MEXICO BEFORE CORTEZ AND AFTER: A BRIEF ACCOUNTBy Felipe de Ortego y GascaScholar in Residence, Department of Chicana/o and Hemispheric Studies, Western New Mexico Uni-versity

Introduction

he Spaniards did not bring “civilization” to Mexico; they brought “Spanish civiliza-tion” to Mexico. This is not a criticism or repudiation of Spanish civilization, just an emendation to the history of Mexico and a boost for our indigenous ancestors who

are a part of our blended evolution as mestizos and mejicanos. There was civilization in Mexico before Cortez (BC).

TUntil the 20th century, history has tended to blur the presence (and progress) of indigenous civilizations in the Americas, favoring instead the template of Spanish civilization overlain on the pre-Cortesian past of the Americas—especially Mexico. The Spanish contributions to Mexican life are everywhere evident. And as mejicanos (either in Mexico or the United States) to disavow those contributions is to disavow our identity. Spain is an important part of who we are. So is pre-Cortesian Mexico.

A further emendation explains that the indigenous peoples of Mexico did not disappear upon the arrival of the Spaniards. Descendants of those people are everywhere in Mexico. The Aztecs are still there, so are the Maya, the Toltec’s (Chichimecas), and the Otomí. My maternal grandfather Atilano Campos was a Huastecan, and he is with us today in the ho-mologous presence of his grandchildren and their children. His wife Eufracia Gasca, my ma-ternal grandmother, was of Basque origins, and she is with us today in the blended pres-ence of her grandchildren and their children in a sort of DNA “half-life.”

One of the first European observations about the Aztec civilization came from Bernal Diaz del Castillo, chronicler of Cortez’ conquest of Tenochtitlan (present day Mexico City):

We saw so many cities and towns built on the water, and other cities on the surrounding land, and that straight and level causeway which entered the city, we were amazed and said that it was like the enchanted places recounted in Amadis de Gaula, because of the great towers and buildings which grew out of the water, all made of stone and mortar, and some of our soldiers even asked whether what they saw was not a dream, and so no wonder that I write in this way, for there is so much to ponder in all these things that I do not know how to describe them. We saw things never heard or dreamed about before (True History of the Conquest of New Spain, Maudslay translation, lxxxvii, 1958).

In other words, there was nothing comparable in Spain or Europe to what they beheld. What would account for such marvels in the Americas? Theories abound about this phe-nomenon, many of them attributing it to external influences, dismissing the possibility that

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indigenous cultures and societies could have evolved to such a high state of evolution on their own. Thinking of themselves as the “torchbearers” of the ancient Toltec civilization (sometimes identified as the Chichimeca civilization), the Aztecs added to that foundation. The Aztecs felt both spiritually and biologically tied to the Toltec's. By the time the Spaniards arrived in the Americas, the Aztecs had centuries of development behind them.

This development engendered a multicultural and multiethnic conglomeration of people in Tenochtitlan—the capital city of the Aztecs whose lingua franca was Nahuatl. The model of social and human evolution for the Aztecs was based on ethnic blending (genetic mixing /intergroup gene flow) which is why the Spaniards experienced little or no difficulty in sex-ual blending with the indigenous peoples.

In 1519 when the Spaniards marched into the Valley of Mexico, the population of the Valley has been estimated at 50 million (Borah and Cook, 4). This was just one parcel of the Amer-icas.

n the Popol Vuh (the light that came from beside the sea), the ancient/sacred book of the Maya which details their genesis on earth and in the terrain they lived on, we get the history of the Maya and their progress on earth. It was this progress that the Aztecs

encapsulated into their world view and their belief in a unified humanity. For the Aztecs, life on earth was temporal, its travails to be endured in order to reap the rewards of the life after death, in a world that was not this world.

IThe Aztecs believed they were living in a world of the Fifth Sun (Quinto Sol), each sun signi-fying a world born anew. Four times previously the world had been destroyed by catastro-phes and end-of-days cataclysms that wiped out the human race; each new sun birthed its own human beings. This mytho-cultural view of the Aztecs and their relation to creation and being was central to their philosophy of life and their comportment.

