Michael Coy
ON April 22, 1519, a Spanish man and his 200 or so followers built a camp on the Mexican coast which they called “Villa Rica de Vera Cruz” – ‘the beautiful city of the True Cross’.
That was 500 years ago – do we need to care?
Well, yes.
One of the conquistadores in Cortes’ group was a soldier and talented writer named Bernal Díaz, a man who understood the significance of what was happening.
He started writing a book, “The True History of the Conquest of New Spain”. It’s a wonderful book.
Cortes had been sent here by the Spanish governor of Cuba.
These were the early days of the European presence in the New World (Columbus had been dead for only 13 years) and there were rumours of vast wealth to be discovered.
We mustn’t forget that, up to now, what the Spanish had found was only the Caribbean. Cortes, now, was learning that an enormous continent was waiting to be explored – the Americas.
More importantly, he was about to cause the clash of two civilisations.
The book written by Bernal Díaz captures the moment.
He saw, with his own eyes, the battles, the deceit, and the massacres. Often, he tells us, he had to break off his account for weeks, because he’d been wounded and couldn’t write.
His leader, Hernan Cortes, emerges as a leader of great intelligence and almost diabolic cunning, a cruel man who broke all the rules because he grasped the immensity of what he was achieving.
Before we get into the story’s details, let’s remember who the conquistadores were.
By 1500, Spanish culture had evolved a class of noblemen who were poor. Hidalgos. They were educated and proud of their status, but they owned nothing.
Suddenly, the discovery of the New World gave them their chance.
The Hidalgos went en masse to the Caribbean, looking to have adventures and to get rich.
It’s a straightforward setup for a riveting story.
Treasure is their only goal, in whatever form. They’d heard that the mainland might have gold. But the truth is that the party had no idea where they were going; Mexico was just a question mark on a map.
Cortes is technically an employee of the Governor of Cuba, but he has no intention of following orders.
To compel obedience, the governor would have to send a military force to find Cortes (Vera Cruz is more than a thousand miles away).
Now that his team is established on the coast of what will one day be Mexico, Cortes is thinking of striking out into the jungle. He is hearing vague stories of a big, rich city.
Crucially, Cortes always had fantastic luck with languages. The Spanish men knew nothing of the local Indian tongues, but they found an old Spanish priest who lived here.
He’d been shipwrecked back in the Columbus days and survived.
With no way of getting back to Spanish territory, he lived with the indians and learned their language. Now, he could translate for Cortes.
Later, Cortes would win the love of an Aztec princess, “La Malinche”, and she would learn Spanish in order to help him.
The priest explains that these Indians, on the coast, are Totonacs.
They have been conquered by a powerful tribe called the Aztecs, who live inland in a colossal city called Tenochtitlan. (This will become Mexico City).
The priest gives a warning which, to Cortes, is an exciting invitation. “If you don’t leave, you will have to fight the Aztecs.” That’s exactly what Cortes wants!
The Indians of this strange place (the Spaniards don’t yet understand that they are now on a land mass which extends from one arctic circle to the other) have a bizarre religion.
They offer human sacrifices to their gods, which disgusts Cortes and his men (they’re OK with raping, pillaging and enslaving the Indians, but human sacrifice is wrong).
Amazingly, the local religions state that gods have hairy faces, and unheard-of weapons. Are these Spanish men divine?
The Spaniards have no way of shaving, so they all have beards. Metal accoutrements of war (swords, breastplates and cannon) are appearing in the Americas for the first time. When the Indians see a man on a horse, they think it’s a weird new creature.
And the Aztecs believe that when the gods show up in person, their own empire will fall. Are these newcomers gods?
Read “The True History of the Conquest of New Spain” by Bernal Díaz, for the full story of Cortes’ journey to Mexico City, and what happens when he gets there.
The Penguin Classics English version costs less than €20 on Amazon. Alternately, you can read it for free at the Internet Archive.
We recommend “The Essential Díaz” at
https://archive.org/details/isbn_2901624660022/page/n11/mode/2up
