[lit-ideas] First Battle fought by Cortez in New Spain

From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Lit-Ideas " <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2014 09:41:58 -0700
In Chapter XXXIV, Bernal Diaz describes the first battle Cortez and his
forces fought in “New Spain.”  The chapter is entitled “How we are attacked
by all the caziques of Tabasco, and the whole armed force of this province,
and what took place.”  I cannot tell how numerous the forces involved were.
Whatever force Cortez had come to Tabasco on his ships.  Diaz at one point
said that an attack he advocated was rejected at first because it would
involve each of Cortez soldiers going up against 300 Indians.  No doubt that
shouldn’t be taken literally, but the Spaniards were facing overwhelming
numbers.  They had the advantage of better weapons, better tactics, and
horses; which the Indians had apparently never seen before.

Since Diaz describes the first battle Cortez and his forces fought in “New
Spain” we see something of what Cochran and Harpending had in mind when they
wrote that Cortez achieved something very like that in a modern adventure
movie where a single man defeats an army of enemies.  I’ll quote this
chapter up to the point where Diaz states that the battle is over:

“The Indians were already moving forward in search of us, when we came up
with them: every one had a large bunch of feathers on his head, a cotton
cuirass on, and their faces were daubed with white, black, and red colours.
Besides having drums and trumpets, they were armed with huge bows and
arrows, shields, lances, and large broadswords; they had also bodies of
slingers, and others armed with poles hardened in the fire. The Indians were
in such vast numbers that they completely filled the bean fields, and
immediately fell upon us on all sides at once, like furious dogs. Their
attack was so impetuous, so numerous were the arrows, stones, and lances
with which they greeted us, that above seventy of our men were wounded in no
time, and one named Saldaña, was struck by an arrow in the ear, and
instantly dropt down dead. With like fury they rushed at us with their
pikes, at the same time pouring forth showers of arrows, and continually
wounding our men. However, we fully repaid them with our crossbows, muskets,
and heavy cannon, cutting right and left among them with our swords. By this
means we forced them to give ground a little, but only that they might
shower forth their arrows at a greater distance, where they thought
themselves more secure from our arms. Even then our artilleryman Mesa made
terrible havoc among them, standing as they did crowded together and within
reach of the cannon, so that he could fire among them to his heart's
content. Notwithstanding the destruction we made among their ranks, we could
not put them to flight. I now remarked to our commander Diego de Ordas that
we should rush forward upon the Indians and close with them. My motive for
advising this was, because I saw that they merely retreated from fear of our
swords, but still continued to annoy us at a distance with arrows, lances,
and large stones. De Ordas, however, considered this not expedient, as the
enemy's numbers were so vast that every single man of us would have had to
encounter 300 of the enemy at once.

“My advice, however, was at length followed up, and we fell so heavily upon
them that they retreated as far as the wells. All this time Cortes still
remained behind with the cavalry, though we so greatly longed for
reinforcement: we began to fear that some misfortune might also have
befallen him. I shall never forget the piping and yelling which the Indians
set up at every shot we fired, and how they sought to hide their loss from
us by tossing up earth and straw into the air, making a terrible noise with
their drums and trumpets, and their war-whoop Ala lala. In one of these
moments Cortes came galloping up with the horse. Our enemies being still
busily engaged with us, did not immediately observe this, so that our
cavalry easily dashed in among them from behind. The nature of the ground
was quite favorable for its manœuvres; and as it consisted of strong active
fellows, most of the horses being, moreover, powerful and fiery animals, our
small body of cavalry in every way made the best use of their weapons. When
we, who were already hotly engaged with the enemy, espied our cavalry, we
fought with renewed energy, while the latter, by attacking them in the rear
at the same time, now obliged them to face about. The Indians, who had never
seen any horses before, could not think otherwise than that horse and rider
were one body. Quite astounded at this to them so novel a sight, they
quitted the plain and retreated to a rising ground.

“Cortes now related why he had not come sooner. First, he had been delayed
by the morass; then again he was obliged to fight his way through other
bodies of the enemy whom he had met, in which five men and eight horses were
wounded. Having somewhat rested from our fatigue under the trees which stood
on the field of battle, we praised God and the holy Virgin, and thanked them
with uplifted hands for the complete victory they had granted us: and, as it
was the feast of the annunciation to the holy Virgin, the town which was
subsequently built here in memory of this great victory, was named Santa
Maria de la Vitoria. This was the first battle we fought under Cortes in New
Spain.

[Del Castillo, Bernal Diaz (2013-11-03). The Conquest of New Spain (Kindle
Locations 1802-1832). Bybliotech. Kindle Edition.]

Comment:  Should we trust the account of Bernal Diaz or is there some other?
Diaz throughout is critical of the history written by Francisco López de
Gómara.  Apparently Gomara’s history was well received in Spain.  But note
that Gomara was born in 1511 and the battle Diaz describes occurred in 1519.
Wikipedia says of Gomara, “Francisco López de Gómara (c. 1511 - c. 1566) was
a Spanish historian who worked in Seville, particularly noted for his works
in which he described the early 16th century expedition undertaken by Hernán
Cortés in the Spanish conquest of the New World. Although Gómara himself did
not accompany Cortés, and had in fact never been to the Americas, he had
firsthand access to Cortés and others of the returning conquistadores as the
sources of his account. However other contemporaries, among them most
notably Bernal Díaz del Castillo, criticised his work as being full of
inaccuracies, and one which unjustifiably sanitised the events and
aggrandised Cortés' role. As such, the reliability of his works may be
called into question; yet they remain a valuable and oft-cited record of
these events.”

While Amazon does provide Diaz’s account in Kindle format, they do not
provide Gomara’s.  Gomara’s “history” has had an interesting history:
“Whether through the desire to aggrandize his patron, [Lord Don Martin
Cortés, Marques del Valle"—the son and heir of the conqueror] or through
relying on the firsthand information which the latter gave him (Gómara was
never in America) or from malice, or for some other reason Gómara fell into
serious errors and in many instances sinned gravely against historical
truth. It was perhaps for this reason that Prince Philip (afterwards Philip
II of Spain), in a decree issued at Valladolid on November 17, 1553, ordered
all the copies of his work that could be found to be gathered in and imposed
a penalty of 200,000 maravedis on anyone who should reprint it. This
prohibition was removed in 1727 through the efforts of Don Andreas Gonzalez
Martial who included Gómara's work in his collection of early historians of
the New World (Coleccion de historiadores primitivos de las Indias
Occidentales). The Verdadera historia de la Conquesta de Nueva Espana ("True
History of the Conquest of New Spain") of Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a
companion of Hernán Cortés, was written to refute Gómara. The latter's style
is concise and agreeable, the narrative running on rapidly and gracefully,
all of which has had the effect of attracting readers to the work. Among
other works of his which have remained unpublished are Batallas de mar de
nuestros tiempos ("Contemporary Naval Battles") and Historia de Harrue y
Harradin Barbarroja.

Lawrence
[lit-ideas] First Battle fought by Cortez in New Spain

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