CHAP. VII.

CORTEZ IN MEXICO,

85

vent malcontents among his followers returning in them; and, winning to his standard several native tribes who had suffered from Montezuma's taxgatherers, and were ready to rebel, he marched toward the Mexican capital in the month of August, over the same route which was pursued by General Scott and his conquering army more than three hundred years afterward. He fought his way against overwhelming numbers who were terrified by the flashing of the armor of the Spaniards and the thunders of their cannon. The simple people regarded the invaders as divine personages and made human sacrifices to placate them; but the avarice and ambition of the Spaniards could not be appeased until they themselves had sacrificed thousands of human beings on the altar of their lust.

Discontented or alarmed, Mexicans continually flocked to the standard of Cortez. He fought and conquered the powerful Tlascalans and made them his allies; and early in November, after murdering a large number of Cholulans that fell into his hands, he appeared before the City of MexicoMexico the superb, sitting on the bosom of a beautiful lake and alive with more than three hundred thousand people. With him were six thousand native warriors and four hundred and fifty Spaniards. Montezuma and his nobles received the invaders with great pomp and kindness. A beautiful palace was assigned to Cortez for his quarters. Believing that a display of power would greatly increase his strength and influence, that leader made an attack of a few Mexicans upon some of his followers, a pretext for seizing the emperor in his own palace and confining him in chains in that of his guest, whilst seventeen of the offenders were burned alive before the gate of the imperial residence. Cortez also compelled his royal prisoner to acknowledge himself a vassal of Charles the Fifth, then Emperor of Spain, and to induce his nobles and tributary caciques to do likewise. He made that vassalage a pretext for exacting tribute, and in the name of his royal master, Cortez extorted from the fallen monarch gold to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars.

This audacious robber, from the time when he left Cuba, had been rebellious towards his superiors. Another adventurer, named Narvaez, was sent with nine hundred men, eighty horses and a dozen cannon for the field, to displace the rebel and send him back to Cuba. When Cortez heard of the landing of his appointed successor, he hastened with a part of his Spanish troops and native warriors toward the coast. He had guessed the errand of Narvaez, and at once attacked him in his camp. Cortez was victorious. The defeated troops joined the standard of the victor, and all marched for the City of Mexico, where the great leader had left a small garrison under the cruel Alvarado. The inhabitants there had risen in insurrection because

Alvarado, on suspicion of meditated rebellion, had caused to be murdered six hundred unarmed Mexican noblemen at the end of a solemn festival. The revolt had become formidable when Cortez returned, and in an attempt. to appease his people, Montezuma had been slain. This event increased the horror and indignation of the Mexicans. The Spaniards were driven out of the city, and their rear-guard were cut in pieces. They fled before the

exasperated Mexicans, for the space of six days, dreadfully harassed by their pursuers. Finally, on the plain of Otamba, the fugitives turned upon the Mexicans, and on a hot day in July, 1520, a pitched battle was fought there. The Spaniards were victorious, and the fate of the dynasty of Montezuma was sealed.

Cortez now marched to Tlascala, where he was joined by an auxiliary

CHAP. VII.

NARVAEZ IN FLORIDA.

87

native army. After subduing the neighboring provinces, he turned his forces toward the City of Mexico. The siege which ensued was one of the most remarkable recorded in history. It continued seventy-five days, when, on the 13th of August, 1521, the city was captured by the Spaniards with immense slaughter of the inhabitants. More human beings were that day offered upon the altar of ambition than had been slain in sacrifice before the Mexican gods in the space of ten years. The victory over the Mexicans was complete; the conquest of Mexico in less than two years, was a fact that had passed into history.

Impelled by his own religious zeal and prompted by the priests in his train, Cortez at once proceeded to further humiliate, horrify and exasperate the subdued people, by making a clean sweep, with the besom of destruction, over the idols and temples of the empire. In the great square in Mexico, the conqueror and his followers, with their garments stained with the blood of their fellow-creatures, devoutly sang the Te Deum, and prostrating themselves before the image of the Blessed Virgin which they had set up, they reverently thanked God for permitting them to be the humble instruments in annihilating image-worship and in staying the horrid rites of human sacrifice. Such was the spirit and temper of the age in which they lived. So was introduced Christianity into Mexico.

