The time was now close for Cortés to march. He had so regulated his legal position that if he achieved a conquest it would be his, not Velázquez’s. And he had made a conquest more possible; it had been impossible when he was not fully master. He had discovered, moreover, that not only were the Totonacs longing to throw off Montezuma’s rule, but also other peoples between the sea and the capital. If he directed his march through their territory, the operation would become less hazardous. It remained, however, a desperate venture as far as his information went. With no reserve of arms and ammunition except what he carried, with no provisions beyond what the country might provide, and no hope of Spanish reinforcements to take the place of casualties, he was setting out in the face of an army hundreds of times larger than his own and armed nearly as well as the seven-eighths of it which had no horses, muskets or crossbows. True, he had represented himself as a peaceful envoy. But should Montezuma be angry at his impertinence in coming up without leave, the Mexicans might surround him somewhere in the depths of their country and, depriving him of food, rush his camp one dark night and overwhelm his exhausted troops. Even if some of Montezuma’s subjects were disaffected, it was past reason to stake all on success. In general Cortés was not stupidly rash. On the contrary, he was prudent and cautious, took long views, was noted for his astuteness. His boldest actions were patiently calculated. How then account for his determination to do what no prudent general would do? It was no sudden decision; he had made it in Cuba. His men had long known of it and approved. He had even confided it to Charles V. The letter in which he did so is lost, but in his second letter to the Emperor he recalls the passage in the first: ‘I remember that I offered to accomplish the impossible, for I vowed to your Royal Highness that I would have Montezuma prisoner, or dead, or subject to the Royal Crown of Your Majesty.’ He could hardly have thought that as an envoy who had been refused audience he was inviolable. There seems but one answer to explain his certainty. Belief in their mission is characteristic of great men. Cortés believed he was fated to conquer Mexico. He could not have told why he believed himself chosen for the task. But he seems never to have doubted it. That was his strength. It was also his men’s strength. Inspired by his confidence, they were as confident as he.
Before leaving on August 15th, he took an action likely to increase rather than diminish his difficulties. He deliberately cut his communications with home. His ships represented his only means of evacuating Mexico if he were defeated. He ran them ashore and totally wrecked them. He had, of course, his reasons. He did not see how he could control the ships after he had left. The sailors might sail them back to Cuba, where they would be very useful to Velázquez. There were a few malcontents, who might desert him and go on them. Once in Cuba these men would tell Velázquez what had happened and perhaps aid him in fitting out an expedition against the subordinate who had broken loose. There was a psychological reason also for the destruction of the ships: without means of retreat the soldiers would have to fight desperately. Moreover, the odd hundred sailors would amount to a useful reinforcement, particularly as about forty of his five hundred men had died of wounds received in the fighting at Tabasco. But none of these reasons, nor all of them together, would have justified a prudent commander in destroying his line of retreat. The ships could have been anchored with skeleton crews, their compasses and sails removed, the malcontents roughly treated and cowed. Only a commander with a mystical certainty of victory would have dared to do what Cortés did.
But another measure he took was of a precautionary nature. He made the region of Cempoalan into a base by building on a plain seven miles north of that town the Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, which hitherto had had only a paper existence on the sand-hills opposite San Juan de Ulúa. The fat lord helped with labour and materials. Cortés set an example by carrying stones. Very soon the first Spanish town in Mexico began to take shape, with a market place, a church, an arsenal and a fort. It was arranged that Juan de Escalante should be left in charge of it. His garrison was to consist mostly of Spaniards too old or too ill to march.
The new town made the Totonacs feel more secure against Mexican attack. To cement their friendship with the Spaniards, the fat lord brought eight girls, daughters of the aristocracy, and wanted them married to the captains. Says Bernal: ‘They were dressed in the rich embroidered costume of the country. Each had a gold collar round her neck, golden ear-rings and a maid.’ One of them was the fat lord’s own niece, and her he intended for Cortés. Unfortunately, she was very ugly, says Bernal. ‘But Cortés received her and tried to look pleased.’
The offer of these girls gave Cortés his opportunity of talking to the Totonacs seriously about their religion. He said the captains could not accept the girls unless human sacrifice was given up. ‘We had seen so many cruelties and infamies,’ says Bernal. ‘Every day we saw sacrificed three, four or five people, whose hearts were offered to the images of the gods, their blood plastered on the walls and their limbs cut off and eaten.’ This must stop, Cortés told them, if they wanted friendship and the protection of the Emperor.
The fat lord was much taken aback. The Totonacs’ favourite deity was the maize goddess, though they also worshipped Smoking Mirror, the premier god. Maize was their staple food and the lord pointed out that to neglect the maize goddess would endanger the harvest. The other gods too were not to be trifled with. To abolish human sacrifice would be madness.