That comportment was clearly defined in the Aztec legal and social system. Infractions were dealt with severity and consonant with the great chain of being that governed Aztec existence. Research calculates that the average height of indigenous man in the Valley of Mexico was 5 feet 7 inches. The average height of Spaniards was 5 feet 4 inches. At 5 feet 6 inches, Cortez was a “giant.” The Aztecs were not a race of pygmies. Seeing the enormous stone monuments and buildings, the Spaniards thought they could only have been built by giants.

According to Aztec creation stories of birth and rebirth, the people of the First Sun were gi-ants destroyed by floods. The people of the Second Sun were “monsters” of unusual dimen-sions and ate bread made with the fruit of the mesquite” (Bernal, 57). This world was de-stroyed by fire. The people of the Third Sun ate a hydroponic grain—their world was de-

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stroyed by fire and gravel. The people of the Fourth Sun, cultivators of flowers, were de-stroyed by a great hurricane that blew the people off the face of the earth. The people of the Fifth Sun are propagators of corn and will be destroyed by earthquakes.

The most egregious “slander” of the Aztecs by the Spaniards was their characterization of the Aztec religion—that it was based on human sacrifice and slaughter of thousands of Aztecs in blood-letting ceremonies in which priests cut out the pulsating heart of victims with obsidian knives on alters thick with the dried blood of those who had been sacrificed to insatiable gods.

The question for me is: what happened to the bodies? Historians suggest they were dumped into the cenotes that abound in the Valley of Mexico. In 1980 and 1981 when I was conducting research for my play Madre del Sol / Mother of the Sun, story of the encounter between Moctezuma and Cortez, the Mexican government was excavating throughout Mex-ico City for the construction of its subway system. This excavation cut through most of the cenotes of the city. If the bodies of the sacrificial victims of the Aztecs had been thrown into the cenotes, where were the skulls?

I ask about the skulls because in the Olduvai Gorge of the Eastern Serengeti Plains of North-ern Tanzania, Africa, the anthropologists Louis and Louise Leakey found a trove of skulls from antiquity, skulls that revealed blunt force trauma. If those skulls in the Olduvai Gorge had perdured over millennia, would not the skulls of the Aztec sacrificial victims in the cenotes have also perdured over a lesser period of time? There were no skulls. The sto-ries of the skulls and the cenotes were made up by Spaniards in their zeal to denigrate the Aztecs as savages and uncivilized. In other words, the Aztecs received “bad press” from the Spaniards.

This is not to say there were no sacrificial rites in Aztec religion. The Spaniards hyper-bolized the practice—perhaps the better word is “exaggerated” or “distorted” the practice. There were many rites of the Spanish religion that are considered barbaric by today’s stan-dards. Ignacio Bernal reports that “by the end of the sixteenth century there was not a sin-gle monument of ancient Tenochtitlan” (Bernal and Barnstone, 3).

There’s much we don’t know about Mexico BC (Before Cortez), but as we decipher the hi-eroglyphics and symbolic languages of indigenous Mexico that illumination gives us a clearer picture of Mexico before Cortez.

What is clear is that Mexico before Cortez is not as has been described by post-conquest chronicles or narratives. Unfortunately, the documents that could have shed light on Mex-ico before Cortez are no longer extant. Only shards and faulty memories were left, useful but not reliable.

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Theories of Migration/Comparative Histories of Civilizations

heories of human migration abound. The phenomenon of humans moving from place to place is as old as humans themselves—so the theory goes. The motiva-tions for such movements range from diasporic conflicts to self-interests or merely

what is commonly called “wanderlust.” Whatever the motivations, there are pluses and mi-nuses to the phenomenon. Drastic climate changes have impelled migration as have drastic geo-physical changes like encroaching deserts eradicating arable land and cultural trans-formations as well as colonization and its territorial expansion. Exploration is also a moti-vation for migration. Slavery is also a manifestation of migration. Pogroms and policies of ethnic cleansing have spurred migration. Incentives to migrate occur with the economics of international trade. Push and pull factors of discontent with where one is compared to at-tractions elsewhere promote migration. e. Food, sex, and security are offered as induce-ments of migration. Displacement also creates conditions for migration.

