Chapter XVI: Early Spanish Explorers and Conquerors on the Mainland

THE CIVILIZATION OF THE MEXICAN INDIANS. Early Spanish explorers on
the coast of Mexico found the Indians of the mainland more highly
civilized than the natives of the West Indies. Some of these, especially
the Aztecs, lived in large villages or cities and were ruled by powerful
chiefs or kings. They built to their gods huge stone temples with towers
several stories in height.

Their houses, quite unlike those of the other Indians the Spanish had
seen, were made of stone or sun-dried brick and coated with hard white
plaster. Some of them were of immense size and could hold many families.
Doors had not been invented, but hangings of woven grass or matting of
cotton served instead. Strings of shells which a visitor could rattle
answered for door-bells.

The streets of the towns were narrow, but were often paved with a sort
of cement. Aqueducts in solid masonry somewhat like the old Roman
aqueducts, although not so large, carried water from the neighboring
hills for fountains and rude public baths.

The women wove cotton and prepared clothing for their families. Workmen
made ornaments of gold and copper, and utensils and dishes of pottery
for every-day use. The people cultivated the fields around the cities,
raising a great variety of foods, and even built ditches to carry water
for irrigating the fields. All this was in striking contrast with the
simple habits of the West Indians.

CRUEL CUSTOMS OF THE AZTECS. With all the good features of Mexican
life, with all the superiority of the Mexicans over the other Indians,
there was much that was hideous and cruel. The Aztecs, the most powerful
tribes, were continually at war with their neighbors. They lived mainly
upon the plunder of their enemies and the tribute which they took from
those they had conquered. Like all Mexicans, they worshiped great ugly
idols as gods and to these their priests offered part of the captives
taken in war as human sacrifices.

SPANISH IDEAS OF MEXICO. The reports of the Aztec civilization and
of the treasures of gold, mostly untrue, excited the interest and greed
of the Spaniards. Mexico seemed like the China which Marco Polo had
described, and might offer a chance of immense wealth for those who
should conquer it. In truth, Mexican civilization did resemble that of
Asia more than anything that the Spaniards had seen. Montezuma, a
powerful chief or king of the Aztecs, lived somewhat like a Mongol
Emperor of Persia or China.

CORTES. In 1519 the governor of Cuba sent Hernando Cortes to
explore and conquer Mexico. The expedition landed where Vera Cruz is now
situated. The ships were then sunk in order to cut off all hope of
retreat for the soldiers. "For whom but cowards," said Cortes, "were
means of retreat necessary!" Cortes, with great skill, worked up the
zeal of his soldiers to the fury of a religious crusade. All thought it
a duty to destroy the idols they saw, to end the practice of offering
human sacrifices, and to force the Christian religion upon the natives.

The small army marched slowly inland towards the City of Mexico, which
was the capital of Montezuma's kingdom. Cortes and his men had learned
the Indian mode of fighting from ambush, and also how successfully to
match cunning and treachery with those villagers who tried to prevent
his invasion of their country.

HOW THE SPANIARDS AND THE AZTECS FOUGHT. The Mexican warriors,
though they fought fiercely, were no match for the Spaniards. The
Mexicans were experts with the bow and arrow, using arrows pointed with
a hard kind of stone. They carried for hand-to-hand fighting a narrow
club set with a double edge of razor-like stones, and wore a crude kind
of armor made from quilted cotton. But such things were useless against
Spanish bullets shot from afar.

The roaring cannon, the glittering steel swords, the thick armor and
shining helmets, the prancing horses on which the Spanish leaders were
mounted, gave the whole a strange, unearthly appearance to the
simple-minded Indians. The story is told that the Mexicans believed that
one of their gods had once floated out to sea, saying that, in the
fulness of time, he would return with fair-skinned companions to begin
again his rule over his people. Many Aztecs looked upon the coming of
the white men as the return of this god and thought that resistance
would be useless. Such natives sent presents, made their peace with
Cortes, and so weakened the opposition to the conquerors.

CORTES IN PERIL. Cortes easily entered the City of Mexico, and
forced Montezuma to resign. But here the natives attacked his army in
such numbers that he had to retreat to escape capture. The Spaniards
fled from the city at night amid the onslaught of the inhabitants
fighting for their religion and their homes.

The retreat cost the Spaniards terrible losses. Cortes started in the
evening on the retreat with 1,250 soldiers, 6,000 Indian allies, and 80
horses. There were left in the morning 500 soldiers, 2,000 allies, and
20 horses. Cortes is said to have buried his face in his hands and wept
for his lost followers, but he never wavered in his purpose of taking
Mexico. He was able to defeat the Indians in the open country, and to
return to the attack on the capital city.

CAPTURE OF THE CITY OF MEXICO. The siege which followed, lasting
nearly three months, has rarely been matched in history for the bravery
and suffering of the natives. The fighting was constant and terrible.
The fresh water supply was cut off from the inhabitants in the city, and
famine aided the invaders. At length the defenders were exhausted and
Cortes entered. It had taken him two years to conquer the Aztecs. A
greater task remained for him to do. He was to cleanse and rebuild the
City of Mexico, make it a center of Spanish civilization, and Mexico a
New Spain. By such work Cortes showed that he could be not only a great
conqueror, but also an able ruler in time of peace.