A stormy scene resulted. Cortés said that if they refused to throw their gods down from the high platform of their pyramid temple, he would do it. The fat lord, normally a most amiable fellow, flew into a violent rage and beckoned to his archers. Doña Marina, ‘that excellent woman’, as Bernal calls her, took it upon herself to say: ‘If you shoot, we call the Mexicans in.’ The threat was enough. ‘Throw them down if you must,’ said the fat lord resignedly. ‘We don‘t consent, but we can’t prevent you.’
Hardly were the words out of his mouth, says Bernal, ‘before fifty of us soldiers clambered up the pyramid and threw over the images which came rolling down the steps, shattered to pieces. Some looked like fearful dragons as big as calves, others were half-men and half-dogs, hideous to look at. The lords and priests wept and covered their eyes. They prayed for pardon, saying it was not their fault.’
Frenzied by the sight, the archers seemed about to shoot. But Cortés caught hold of the fat lord. ‘One arrow,’ he cried, ‘and I’ll cut your throat.’ His lordship was no martyr. He shouted at the archers to go home.
Calm being restored, Cortés addressed the crowd in his most engaging manner: ‘From this on,’ he said, ‘I shall treat you as brothers. You can depend on getting all the help I can give you against Mexico. I have already warned Montezuma not to molest you or attempt to collect taxes. Soon we shall be marching to overthrow him. And since you have lost your gods and are sad, I will leave with you a great lady, who will be your intercessor.’ And he explained to them who the Virgin Mary was. He would put her in the gods’ shrine on top of the pyramid, but before she could live there, it would have to be cleaned.
This was done at once. The Totonacs, now quite pacified, scraped the blood off the shrine walls and the whole was whitewashed. In the course of the next few days an altar was set up inside it, covered with a good cloth and decorated with roses. The image of the Virgin and the Cross were then placed on it. Extraordinary to relate, four Totonac priests consented to be made acolytes. They also had to be cleaned up. Bernal describes what they looked like before and after: ‘They wore black cloaks like cassocks. Their hair was very long, covered with blood and so matted together that it could not be separated. They had cut to pieces their ears in sacrificing their own blood. They stank like sulphur and they had another bad smell like carrion.’ After being washed, their hair was shorn and they were clothed in white cloaks.
When all was ready, Mass was celebrated on top of the pyramid. The altar was lit by wax candles made of local beeswax, a novelty for the Totonacs who had never thought of using wax for lighting. The image of the Virgin was fumigated with the incense hitherto used for the gods. The most important lords from Cempoalan and the other towns of the confederation attended. The eight girls were brought up and after admonishment were baptized as Christians. Their nuptials with eight selected captains received some kind of minor solemnization. Cortés took the fat lord’s ugly niece. About this time Doña Marina also became his consort, after Puertocarrero, to whom he gave her at Tabasco, had left for Spain with the dispatches and the golden presents.
Bernal, the only eye-witness who has recorded this scene, treats it lightly; he was evidently amused by the fat lord, a cowardly, though somehow delightful character. But the reality was no farce. It was one of the occasions in Cortés’ life when he gambled with fate, though in general he was not a gambler. By destroying the gods, he took the chance of destroying himself. His only way of getting to Mexico city was to keep in with the Totonacs. So far he had been very tactful with them. His men were punished severely if they stole the smallest thing. Then suddenly, with a reckless disregard for consequences, he outraged them to such a degree that they wanted to kill him. Bernal’s explanation is that neither he nor any of his force could stand the human sacrifices a moment longer. So horror-struck were they that even the risk of losing everything seemed preferable to winking at the practice. The explanation rings true. One feels that in their place one would either have done the same or been ashamed of not having the courage to do so. Nevertheless, as in the case of the ships, the imprudence was great for a commander in Cortés’ delicate position. But his luck held. He counted on that. It was as if he thought no one could stop him before his mission was done.
Bernal says that the Totonacs settled down quietly as the Spaniards’ friends. ‘From that time forward, they always showed us goodwill. They were especially pleased that Cortés received their daughters and that we took them with us when we marched away.’ Had it not been that they believed Cortés to be the returning god, they could hardly have accepted his religion the way they did. That Quetzalcoatl would displace the other gods was part of the prophecy; his objection to human sacrifice was well known. On reflection, they must have conceded that for Cortés to roll down the images was the very thing to expect. The sight of the desecration had shocked them at the moment, but it afterwards made them the more sure that he was Quetzalcoatl. That he did not ask them to worship him but the Virgin Mary and the Cross was a mystery, as was his talk of a distant Emperor, whom they must acknowledge. But they were ready to leave it at that. On his departure they promised to look after the altar and keep the candles alight. Moreover, Juan de Escalante, Governor of Vera Cruz, would be given what help he required to finish building the town. They also sent forty of their best born and most intelligent captains along with the expedition to show the safest road to Mexico and introduce the peoples met with on the way.