On the way up the coast in his eleven ships, Cortés landed in the Maya kingdom of Putunchan and, using his cannon and eleven horses, subdued any resistance. He was given thirty enslaved women, including a young Nahua noblewoman, Malinche, ‘the prettiest, the most lively’, reduced to slavery by the Maya. She was bilingual in Mayan and Nahuatl and quickly learned Spanish. The girls were distributed among Cortés’s henchmen and converted to Christianity. Cortés gave Malinche to the most aristocratic of his Spaniards.
Motecuhzoma sent envoys with gold and feathers. The Spaniards ‘seized upon the gold like monkeys’, but no one spoke Nahuatl until Malinche offered to interpret. Realizing her talent not just for translation but for diplomacy, Cortés took her back, promising her rewards if she got him to see Motecuhzoma. Later he said that, after God, he owed the conquest to Malinche – known to the Spanish as Doña Marina. Cortés showed off his cannon and arquebuses; the envoys returned to report to the Supreme Speaker. ‘It especially made Motecuhzoma faint when he heard how the guns went off at the Spaniards’ command,’ recalled one of the Mexica, ‘sounding like thunder, fire showering and spitting out. It turned a tree to dust. Their war gear was all iron, their armour, swords, bows, lances, iron.’ America had no horses. ‘Their deer [horses] were as tall as the roofs; their war dogs huge creatures,’ with ‘great dragging jowls and fiery yellow eyes’. Steel, horses and gunpowder gave the Spanish a commanding technical superiority.
Yet Motecuhzoma was also certain the Mexica were destined by the gods to rule the world and, after a lifetime of martial success and political glory, he vacillated. As Cortés negotiated with the local rulers, interpreted by Malinche, he learned that the Totonacs and many other peoples were discontented with the exacting Mexica empire. It was here that Malinche’s gifts were essential. The offer of the chance to join the Spanish overthrow of the evil empire of Motecuhzoma was irresistible. Next, Cortés and Malinche encountered the powerful and unconquered republic of Tlaxcala which, Cortés was amazed to discover, had ‘no supreme ruler’ but was run by councils of chiefs who ‘all gather together and, thus assembled, they decide’ like ‘Venice or Genoa’. After clashing with the Tlaxcalteca, he recruited them as allies, and 10,000 Tlaxcalteca joined his army. Cortés was a gifted leader, but his conquest was made possible by tens of thousands of local allies. He led this Hispano-Tlaxcalteca army to conquer the holy city of Cholula, a theocracy with rotating officials, dominated by its Temple of Quetzalcoatl, taller even than the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan.
Cortés was welcomed into the city, but remained vigilant in its crowded streets. His Tlaxcalteca allies hated the Choluteca and influenced his next move, but it was Malinche who warned him of a plot to kill the Spaniards. Cortés slaughtered thousands of Choluteca and looted their gold, predations in which the Tlaxcalteca joined enthusiastically before sacrificing many of the survivors.
Boosted by thousands of local troops, in November 1519 Cortés approached the resplendent imperial city of Tenochtitlan, where Motecuhzoma debated how to react. His brother Cuitláhuac argued for war; Motecuhzoma decided on temporary peace. Borne in his litter among 200 courtiers, a confident monarch in his forties, his hair long, his manner cheerful, wearing the turquoise diadem and golden sandals under a canopy of quetzal feathers, he met Cortés on his warhorse: two men convinced of the righteous destiny of their sacred empires. But Motecuhzoma had everything to lose, Cortés everything to gain. They each saw the other in the terms of their own worlds. Both dismounted, Cortés tying a necklace around the Speaker’s neck, but when he tried to embrace him the courtiers stopped him. They then led the Spaniards into the unforgettable city of gleaming temples, multicoloured houses, canals and squares, watched by crowds from rooftops and canoes. Some Spaniards thought they were dreaming, others that it resembled Venice.
