Mexico / Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development

by C. Reginald Enock

19 The Aztec name for Cortes.

And now the time arrives when the star of the Conquistador is to wane and set. The execution of Guatemoc had brought about a reprimand from Spain; for it is to be recollected that the Spanish sovereigns never sought the actual destruction of the American princes, and Pizarro, also, was reprimanded after his murder of Atahualpa, in Peru. Cortes, upon his return to Mexico from the Honduras expedition, found that Spain was not pleased with his administration. Enemies had been at work, and gratitude for his great services was easily set aside in the fickle favour of the monarch. A special commissioner, in the person of the licentiate Ponce de Leon, was awaiting him, appointed by Carlos V. to impeach him, as a result of grave charges of maladministration—true or untrue—which had been brought against him in Spain. In this connection it is to be recollected that Cortes, faithful to his country, had twice refused to be made King of Mexico by his own followers. Cortes, finding his enemies too strong, went to Spain to lay his case before the Emperor personally, but was denied the civil governorship of Mexico, although military control was given him, and the title of Marqués del Valle. But although he returned to Mexico, he was no longer in the dominant position of former years. Cortes returned to Spain in 1540 from Mexico, once more to lay the plaint of his unjust treatment before Carlos V., a result of his disputes with the first viceroy, Mendoza. He was treated with indifference and coldness; his life terminated in disappointment and regrets, and he died in Spain in December, 1547. So pass the actors in the drama of the Conquest. As to Guatemoc, his memory is perpetuated in the handsome statue in the paseo de Colon of modern Mexico, whilst—strange sentiment of the race which Cortes founded—no monument to the bold Conquistador exists throughout the land.

From the time of the fall of the fortunes of Cortes in 1535 to the first cry for independence by Hidalgo in 1810, New Spain was administered by viceroys and Audiencias—the latter being a species of administrative councils consisting of a president and four members, nominated by royal decree. The first viceroy, Mendoza, and many of the subsequent officials of this rank governed Mexico for a period, and were transferred thence to the viceregency of Peru, which latter country had been brought into Spain's colonial possessions by the conquest under Pizarro, in 1532. Indeed, Pizarro a short time after that date had made his second entry into Cuzco, the Inca capital of Peru, wearing an ermine robe which Cortes had sent him. During Mendoza's period, printing was first introduced into Mexico—or, indeed, into the New World—the Mint and the University were founded, and exploration of the northern part of the country was undertaken. The rule of the first viceroy, Mendoza, was good; he was upright and capable, and his methods were in marked contrast to the excesses and cruelties practised by the first Audiencia, which had preceded his and the second Audiencia's régime. Bishops and priests took active part in the affairs of Mexico from the beginning, and the first Audiencia had been involved in grave conflict with the clergy. One of the main features of the period was the system of repartmientos and encomiendas under which the Indians were portioned out as serfs to the Spanish colonists. Exceeding brutality marked this system of slavery; and at an early date it became necessary to abolish the practice of branding the unfortunate serfs with hot irons, like cattle! Thus began the system of cruelty and abuse of the natives under Spanish rule—not from Spain, however, but by the colonists—whose counterpart was enacted in the South American countries contemporaneously. It is to the credit of Churchmen that they often took the part of the Indians; and a venerated name to this day among the natives of Michoacan is that of Quiroga, the first Bishop of that province, who penetrated there to endeavour to counteract the effect of the marked abuses of Guzman, president of the first Audiencia, who in 1527 burned to death their chief, because he would not, or could not, give up his gold. Velasquez, the second viceroy, succeeding Mendoza, also had grave questions with the Audiencia. He also was an upright man, and his death was hastened by these matters. Indeed, the Audiencias were singularly unfortunate in their proceedings, and their rule was almost always marked by a mistaken policy exaggerated by acts of cruelty and oppression. During the time of Velasco an expedition sent by him sailed from Mexico westward, and took possession in 1564 of the Philippine Islands, which were so named after the reigning King of Spain, Philip II.

Viceroy succeeded viceroy then in the history of Mexico, and tyranny and benevolence followed each other alternately in the governing of the people. Under the cruel Muñoz, a member of the Audiencia, the son of Cortes was tortured, and gaols were filled and blood was freely shed on political and other charges. In 1571 another sinister event took place—the establishing of the Inquisition. A few years later the foundation of the Cathedral of Mexico was laid, the beautiful structure which to-day dominates the capital. A matter which was early forced upon the attention of the viceroys and city councils was the occurrence of flooding of the city and attendant epidemics and disaster; for the peculiar hydrographic conditions of the Valley of Mexico rendered it liable to floods, the first of which had occurred 1553. In 1580 plans were formulated for drainage by means of a canal which should give outlet through the surrounding hills. In 1603 this project was again brought forward and again abandoned; and in 1607 work was actually begun, with a force of nearly half a million Indians, upon the great cut of Nochistongo, which still exists and lies open to the view of the traveller upon the Mexican railway to-day.

Towards the close of the sixteenth century the ports of New Spain, especially Vera Cruz, were visited by those enterprising and unscrupulous sea-rovers of Britain, Drake, Cavendish, Hawkins, and others, who took toll of coast towns and plate-ships throughout the regions which Spain claimed as her own, but which pretensions were not respected by others of the maritime nations of Europe. A memorable period was this in the history of the New World, as of the Old, for this flood-tide of staunch buccaneers from Britain and Holland did but swell onward and culminate in the defeat of the Invincible Armada off the Elizabethan coast, 1588. The student of the history of Spanish America at this period will not spare much sympathy for Spain and Spanish misrule. Under Philip II. a constant drain of treasure from Mexico and Peru for the needy Mother Country had given rise to serious abuses in the mines, and silver was extracted to fabulous values and sent to Spain under the system of forced labour.

GUANAJUATO AS SEEN FROM THE HILLS: THE HISTORIC TREASURE-HOUSE OF MEXICO.

In 1622 acute questions arose between the Court and ecclesiastical authorities, as ever inevitably took place in Spain's colonial dominions. Bishops excommunicated viceroys, and viceroys fulminated banishment against bishops: riotings and beheadings followed, and royal interpositions were constantly necessary to uphold or condemn the action of one or the other side. In 1629 an appalling inundation of the City of Mexico took place, following a similar occurrence in 1622, due to the discontinuance of the drainage works which had earlier been begun; and it is stated that thirty thousand of the poor inhabitants of the valley perished as a result. Two years later acute dissatisfaction began to arise at the great acquisition of wealth and power by the clergy, and a memorial sent to Philip IV. by the municipality of Mexico begged that no more religious institutions or communities might be established, asserting that more than half the wealth of the country was in the hands of these, and that there were more than six thousand priests—most of them idle—in the country.

From the middle to the close of the seventeenth century the social life of the people developed but slowly. The main events were the conspiracy of the Irishman Lampart to secure independence for the country, the dedication of the cathedral of Mexico, the founding of the town of Albuquerque in the territory of New Mexico—to-day part of the United States, the enactment against the violation of private correspondence, the fortification of the ports on the Gulf coast against the operations of sea-rovers—among them the famous British buccaneer Morgan, the eruption of Popocatepetl (1665), the sacking of the town of Campeche by British ships (1680), the insurrection and murders by the Indians of Chihuahua and New Mexico, the piratical exploit of Agramonte and his band, who disembarked at and looted the port of Vera Cruz, imprisoning the greater part of the population in a church, the exploration of California, and the operations against the French and English settlers upon the Mexican Gulf coast. The last years of the century were disturbed by serious rioting and tumult in the capital, due to scarcity of food and the inundation of the city.