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The histories of all civilizations are replete with accounts of migrations (both immigration and emigration). And yet civilizations endure and perdure. Gatherings of migrants create civilizations where conditions of climates and arability obtain and sustain. There are in-stances that belie the presence of these conditions, instances of civilizations in frigid climes like Iceland and Siberia. Here the question arises about the ways in which some civiliza-tions prosper and thrive leading to advancements in public works, social institutions, and the emergence of creativity in art and pictorial handiworks.

Of the great civilizations of history we know about Sumeria, Akkadia, and Babylon. We know about Greece, Rome, and Persia. We also know about China, Egypt, and Ethiopia as well as lost civilizations like Atlantis. More recently we know about the great (and lost) civ-ilizations of the Americas, civilizations like the Olmecs, the Zapotecs, the Toltecs, the Maya, the Nahuas, and the Aztecs. All of these civilizations existed in a timeline in which they ex-isted before others, concurrently with others, or after others. The timeline does not distin-guish their significance other than that they existed. In many instances we have no record of connectivity between them or of any known nexus of intercourse between them.

Archaeological evidence notwithstanding, we can only wonder and speculate about their existence in other times. Oftentimes we get it right; other times we don’t. Nevertheless, the process (call it “journey”) of historical excavation is worth the effort regardless of the out-come.

Early Migration Patterns into Mexico

e are still grappling with basic theories of civilization in the world to under-stand fully and reliably theories of migration in the Americas. There are a num-ber of theories about how the Americas were populated, starting with the W

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proposition that when the Bering Sea was frozen over Asian peoples crossed from Siberia to what is now Alaska. According to this theory, this accounts for the similarity of features between Asians and the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

According to David Suzuki and Wayne Grady, “recent archeological evidence from coastal island and cave sites, places that were not covered by glaciers during the Ice Age, suggest that the ancestors of these people [Americans] did not come across the mountains after crossing the Bering land bridge as has previously been supposed but arrived much earlier by boat, perhaps from the same Polynesian islands the aboriginal peoples of Australia had come from. They came from the sea” (31).

Other theories posit ancient landings in the Americas from Africa. Thor Heyerdahl proved that Mediterranean mariners could have crossed the Atlantic in reed boats. Given this proposition, Asians could just as easily have crossed the Pacific in dugout boats. There are theories of ancient mariners crossing the North Atlantic to reach the Americas, namely the Vikings. A less credible theory, though seemingly supported by myth, posits ancient aliens from outer-space landing in the Americas and responsible for its civilizations.

Theories of early migration patterns into Mexico are no less credible than the theories about migrations to the Americas. We just don’t have the “facts” nor the data. Our skein of reality about how Mexico was populated rests on speculation and supposition based on a modicum of evidence that does not sustain credibility. Nevertheless, the patterns that emerge about how Mexico was populated suggest migrations from elsewhere in the Ameri-cas. Where that would be remains uncertain and may remain that way for all time until concrete evidence is found to the contrary.

Benjamin Franklin advised “start with what you have.” What we have in Mexico are popula-tions in place living out their lives as is the wont of human beings—planting and sustaining their lives and security as best they can, and as possible building structures as evidence of their existence. Today, these structures only deepen the mystery of the existence of these ancient people about whom we seek to know more.

The Olmecs purported to be the first civilization of record in Mexico have left us little about their origins and their historical trajectory. To be sure, these “rubber people” left us giant heads in the earth and unfathomable ball-courts, artifacts shrouded in as much mystery as the people themselves. Nevertheless, despite scant evidence the Olmecs are considered the “mother culture” of Mexico. Unless we accept that the Olmecs simply sprang up out of the earth, their origins and antecedents are unknown to us.

This is the story of many civilizations of antiquity—we either don’t have the evidence of their being or we don’t know how to read the evidence we do have.

