Two other accounts of this period deserve notice. One is by Joan Suarez de Peralta, who was born in Mexico in 1536, and wrote a Tratado del descubrimiento de las Yndias y su conquista, which is preserved in manuscript in the library at Toledo in Spain. It is not full, however, on the Conquest; but is more definite for the period from 1565 to 1589. It was printed at Madrid in 1878, in the Noticias históricas de la Nueva España publicadas con la protection del ministerio de fomento por Don Justo Zaragoza. The other is Henrico Martinez’ Repertorio de los Tiempos y historia natural de la Nueva España, published at Mexico in 1606. It covers the Mexican annals from 1520 to 1590.[1202]
One of the earliest to depend largely on the native chroniclers was Juan de Torquemada, in his Monarquía Indiana. This author was born in Spain, but came young to Mexico; and was a priest of the Franciscan habit, who finally became (1614-1617) the provincial of that Order. He had assiduously labored to collect all that he could find regarding the history of the people among whom he was thrown; and his efforts were increased when, in 1609, he received orders to prepare his labors for publication. His book is esteemed for the help it affords in understanding these people. Ternaux calls it the most complete narrative which we possess of the ancient history of Mexico. He took the history, as the native writers had instructed him, of the period before the Conquest, and derived from them and his own observation much respecting the kind of life which the conquerors found prevailing in the country. In his account of the Conquest, which constitutes the fourth book in vol. i., Torquemada seems to depend largely on Herrera, though he does not neglect Sahagun and the native writers. Clavigero tells us that Torquemada for fifty years had known the language of the natives, and spent twenty years or more in arranging his history. He also tells us of the use which Torquemada made of the manuscripts which he found in the colleges of Mexico, of the writings of Ixtlilxochitl, Camargo, and of the history of Cholula by another writer of native origin, Juan Batista Pomar. Another book of considerable use to him was the work of a warm eulogist of the natives, if not himself of their blood; and this was the Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, a work written by Gerónimo de Mendieta near the end of the sixteenth century. Mendieta was in Mexico from 1554 to 1571,[1203] and his work, finished in 1596, after having remained for two hundred years in manuscript, was printed and annotated by Icazbalceta at Mexico, in 1870.[1204]
The Monarquía Indiana, in which these and other writers were so freely employed as to be engrafted in parts almost bodily, was first printed in three volumes at Madrid in 1615; but before this the Inquisition had struck out from its pages some curious chapters, particularly, says Rich, one comparing the migration of the Toltecs to that of the Israelites. The colophon of this edition shows the date of 1614.[1205] It is said that most of it was lost in a shipwreck, and this accounts, doubtless, for its rarity. The original manuscript, however, being preserved, it served Barcia well in editing a reprint in 1723, published at Madrid, which is now considered the standard edition.[1206] Torquemada doubtless derived something of his skill in the native tongue from his master, Fray Joan Baptista, who had the reputation of being the most learned scholar of the Mexican language in his time.[1207]
The Teatro Mexicano of Augustin de Vetancurt, published at Mexico in 1697-1698,[1208] is the next general chronicle after Torquemada. Vetancourt, also, was a Franciscan, born in Mexico in 1620, and died in 1700. He had the literary fecundity of his class; but the most important of his works is the one already named; and in the third part of the first volume we find his history of the Conquest. He seldom goes behind his predecessor, and Torquemada must stand sponsor for much of his recital.
F. Modern Historians.—The well-known work of Solis (Historia de la Conquista de México,[1209] published at Madrid in 1684) is the conspicuous precursor of a long series of histories of the Conquest, written without personal knowledge of the actors in this extraordinary event. Solis ended his narrative with the fall of the city, the author’s death preventing any further progress, though it is said he had gathered further materials; but they are not known to exist. A work by Ignacio Salazar y Olarte, continuing the narrative down to the death of Cortés, is called a second part, and was published at Cordova in 1743, under the title of Historia de la conquista de México, poblacion y progressos de la América septentrional conocida por el nombre de Nueva España. This continuation was reprinted at Madrid in 1786, and in the opinion of Bancroft[1210] abounds “in all the faults of the superficial and florid composition of Solis.”
Solis, who was born at Alcala in 1610, was educated at Salamanca, and had acquired a great reputation in letters, when he attracted the attention of the Court, and was appointed historiographer of the Indies. Some time afterward (1667) he entered the Church, at fifty-six; but to earn his salary as official chronicler,—which was small enough at best,—he turned, with a good deal of the poetic and artistic instinct which his previous training had developed, to tell the story of the Conquest, with a skill which no one before had employed upon the theme. The result was a work which, “to an extraordinary degree,” as Ticknor[1211] says, took on “the air of an historical epic, so exactly are all its parts and episodes modelled into a harmonious whole, whose catastrophe is the fall of the great Mexican Empire.” The book was a striking contrast to the chronicling spirit of all preceding recitals.
SOLIS.
Fac-simile of engraving in his Historia, published at Venice in 1715. There are other likenesses in the Madrid (1783) edition, and in Cumplido’s Mexican edition of Prescott’s Mexico, vol. iii.