PIZARRO. A few years after Cortes conquered Mexico a second army
conquered another famous Indian kingdom. Francisco Pizarro commanded
this expedition, which set out from Panama in 1531. Pizarro had been
with Balboa at the discovery of the South Sea or Pacific Ocean, and,
like his master, had become interested in the stories the Indians told
of a rich kingdom far to the south. The golden kingdom which the Indians
described was that of the Incas, who lived much as the Aztecs. The
Spaniards called the region of the Incas the Biru country or, by
softening the first letter, the Peru country, from Biru, who was a
native Indian chieftain.

CONQUEST OF PERU. Pizarro found the Incas divided as usual by civil
wars and incapable of much resistance. One of their rival chiefs was
outwitted when he tried to capture Pizarro by a trick, and was himself
made a prisoner instead. He offered to give Pizarro in return for his
freedom as much gold as would fill his prison room as high as he could
reach. The offer was accepted, and gold, mainly in the shape of vases,
plates, images, and other ornaments from the temples for the Indian
idols, was gathered together.

The Spaniards soon found themselves in possession of almost $7,000,000
worth of gold, besides a vast quantity of silver. As much more was taken
from the Indians by force. The whole was divided among the conquerors.
Pizarro's share was worth nearly a million dollars. But the poor chief
who had made them suddenly rich was suspected of plotting to have his
warriors ambush them as they left the country, was tried by his
conquerors, and put to death. The bloody work of conquest was soon over.
Peru, like Mexico, rapidly became a center of Spanish settlement.
Emigrants, instead of stopping in the West Indies, had the choice of
going on into the newer regions which Cortes and Pizarro had won.

EMIGRANTS TO SPANISH AMERICA. It was much harder in the sixteenth
century to leave Spain and settle in America than it is today. The first
and sometimes the greatest difficulty was in getting permission to leave
Spain. No one could go who had not secured the king's consent. The
emigrant must show that neither he nor his father nor his grandfather
had ever been guilty of heresy, that is, that he and his forefathers had
been steadfast Catholic Christians. His wife, if he had one, must give
her consent. His debts must all be paid. The Moors and the Jews of Spain
could not secure permits to move to the New World. Foreigners of
whatever nation were not wanted in the colonies and were usually kept
out. Spain tried to keep its colonies wholly for Spaniards.

HARDSHIPS OF THE SEA VOYAGE. Those who did go to the colonies found
the voyage dangerous and costly. One traveler has related that it cost
him about one hundred and eighty dollars for the passage, and that he
provided his own chickens and bread. The danger to sailing ships from
storms was much greater than it is today for steamships. The voyage
required three or four weeks and not uncommonly as many months.

THE NEED OF LABORERS. The hardships and dangers of the voyage and
the reports of suffering from famine and disease kept most people from
going to the New World. Emigration was slow, amounting to about a
thousand a year. There were always fewer capable white laborers than the
landowners in the colonies needed for their work, for there was much to
do in clearing the land and preparing it for use. The landowners were
usually well-to-do Spaniards who did not like to work in the fields
themselves. A great many of the laborers who migrated to America served
in the army or went to the gold and silver mines of Mexico and Peru. The
craze for gold constantly robbed the older colonies of their farm
laborers. The landowners in the islands of the West Indies, during the
early history of the colonies, made slaves of the Indians and compelled
them to take the place of the laborers they needed and could not obtain.

INDIAN SLAVERY. The people of Europe thought that the whole world
belonged to the followers of Christ. Non-Christians, whether Indian or
negro, had the choice of accepting Christianity or of being made slaves.
The choice of Christianity did not always save them from the fate of
slavery. In this the Spaniards were no more cruel than their neighbors
the English or the French. The Spanish planters from the beginning
forced the Indians to work their farms. The gold seekers made them work
in their mines.

The labor in every case was hard, and specially hard for the Indian
unused to work. The overseers were brutal when the slaves did not do the
tasks set for them. Hard usage and the unhealthful quarters rapidly
broke down the natives. The white men also brought into the island
diseases which they, with their greater experience, could resist, but
from which, one writer says, the Indians died like sheep with a
distemper.

SLAVERY DESTROYS THE WEST INDIANS. When the number of the Indians
in Espanola and Cuba had decreased so much that there were not enough
left to meet the needs of the planters, slave-hunters searched the
neighboring islands for others. Finally, when the Indians were nearly
gone, and the planters began to look to the mainland for their slaves,
the king of Spain forbade making slaves of the Indians. Unfortunately he
did not forbid them to capture negroes in Africa for the same purpose,
and the change merely meant that negroes took the place of Indians as
slaves. The story of the change is in great part the story of the life
of Bartholomew de Las Casas.