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Biological Landscape of Mexico Before Cortez

ne source asserts that “the conquest of the New World was not only a military and political conquest but also a biological conquest” (Delich, Vol 5, No 2). The Spanish invasion of the Americas shifted the indigenous horticultural landscape from semi-

arid regions to agro-pastoral” areas more conducive for colonization and its control.OIn their zeal to dominate the New World, Spaniards paid little attention to the effect of their presence on the biological landscape they were bent on transforming into New Spain, little realizing that the pathogens they carried on their selves and animals would create tumul-tuous biological havoc. This ecological imperialism is evident everywhere in the Americas in the preservation of strong colonial centers that at first were comparable to areas in Spain. Vulnerable mother-world ecological conceptions replaced indigenous ecological pat-terns that had existed for centuries.

Environmental degradation reduced hearty indigenous productivity weakening entire so-cial systems that functioned effectively for the native populations. This degradation created misery and poverty for the autochthonous people who survived the Spanish holocaust. De-spoiled were extensive croplands, woodlands, and native grasslands. These ecological changes favored the Spaniards, not the native peoples, creating ungulate irruptions that threatened total collapse of sustaining ecological systems.

The biological landscape of Mexico before Cortez was in conflict with the Spanish expecta-tions of biological landscapes. For the Spaniards, the Spanish view was correct, the indige-nous landscape was all wrong. The Spaniards were set on making it all right, consistent with the Spanish view of biological landscapes.

In the ensuing centuries of doctrinaire Spanish views of biological landscapes, once arable land turned into near deserts, promoting the increase of desert plants that could survive with the minimum water now available from diminishing water tables after diverting it for pastoral uses elsewhere. Hills, once vegetative, became barren, changing the landscape into bizarre defoliated regions resembling the moons of Barzoom described by Jules Verne. The piedmont became scarred tepetate. The Mexican landscape of today is not the biological landscape of Mexico before Cortez.

Some of the tangled masses of jungle are still with us, hiding pieces of Mexico’s indigenous past; much of what we think we know of Mexico’s biological landscape before Cortez is in-ferred from the scant evidence available to us. That Mexico like the rest of the Americas was a land teeming with unique vegetation and wildlife is accepted as gospel because we assume that the Americas must have evolved ecologically just as the old world evolved. In other words: the same but different.

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Indigenous Civilizations of Mexico: Rise and Fall—Act 1, Curtain Up

here is no degree of certainty as to the origins of the populations of Mexico before Cortez. According to Jacques Soustelle, there is evidence of humans as far back as 20,000 years ago in what is now central Mexico. That’s a large span of time to

1400-1200 BCE estimated as the beginning of the Otomi (mother) civilization of the Olmecs in Mexico. As spectators of the human comedy, we ask who were the people who lived in Mexico during the millennia from 20,000 BCE to 1400-1200 BCE? Not surprisingly, the an-swer is: we don’t know.

TWe can glean some information about those people from whatever discoveries surface at archaeological digs. And like detectives we can deduce by supposition something about the identity of those people. However, some conjecture points to a where numerous artifacts have been found indicating that Africans lived in Western Mexico almost 2000 years before the Olmecs. The traditions of the Mokaya Africans began 700 years before the Olmec arrived in Mexico. Were these the forebears of the Black Olmecs?

While this is startling information, this still does not inform us about the people who lived in

Mexico before the Mokaya Africans. They mystery is only compounded by this information. Like Churchill commenting about Russia, the civilizations of Mexico are a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Still, it is a question of serious import: When the Sumerian civilization was thriving in Mesopotamia, was there a comparable civilization thriving in the Americas—Mexico, to be spe-cific? Would indications of an existing civilization posit a polygenetic origin of various peoples? What would such a proposition do to the theory of Lucy as the founding ancestor of humans? Or to proposition of Adam and Eve as the founders of the human race?

Where the truth lies may only compound the quest for origins in ways better left alone. Despite the fact that we are inquisitive spectators as the curtain goes up on Act 1 of Mexico before Cortez, it’s the whole of Act 1 and Act 2 that are of significance to us in our survey of Mexico before Cortez.

