Free The Conquistadors by Hammond Innes Page A

that the mainland Indians were far too numerous to be conquered by force. Each Spaniard who died, each horse that fell, was an absolute and total loss that he could not replace. Diplomacy – the mailed fist in the velvet glove – was the only key to conquest; he was the first commander of an expedition in the Indies to appreciate this, and his nature and training were such that he was able to carry it through. Guile was something the Indians understood; it was a part of their nature, also. They sent some slaves in ragged cloaks and blackened faces and a small gift of food, but Aguilar already understood the way his leader’s mind worked, and he sent them back with a demand that the caciques themselves come with a proper gift. They came the following morning with fowls, fish, fruit and maize-cakes, and the request that they be allowed to bury their dead before the hot sun made them smell or the jaguars ate them. They had lost some eight hundred killed. Cortés took the opportunity to stage a demonstration.
    There were thirty caciques in all, and he received them at midday outside his tent. It was very still and hot, the air heavy with the smell of the copal the Indianshad burned when incensing the assembled Spaniards. A mare that had just foaled was hidden away behind the place where the caciques stood, and after Cortés had upbraided them with a great show of anger and informed them they were vassals of the mighty Emperor Charles, he gave the signal and the largest cannon was fired close beside them. The randiest stallion in the fleet was brought up and, catching the scent of the mare, stood pawing the ground and neighing, his eyes rolling wildly as he stared straight at the Indians.

    It was all very childish, very theatrical; but it was nevertheless a most effective demonstration of power, with his men all about him, rank on rank and armed, and the ships riding off the land. The caciques were terrified. The result was peace and a plentiful supply of food. But Cortés was not thinking of the local gain. He knew they had a system of picture-writing and that all he did and said on the coast was being reported by this means; in pictures the scene he had set would be most effective. Cold war propaganda, in fact, and in the circumstances then ruling – about which he had no inkling at the time – it was to prove quite deadly.
    It was typical of Cortés’ colonizing methods that his first order to the caciques was to bring all the people back into the town as a sign of peace. This gesture, and the atmosphere of normality it produced, was essential to his purpose. He ordered them also to abandon their idols. This again was policy as much as proselytizing, since the destruction of these symbols of their inherited faith struck at the roots of their confidence. He showed them a picture of the Virgin and Child, and in absolute submission they asked for it to be given them to keep. As always, he stage-managed the business so that the request came from them, and he then had an altar erected and a great cross set up. Examining them and learning the reasons for their hostility, that they had been pushed into battle by the cacique of the Champotóns, he demanded that the man be brought before him. Their reply was startling: he had already been sacrificed for giving them such bad advice! Next day the town was renamed Santa María de la Victoria, the cross set up and Fray Bartolomé de Olmedo, the expedition’s chaplain, said mass before all the important people of the town and then baptized them.
    Cortés had not neglected the financial side of the expedition. But each time he demanded a gift of gold and jewels he was answered by the words ‘Culhúa’ and ‘México’. They meant nothing to him then. He was, however, given a present of twenty women, and bearing in mind the instructions about his men not cohabiting with heathens, he had them all baptized and distributed them among