LAS CASAS. The father of Las Casas was a companion of Columbus on
his second voyage in 1493. He returned to Spain, taking with him a young
Indian slave whom he gave to his son. This youth became greatly
interested in the race to which his young slave belonged. In 1502 he
went to Espanola to take possession of his father's estate. The
planter's life did not long satisfy him and finally he became a priest.
He moved from Espanola to Cuba, the newer colony.

Las Casas became convinced that Indian slavery was wrong, and gave his
own slaves their freedom. In his sermons he attacked the abuses of
slavery. He visited Spain in order to help the slaves, and secured many
reforms which lessened the hardships of their lot. Since the planters
demanded more laborers and Las Casas thought the negro would be hardier
than the Indian, he advocated negro slavery in place of Indian slavery
as the less of two evils. Finally, in 1542, Las Casas persuaded his
king, Charles V, to put an end to Indian slavery of every form.

His success came too late to benefit the natives of the West Indies.
They had decreased until almost none were left. It is said that there
were two hundred thousand Indians in Espanola in 1492, and that in 1548
there were barely five hundred survivors. The same decrease had taken
place in the other islands. But the work of Las Casas came in time to
save the Indians on the mainland from the fate of the luckless
islanders.

NEGRO SLAVERY. Las Casas later regretted that he had advised the
planters to obtain negroes to take the place of the Indians. Some
negroes had been captured by the Portuguese on the coast of Africa
during their explorations and taken to Europe as slaves. Columbus
carried a few of these to the West Indies with him, and others had
followed his example, but negro slavery had grown very slowly until
after Las Casas stopped Indian slavery, when it increased rapidly in
Spanish America.

THE MISSIONS OF THE MAINLAND. Las Casas became at one time a
missionary to a tribe of the most desperate warriors located on the
southern border of Mexico, in a region called by the Spaniards the "Land
of War." Three times a Spanish army had invaded the country, and three
times it had been driven back by the native defenders. Las Casas wished
to show the Spaniards that more could be accomplished by treating the
Indians kindly than by bloody warfare and conquest.

He and the monks whom he took with him learned the language of the
Indians, and went among them not as conquerors but as Christian
teachers. Their gentle manners and endless patience won the friendship
of the Indians in time and changed the land of constant warfare into one
of peace. They led the natives to destroy their idols and to give up
cannibalism. The mission established among them and kept up by the monks
who were attracted to it was only one of a great number which sprang up
on the mainland.

THE WORK OF THE MISSIONS. Influenced by the work of Las Casas
against Indian slavery and for Indian missions, the Spaniards bent their
efforts to preserve and Christianize the natives wherever they came upon
them in America. Catholic priests gathered the Indians into permanent
villages, which were called missions. Within about one hundred years
after the death of Columbus, or by 1600, there were more then 5,000,000
Indians in such villages under Spanish rule. Priests taught them to
build better houses, checked their native vices, and suppressed heathen
practices.

Every mission became a little industrial school for children and parents
alike, where all might learn the simpler arts and trades and the customs
and language of their teachers. Each Indian cultivated his own plot of
land and worked two hours a day on the farm belonging to the village.
The produce of the village farm supported the church. The monks or
friars who had charge of the mission cared for the poor, taught in the
schools, preserved the peace and order of the village, and looked after
the religious welfare of all.

Gradually Spanish emigrants settled in the mission stations, and
planters established farms around them, and they became Spanish villages
in every respect like those in the islands or in the Old World, except
that many inhabitants in the towns on the mainland were Indians. The
emigrants freely intermarried with the Indians and a mixed race took the
place of the old inhabitants. The customs, language, religion, and rule
of Spain prevailed in this New Spain, though in some ways the new
civilization was not so good as that of the Old World.

QUESTIONS

1. In what ways did the Aztecs resemble the Europeans? How did they
differ from them? Why were the Spaniards particularly anxious to
conquer Mexico?

2. Why did many of the Mexicans refuse to fight the Spaniards? How
many soldiers and Indian allies did Cortes lose in one battle? How
long did it take Cortes to conquer Mexico?

3. What other Indian people was conquered a few years later? By
whom? What seemed to be the main object of these conquerors, Cortes
and Pizarro, in their expeditions?

4. Why did the Spaniards make slaves of the Indians in the West
Indies? Why did they later cease making slaves of Indians and begin
making slaves of negroes? What share had Las Casas in this change?

5. What good work did the priests and monks in the Spanish Missions
accomplish? What became of the Aztecs or other Indian tribes
in Mexico?

EXERCISES

1. Find all you can about the houses, food, clothing, and
occupations of any Indians living in your part of the United States,
or if none are there now, learn this from your parents or from some
neighbor who knew the Indians. Did they resemble the Aztecs in these
respects or the West Indians?

2. Review the account of emigrating to Spanish America four hundred
years ago. Who could not go to Spanish America then? Find out who
may not come into the United States to-day. What did it cost one
traveler to get to America in the sixteenth century? Find out the
cost of a voyage from Europe to America to-day. How long did it take
to make such a voyage? Find out the usual length of a voyage from
Europe to-day.