Nevertheless, from the sum of these two acts we can interpolate much about the origins of those missing civilizations of Mexico before the Otomi and draw conclusions that may satisfy our urge for questions about ancient Mexico long before the arrival of Cortez.

There is no guarantee of accuracy, but that may be of little import; for we are much more sophis -ticated now in our speculations about past civilizations per our experiences in deciphering the re-mains of civilizations like Sumer, Akkadia, Egypt and other lost cultures. We are more adept in reading the stories in the stones.

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The Olmecs

he Olmec are considered the first major civilization in Mexico. However, they were not the first people in that part of the Americas. The Otomi preceded them and the Aztecs by centuries. The most apparent artifacts of the Olmec presence in Mexico

are giant stone heads embedded in the earth, stone heads with a head covering that looks like a 1930’a football helmet.

TThe beginnings of Olmec civilization have traditionally been placed between 1400 and 1200 BCE in the 7,000 square mile area on the Gulf of Mexico lowlands radiating East and West from La Venta (of the Great pyramid) in the states of Veracruz and Tabasco, the most prominent Olmec sites in Mexico. This environment has been compared to that of other an-cient centers of civilization: the Nile, the Indus, the Yellow River, and Mesopotamia. It is be-lieved the Olmecs spoke a proto-Mixe-Zoquean language. The Olmecs worked with jade, ob-sidian, and magnetite. The fall of the Olmec Empire has been attributed to tectonic up-heaval and volcanism, though nothing definitive is known. At least 17 of the colossal Olmec stone heads have been found buried in the earth in various places of Olmec settlements, heads carved from single blocks or boulders of volcanic basalt. It’s the flat-faced and thick lips characteristics of these stone heads that has led archaeologists and anthropologists to suggest that the Olmecs may have been of African descent. The Olmecs are credited with writing, epigraphy, the invention of zero, the Mesoamerican long-count calendar, and a ballgame that bears some resemblance to basketball, though how it was really played is still a matter of speculation.

Olmec culture was unknown to historians until the mid19th century. However Radio-car-bon dating provides us with a sense of place for the Olmecs in the history of Mexico before Cortez. The oldest-found writing on a 26 pound stone in the Americas may be linked to the Olmecs as well as some of the finest art-work in the Americas.

Origins of the Olmecs are linked to the Siberian Strait Crossing, though this theory is highly problematic as are other theories about the Olmecs and their predecessors, and theories of the peopling of the Americas. Among other deities, the Olmecs believed in the deity of the jaguar and the plumed serpent.

The Zapotecs

he Zapotec civilization was an indigenous pre-Columbian people who flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca in what is now southern Mexico. Archaeological evidence shows that their culture goes back at least 2,500 years. They left archaeological

evidence at the ancient city of Monte Albán in the form of buildings, ball courts, magnificent tombs and grave goods including finely worked gold jewelry. Monte Albán was one of the

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first major cities in Mexico before Cortez and the center of a Zapotec state that dominated much of what is now the Mexican state of Oaxaca” (abstracted from Wikepedia).

It is generally conceded that the Zapotec capital was at Monte Alban whose ruins are still evident today. The name Zapotec is an exonym coming from Nahuatl tzapotēcah (singular tzapotēcatl), which means "inhabitants of the place of sapote". The Zapotec referred to themselves by some variant of the term Be'ena'a, which means "The People". The Zapotec language belongs to the language family called Oto-manguean, remnants of which are still spoken in Oaxaca. Zapotec is a tone language whose words are differentiated by voice pitch. To date, the Zapotec language has not been deciphered.

Today, the most exotic clay for pottery in Mexico is the black clay of Oaxaca. The “piedmont strategy” of irrigation developed by the Zapotec has turned the Valley of Oaxaca into one of the most agriculturally profitable areas of Mexico. The most enduring evidence of the high state of culture achieved by the Zapotecs is their capital city of Monte Alban built on one of the high mountains overlooking the Valley of Oaxaca.

