capital one dark night, marched hundreds of miles to the coast, and surprised and defeated the army the governor had sent.
Then he returned, with all those armed men and many more cannon and horses, to relieve the small garrison he had left to hold the many thousands of Aztecs at bay, and capture the city of Mexico.
The Aztecs were frightened when they saw the thousand soldiers Cortes now brought up against them, for it looked as if the new troops had come down from the skies to the help of the Spaniards.
When the battle was fiercest, the broken-spirited emperor went out to plead with the natives to stop their fighting.
This made them so angry that they hurled stones at him and he died of a broken heart.
The hatred of his own people was even harder to bear than Spanish cruelty.
After more fierce fighting, Cortes completed the conquest of Mexico.
Years afterward he returned to his old home in Spain, where he was, for a time, treated as a great conqueror.
But he suffered in later years from remorse for his treachery and cruelty.
When he grew old he was imprisoned through the influence of Spanish enemies.
One day an old, broken man with shaggy gray locks pushed through the crowd around King Charles of Spain, now known as Emperor Charles the Fifth and the most powerful monarch in the world.
When the emperor asked the old man who he was, he replied with indignant pride, “I am Cortes, the man who has given you more provinces than your ancestors left you cities.
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