The events that followed down to the fulfillment of that promise by the arrival of Hernan Cortés in 1519 are not very definitely recorded, but these months formed a period of the greatest anxiety on the part of the Aztec rulers and of mingled dread and hope for their numerous enemies. Interest in the one absorbing topic caused all else to be forgotten; there was no thought of conquest, of revolt, of tributes; even the bloody rites of Huitzilopochtli were much neglected and the star of the peaceful Quetzalcoatl and his sect was in the ascendant. Prophets and old men throughout the country were closely questioned respecting their knowledge of the old traditions; old paintings and records were taken from every archive and carefully compared with those relating to the new-comers; the loss of the precious documents burned by Itzcoatl was now seriously felt; the glass beads and other trinkets obtained from the Spaniards, and even carefully treasured fragments of ship biscuit, were formally deposited with all the old Toltec ceremonies in the temple of Quetzalcoatl. Many fictitious paintings were palmed off on the credulous Montezuma as ancient records in which the children of Quetzalcoatl were pictured in an amusing variety of absurd forms, but some of the documents agreed very closely with the late paintings of Montezuma's agents, showing that others had bethought them to represent on paper Grijalva's company or some preceding band of Spaniards.[IX-63]
At last the presence of Cortés on the southern coasts, and his progress towards the Aztec possessions, was announced, and an embassy was dispatched to await his arrival, and to receive him with every attention and with the richest gifts the empire could afford. Subsequent events belong to the history of the Conquest, and must be narrated in another work; the remaining chapters of this volume being required for such fragments as have been preserved respecting the aboriginal history of other nations and tribes outside the central plateaux of Mexico.
ANÁHUAC IN 1519.
I close the chapter and the annals of the Aztec period, with a brief glance at the general condition of affairs in and about Anáhuac in 1519, and the most extraordinary combination of circumstances that made it possible for Hernan Cortés to overthrow with a handful of Spanish soldiers a mighty aboriginal empire. The power known as Aztec, since the formation of the tri-partite alliance not quite a century before under the Acolhua, Mexican, and Tepanec kings, had gradually extended its iron grasp from its centre about the lakes to the shores of either ocean; and this it had accomplished wholly by the force of arms, receiving no voluntary allegiance. Overburdened by taxation; oppressed and insulted by royal governors, Aztec tribute-gatherers, and the traveling armies of Tlatelulca merchants; constantly attacked on frivolous pretexts by blood-thirsty hordes who ravaged their fields and carried away the flower of their population to perish on the Mexican altars; the inhabitants of each province subjected to this degrading bondage entertained towards the central government of the tyrants on the lakes feelings of the bitterest hatred and hostility, only awaiting an opportunity to free themselves, or at least to annihilate their oppressors. Such was the condition of affairs and the state of feeling abroad; at home the situation was most critical. The alliance which had been the strongest element of the Aztec power was now practically broken up; the ambitious schemes of Montezuma had alienated his firmest ally, and the stronger part of the Acolhua force was now openly arrayed against him under Ixtlilxochitl at Otompan, leagued with the Tlascaltec leaders for the overthrow of the Mexican power. It is probable that the coming of the Spaniards retarded rather than precipitated the united attack of the Acolhuas and the outside provinces on Montezuma. But again, to meet the gathering storm, the Mexican king could no longer count on the undivided support of his own people; he had alienated the merchants, who no longer, as in the early days, did faithful duty as spies, nor toiled to enrich a government from which they could expect no rewards; the lower classes no longer deemed their own interests identical with those of their sovereign. Last but far from least among the elements of approaching ruin was the religious sentiment of the country. The reader has followed the bitter contentions of earlier times in Tollan and Culhuacan, between the rival sects of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. With the growth of the Mexican influence the bloody rites of the latter sect had prevailed under the auspices of the god Huitzilopochtli, and the worship of the gentler Quetzalcoatl, though still observed in many provinces and many temples, had with its priests been forced to occupy a secondary position. But the people were filled with terror at the horrible extent to which the latter kings had carried the immolation of human victims; they were sick of blood, and of the divinities that thirsted for it; a re-action was experienced in favor of the rival deities and priesthood. And now, just as the oppressed subjects of ecclesiastical tyranny were learning to remember with regret the peaceful teachings of the Plumed Serpent, and to look to that god for relief from their woes, their prayers were answered, Quetzalcoatl's predictions were apparently fulfilled, and his promised children made their appearance on the eastern ocean. The arrival of Cortés at this particular juncture was in one sense most marvelous; but in his subsequent success there is little to be wondered at; nor is it strange that the oppressed Nahuas received almost with outstretched arms the ministers of the new faith thus offered them by the Spaniards.
CHAPTER X.
HISTORY OF THE EASTERN PLATEAU, MICHOACAN, AND OAJACA.
Early History of the Eastern Plateau—The Chichimec-Toltecs—Arrival of the Teo-Chichimecs in Anáhuac—They Conquer and Settle the Eastern Plateau—Civil Wars—Miscellaneous Events—Wars between Tlascala and the Nations of Anáhuac—Early History of Michoacan—Wars between Wanacaces and Tarascos—Founding of Tzintzuntzan—Metamorphosis of the Tarasco Princes—Encroachments of the Wanacaces—The King of the Isles—Murder of Pawacume and Wapeani—Reigns of Curatame, Tariacuri, Tangaxoan I., Ziziz Pandacuare, Zwanga, and Tangaxoan II.—Origin of the Miztecs and Zapotecs—Wixipecocha—Rulers of Oajaca—The Huaves and Mijes—Later Kings and History of Oajaca—Wars with Mexico.
Although all that is known of the history of the eastern plateau prior to the fall of the Toltec empire has been already told, it will be well to briefly review the events of that period before referring to the Chichimec occupation of the region under consideration.
The earliest inhabitants of the plateau of whom we have any definite knowledge were the Olmecs, one of the oldest of the Nahua nations, who appear to have settled the country about Puebla and Cholula with the permission of the Quinames, or giants, the original possessors, and to have been so badly treated by them that at length, by a stratagem, they slew their oppressors and became sole masters of the country. Next we hear of the erection of the great pyramid of Cholula by Xelhua, an Olmec chief; then of the advent and subsequent disappearance of Quetzalcoatl, the culture hero and reformer, who is not to be confounded with Ceacatl Quetzalcoatl, king of Tollan and afterwards of Cholula, who appeared on the scene at a much later period and was also a great reformer. After this, history is silent concerning the Olmecs until the founding of the Toltec empire, when we find them still flourishing on the eastern plateau with Cholula for their capital city. Then the king of Culhuacan, Mixcohua, better known as Camaxtli, under which name he was subsequently apotheosized and worshiped on the plateau, directs a military expedition towards Chalchiuhapan, afterwards Tlascala, which seems to have been founded about this time. But the most notable event of this pre-Chichimec history of the plateau, and the one which most advanced its importance and prosperity, was the coming of Ceacatl Quetzalcoatl, son of Camaxtli, to Cholula, in 895, after he was forced from his throne at Tollan by the ambitious Tezcatlipoca, or Huemac. As has been already stated, this event was the beginning of a new and golden era in the eastern region, which lasted, if we except the conquest and temporary subjection of Cholula by Huemac, up to the time of the Toltec troubles, in which Cholula and her sister cities on the plateau doubtless shared, though to what extent is not certain; at all events they were not deserted as the Toltec cities in the valley are traditionally reported to have been at the time of the Chichimec invasion.
CHICHIMECS AT CHOLULA.