Pamphilio de Narvaez, who was sent to Mexico to supersede Cortez, had extraordinary adventures afterwards as a discoverer in Florida. He was a man of wealth, tall and muscular in form, commanding in appearance, with a red beard, a fine voice, and was an expert horseman. He went to Spain to complain of Cortez, where he remained several years, and finally, in June, 1527, he sailed from San Lucar, under the authority of the monarch, with six hundred men in five vessels, commissioned to conquer and govern Florida. After long detention in San Domingo and Cuba, he sailed from the latter island with four hundred men and eighty horses, accompanied by Cabeça de Vaca, as treasurer of the expedition and a sort of deputy goverWith less than four hundred men and only forty-two horses, he landed on the west side of the present Tampa Bay, on the 13th of April, 1528. The Indians fled from their wigwams or rude huts; and when all of his followers, with the horses, were on the shore, Narvaez raised the standard of Spain, and with the usual formula took possession of the country in the name of his monarch. His officers then took an oath of allegiance to him as their governor; and had he known how potent kind treatment would have been in securing the friendship of the Indians, he might have ruled the province in peace and good will and with abundant prosperity. Instead of pursuing this wise course, he relied upon force and cruelty to effect the subjuga

nor.

tion of the natives. The consequences were disastrous to him and those who came after him. His cruel mutilation of a captive chief after his first hostile encounter with the natives, by causing his nose to be cut off; and his making Cuban bloodhounds tear in pieces the mother of the cacique in the presence of her children, created such intense horror and hatred among the people in all that Gulf region, that vengeance followed the footsteps of

the Spaniards closely and implacably, with the tenacity of their own savage dogs.

Narvaez marched with high hopes from Tampa, to explore the country, He had directing his ships to sail along the coasts for the same purpose.

been told that not far off he would find Apalachee, a city and country of

CHAP. VII.

SUFFERINGS OF NARVAEZ AND HIS MEN.

89

plenty. He crossed the Suwanee high up, and then the Ocktockonee. Every day he expected to come upon a city sparkling with wealth-filled with gold and food, like those of Mexico and Peru; and palaces of caciques with magnificent courts, and a country in which they might riot in luxury won by plunder as Cortez and Pizarro had done. Alas! it was an idle dream. All before him were but creations of imagination; all behind him were the dark realities of disappointment. The captives whom Narvaez forced to act as guides, led the invaders into dark forests, tangled morasses, and arid sands. Men and horses suffered dreadfully from the pangs of hunger. When a horse died from starvation, these cavaliers were compelled to eat it to avoid starvation themselves. At every rood they met hostility and treachery; and when they came to Apalachee, instead of a splendid city and fields and granaries burdened with food, they found a village of forty thatched huts in the midst of scattered fields of growing maize or Indian corn. There were no roads nor bridges, nor other evidences of civilization; and poverty was the common aspect of nature and people. The men had fled, but soon returned for their women and children with offers of friendship. These offers were accepted, and all might have been well had not Narvaez, in imitation of Cortez in Mexico, seized the principal cacique of the Apalacheeans, and held him as a hostage for the good behaviour of his people. Narvaez believed this spirited act would awe the inhabitants; but he had a more warlike people to deal with than the soft Aztecs of Mexico. They flew to arms to avenge the wrong; attacked the Spaniards with great fury; burned their own houses that they might not give shelter to their enemies, and then fled to their cornfields and the forests with their families.

Narvaez was now on the Appalachicola River. He learned from the captive cacique that he was in the richest region of that whole country; that forests and lakes and morasses everywhere abounded, and that he would be met at every step by expert and hostile bowmen. He told him that nine days journeying southward would bring him to the sea-coast and a better country, and assured him that gold had never been found in the region which he had penetrated. Misfortune made Narvaez listen patiently to these discouraging words, and he and his followers turned their faces toward the sea. Their sufferings on that march were dreadful. The country was broken into lakes, swamps, morasses and forests. They were compelled to wade through water sometimes waist deep and work their way through tangled vines and bristling brambles, every moment exposed to the arrows of expert bowmen who hung upon their flanks and rear. When they reached the sea-the Gulf of Mexico-at near the mouth of the Appalachicola, sickness was rapidly wasting Narvaez and nearly all his men. They