Cortes, Written by Himself

Hernan (or Fernando) Cortes is a difficult figure to like.  After reading the Pagden edition of his cartas, however, he is, by the end of the volume, not impossible to respect in a grudging sort of way. He is, if nothing else, a consummate politician, at least until he is rewarded with the recognition and position he had so long sought. More so than the chronicle of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, the Letters from Mexico illustrate the truly precarious political situation Cortes and his followers placed themselves in by their hasty departure from Cuba in 1519. In particular, the enigmatic “First Letter,” ostensibly written by the Municipal Council of Vera Cruz (does anyone really believe it was in any sense a group effort, not dictated by Cortes?) speaks volumes about the extralegal nature of their enterprise. Indeed, is not monarchy built upon not just the power of the sovereigns but the delegated authority of their lieutenants at court and their governors abroad? Cortes understod full well that he was steping outside of what we call the chain of command; and while letters to the Crown were not uncommon, as Pagden and Elliot (and Restall) tell us, such a detailed defense of one’s actions must have been seen, at least in some court circles, as the height of impropriety. And I cannot help but wonder: Does a close reading of this First Letter reveal aspects of his personality and character that we do not see elsewhere?

Also, the Letters offer, in a sbtle way, a different perspective from which to understand the frustrations of Bernal Diaz and others, who came to feel that Cortes was purely in it for himself–or at least, committing the cardinal sin of military command, saw to the interests of his men only after his own had been satisfied. Reading the Second Letter, one at times gets the impression that he, Cortes, is the only actor of consequence. While he mentions, repeatedly, the number of men with him, his style of writing (perhaps unconsciously) minimizes them. For example, on page 54 Cortes writes: “Most Powerful Lord, I traveled for three days through the country and kigdom of Cempoal,  where I was very well received and accomodated by all the natives.” The absence of the first-person plural, here and elsewhere, is striking. Granted, as a modern I am doubtless reading this in retrospect. That being said, I wonder whether this style of writing reveals more about this literary genre (as amended and expanded by Cortes), or about the author himself? When events seem to be going in Cortes’ favor, the pronoun “I” seems dominant, something Diaz no doubt caught in his own reading of the Letters.

Taking the Letters as a whole, and keeping in mind that each was written, at minimum, about a year apart, it is fascinating to witness how the rigors of his environment and the strain of looking out for the long-awaited recognition simply wear the man down. And, of course, even in his later letters Cortes is still the politician, still expert at governing his temper and self-censoring his outgoing mail. Given, that, the moments of exasperation in his later letters are all the more revealing. Early on, in 1519 and 1520, Cortes shows impressive, if disingenuous, diplomatic skills. In a fascinating (even if apocryphal) recounting of his reply to the messengers of Montezuma, he reportedly told them “[T]hat were it in my power to return I would do so to please Mutezuma, but that I had come to this land by Your Majesty’s commands, and the principal thing of which I had been ordered to give an account was of Mutezuma and his great city…” (79-80).  The “orders” were fictitious, and the conversation related here almost certainly a fabrication, but the energy of the passage is evident. Cortes had an agenda, and he was not above working to achieve it, just as a modern ambasador smiles and shakes hands when it is the last thing he wants to do. As the dozens of months pass, however, Cortes presents himself as having become impatient with talking. In his Fifth Letter, during the Honduras expedition, Cortes and his men come across an Indian eating the flesh of another Indian, and immediately burns the malefactor (alive?) in the presence of the local lord. After getting everyone’s attention, Cortes then lectures them about the “lies and deceits” of the Devil (351-2).

As I read the Letters, however, if is the Fourth that stands out–the last one written before Cortes was informed that he had, at last, been granted the recognition he felt he so richly deserved. The Fourth Letter is both more obsequious and more desperate in tone. (Reading it, I wonder if, had Cortes not soon after received official sanction from the Crown, he would have slid off into madness.)  His high manner of addressing Charles becomes more frequent, and increasingly adverbial: “Your Catholic Majesty”, “Most Excellent Prince”, “Your Caesarean Majesty”, “Invincible Caesar”, “Your Majesty’s Invincible Yoke”, until, finally, “Your Sacred and Caesarean Majesty.”

Furthermore, the Fourth Letter focuses more on what Cortes intends to do, rather than what he has recently done. It is as if, his current exploits having failed to win recognition, his last-ditch effort is to impress his sovereign with his future plans in the Pacific.

Most telling, to my mind, of the frustration, and looming bitterness, felt by the author is his increasing emphasis on religion. On page 332, Cortes again writes of the willingness of the indigenous peoples to be converted to Christianity, but have not, for want of priests. When Cortes writes “I would once again remind Your Highness and beseech You to send them with all haste, because Our Lord God will be greatly served thereby,” he seems to be reminding Charles of his duties as a Catholic monarch.

The Letters from Mexico can be an exhausting read. The sheer volume of detail is remarkable, and Cortes, to his credit, achieved a lasting fame, if not quite that which he sought. Without the letters, the study of the fall of Mesoamerica would, I believe,  more closely resemble the fall of the empires of deep antiquity, shrouded more in legend than in fact.