Hernando Cortez / Makers of History

by John S. C. Abbott

Cortez, who promptly recovered from his momentary weakness, manifested the utmost sereneness and imperturbability of spirit, shared every hardship of the soldiers, and maintained their confidence in him by surpassing all in the gallantry and the magnanimity of his courage.

Shouts of defiance.

Exhausted and wounded as they were, it required the toilsome journey of a week to reach the mountain summits which encircle the great valley of Mexico. As they approached the defiles of these mountains, parties of the enemy were seen here and there in increasing numbers. The natives shouted to them from a distance insults, defiance, and threats. Marina, who fortunately escaped the massacre of the dismal night, remarked that they often, in exultant tones, exclaimed,

"Hurry along, robbers, hurry along; you will soon meet with the vengeance due to your crimes."

Appearance of the enemy.
Apprehensions of Cortez.

The significance of this threat was soon made manifest. As the Spaniards were emerging from a narrow pass among the cliffs of the mountains, they came suddenly upon an extended plain. Here, to their amazement, they found an enormous army of the natives filling the whole expanse, and apparently cutting off all possibility of farther retreat. The sight was sufficient to appal the most dauntless heart. The whole plain, as far as the eye could extend, seemed as a living ocean of armed men, with its crested billows of banners, and gleaming spears, and helmets, and plumes. Even the heart of Cortez for a moment sank within him as his practiced eye told him that there were two hundred thousand warriors there in battle array, through whose serried ranks he must cut his bloody path or perish. To all the Spaniards it seemed certain that their last hour had now tolled; but each man resolved to sell his life as dearly as possible.

The attack.
Superstition of the Mexicans.
The capture of the standard.

Cortez immediately assembled his band around him, and invigorated them with a forcible harangue. He assured them that there was no possible hope but in the energies of despair; but that, with those energies, they might confidently expect God's blessing, for they were his servants, his missionaries, endeavoring to overthrow the idols of the heathen, and to introduce the religion of the cross. In solid column, with their long spears bristling in all directions, and clad in coats of mail which protected a great part of their bodies from both arrow and spear, they plunged desperately into the dense masses of the enemy. Wherever this solid body of iron men directed its course, the tumultuous throng of the foe was pierced and dashed aside, as the stormy billows of the ocean yield to the careering steamer. The marvelous incidents of this fight would occupy pages. The onset of the Spaniards was so fierce that the natives could present no effectual resistance; but as the Indians were compelled to retire from the front of the assailing column, they closed up with shouts of vengeance and with redoubled fury upon the flanks and the rear. Cortez had heard that the superstition of the Mexicans was such that the fate of a battle depended upon the imperial banner, which was most carefully guarded in the centre of the army. If that were taken, the natives deemed themselves forsaken by their gods, and in dismay would break and fly. In the distance, for there was no smoke of artillery to darken this field of battle, he saw this standard proudly waving in the breeze. With impetuosity which crushed down all opposition, he pushed toward it. The standard-bearers were stricken down and pinned to the earth with lances. Cortez, with his own hand, seized the sacred banner, and as he waved it aloft his soldiers raised a simultaneous shout of triumph.

The natives flee.
Arrival at Tlascala.

The natives, with cries of rage, grief, and despair, in the wildest tumult, broke and fled to the mountains. Their gods had abandoned them. The victory of the Spaniards was complete. They record, though doubtless with exaggeration, for they had no leisure to stop and count the slain, that twenty thousand of their enemies were left dead upon that bloody field. With new alacrity the victors now pressed on, and the next day entered the territory of the Tlascalans.