This cut of the “Rex ultimus Mexicanorum” is a fac-simile from Montanus and Ogilby, p. 253. The source of the likeness is not apparent, and the picture seems questionable. Prescott, in his second volume, gives a likeness, which belonged to the descendants of the Aztec king, the Counts of Miravalle. It is claimed to have been painted by an artist, Maldonado, who accompanied Cortés; but, on the other hand, some have represented it as an ideal portrait painted after the Conquest. Prescott (vol. ii. p. 72) makes up his description of Montezuma from various early authorities,—Diaz, Zuazo (MS.), Ixtlilxochitl, Gomara, Oviedo, Acosta, Sahagun, Toribio, etc., particularizing the references. H. H. Bancroft (Mexico, i. 285) also depicts him from the early sources. He is made of an age from forty to fifty-four by different writers; but the younger period is thought by most to be nearest. Bancroft refers to the prints in Th. Armin’s Das alte Mexico (Leipsic, 1865) as representing a coarse Aztec warrior, and the native picture in Carbajal Espinosa’s Historia de México (Mexico, 1862) as purely conventional. The same writer thinks the colored portrait, “peint par ordre de Cortes,” in Linati’s Costûmes et mœurs de Mexique (Brussels) conforms to the descriptions; while that in Clavigero’s Storia antica del Messico (1780) is too small to be satisfactory. The line of Montezuma’s descendants is traced in Prescott, Mexico, ii. 339, iii. 446, and in Bancroft, Mexico, i. 459. Cf. also the portrait of Montezuma, “d’après Sandoval,” given in Charton’s Voyageurs, iii. 393, and that in Cumplido’s Mexican edition of Prescott’s Mexico vol. iii.
Presently the army took up its march for Tlascala, where they were royally received, and wives in abundance were bestowed upon the leaders. Next they passed to Cholula, which was subject to the Aztecs; and here the Spaniards were received with as much welcome as could be expected to be bestowed on strangers with the hostile Tlascalans in their train. The scant welcome covered treachery, and Cortés met it boldly. Murder and plunder impressed the Cholulans with his power, and gave some sweet revenge to his allies. Through the wiles of Cortés a seeming reconciliation at last was effected between these neighboring enemies. But the massacre of Cholula was not a pastime, the treachery of Montezuma not forgotten; and the march was again resumed, about six thousand native allies of one tribe and another following the army. The passage of a defile brought the broad Valley of Mexico into view; and Montezuma, awed by the coming host, sent a courtier to personate him and to prevail upon Cortés to avoid the city. The trick and the plea were futile. On to one of the aquatic cities of the Mexican lakes the Spaniards went, and were received in great state by a vassal lord of Montezuma, who now invited the Spanish leader to the Aztec city. On they went. Town after town received them; and finally, just without his city, Montezuma, in all his finery and pomp, met the Spanish visitors, bade them welcome, and committed them to an escort which he had provided. It was the 8th of November, 1519. Later in his own palace, in the quarters which had been assigned to Cortés, and on several occasions, the two indulged in reciprocal courtesies and watched each other. Cortés was not without fear, and his allies warned him of Aztec treachery. His way to check foul designs was the bold one of seizing Montezuma and holding him as a hostage; and he did so under pretence of honoring him. A chieftain who had attacked a party of the Spaniards by orders of Montezuma some time before, was executed in front of the palace. Montezuma himself was subjected for a while to chains. Expeditions were sent out with impunity to search for gold mines; others explored the coast for harbors. A new governor was sent back to Villa Rica, and he sent up shipwrights; so it was not long before Cortés commanded a flotilla on the city lakes, and the captive king was regaled with aquatic sports.
MONTEZUMA.[1069]
MEXICO BEFORE THE CONQUEST.
This is reduced from the cut in Henry Stevens’s American Bibliographer, p. 86, which in turn is reproduced from the edition of Cortés’ letters published at Nuremberg in 1524. Bancroft in his Mexico (vol. i. p. 280) gives a greatly reduced sketch of the same plan, and adds to it a description and references to the various sources of our information regarding the Aztec town; and this may be compared with the same author’s Native Races, ii. 560. Helps describes the city in his Spanish Conquest (New York ed., ii. 277, 423), where he thinks that the early chroniclers failed to make clear the full number of the causeways connecting the town with the main, and traversing the lake. Prescott describes it in his Mexico (Kirk’s ed., ii. 101), and discredits the plan given in Bullock’s Mexico as one prepared by Montezuma for Cortés. This last plan is also given in Carbajal’s Historia de México (1862), ii. 221. The nearly equal distance on all sides at which the shores of the lake stand from the town is characteristic of this earliest of the plans (1524); and in this particular it is followed in various plans and bird’s-eye views of the town of the sixteenth century, and in some of a later date. The Aztec town had been founded in 1325, and had been more commonly called Tenochtitlan, which the Spaniards turned into Temixtitan and Tenustitan, the term Mexico being properly applied to one of the principal wards of the city. The two names were first sometimes joined, as Temixtitlan-Mexico (1555); but in the end the more pronounceable part survived, and the rest was lost. Cf. Bancroft, Mexico, i. 12-14, with references. The correspondence of sites in the present city as compared with those of the Aztec time and of the conquerors, is examined in Alaman’s Discertaciones sobre la historia de la república Méjicana (Mexico, 1844-1849), ii. 202, 246; Carbajal Espinosa’s Historia de México, ii. 226, and by Ramirez in the Mexican edition of Prescott. Cf. Ant. du Pinet’s Descriptions de plusieurs villes et forteresses, Lyon, 1564.