Logosyllabic, the Zapotec language developed a glyph for each of its syllables. The origin myth of the Zapotec tells that their ancestors emerged from caves in the earth, a myth comparable to the myth of Aztec origins. From the caves of Xicomostoc. Polytheistic, the Zapotec worshipped Quetzalcoatl the feathered serpent god.

There was a strong alliance between Zapotec and Aztec. Though strenuously resisting the Spanish invasion, the Zapotec were finally defeated by the Spanish in 1563. But the Zapotec spirit lived on until the 19th century in the forms of Benito Juarez, first indigenous president of Mexico (1861-1872) and Porfirio Diaz, dictator of Mexico from 1884 to 1911. The irony is that one Oaxacan brought democracy to Mexico; another Oaxacan returned it to tyranny.

The Toltecs

Considered the forebearers of the Aztecs and an offshoot of the Teotihuacan culture (100 BCE-8TH centuries CE), the Toltecs emerged in Mesoamerica in the present–day state of Hi-dalgo, between 800 CE and 1100 CE. Their capital city was Tollan, now Tula. Geographi-cally, the Toltec Empire was not very wide-spread; at its zenith it encompassed an area of 386 square miles. In Nahuatl, the term "Toltec" has several meanings—among them “place of reeds.”

At their height of power and prosperity (c.950 CE), there were an estimated 40,000 Toltecs in Mesoamerica. Current history posits that the Toltecs disappeared mysteriously. Accord-ing to legends, the city of Tollan (now Tula) had grown into the largest city on the continent (with a population of about 50,000) was abandoned because of a civil war; however, other

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possibilities for their demise include agricultural and commercial problems, and over-crowding due to continued immigration. By 1100 CE the Toltec Empire vanished. But not the Toltecs, many of whose descendants are still found in Mexico.

All information about the Toltec Empire is shrouded in mystery. Little is known about their social structure, apart from the fact that Toltec society was militaristic, with a warrior aris-tocracy. Aztec kings and royalty were “proud” of their Toltec heritage, using it for their claim to power.

Toltec theology was polytheistic, focusing on the deity of Quetzacoatl, “the feathered-ser-pent,” which later became the central figure of the Aztec pantheon. It is posited that the Toltecs interacted with most of the societies of Mesoamerica, and it is probable that their religious beliefs were influenced by and, in turn, influenced many other cultures.

Toltec architecture was heavily influenced by religion and war. Their temples were flat-roofed with square column halls built of limestone. As expected of a militaristic society, the murals adorning their temples depicted battle scenes, “bird warriors,” and representations of the god Tezcatlipoca, who was the patron of warriors. The best example of Toltec archi-tecture is at the site of Chichen Itza, a blend of the architectural elements of the Toltec and Mayan cultures.

The Toltecs used various agricultural techniques including irrigation and hill terracing to

plant and grow their crops, techniques adapted by the Aztecs. The Toltec god, Quetzalcoatl, was adopted by the Mayas and the Aztecs. The Aztecs credited the Toltecs as their “teach-ers” for herbal medicine.

Culturally, they are said to have discovered pulque (considered a sacred drink) or octli, a traditional Mexican drink made from the fermented sap of the maguey plant. While familiar with the fermentation process, the Toltecs did not engage in wine-making with the indige-nous grapes of the Americas.

End of Act 1

hile the story of indigenous America and Mexico before Cortez fades to black at this point, this is not the end of the drama. Act 2 is full of sturm und drang. What we can say critically and clinically about Act 1 is that the actors on the

historical “boards” were not aware of the destiny that was to befall them. It may be too an-thropocentric to aver that there is a “divinity that doth hedge human beings,” but it does seem—in the face of human history—that the angels of their better nature are looking out for them despite the record of human misery churned out by human beings.

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At the end of Act 1 the stage is set for earth-shaking convulsions in the Americas. However the indigenous peoples of the Americas came to be part of this land mass and however “iso-lated” those peoples may have seemed to be historically, they evolved from those origins and spawned cultures and civilizations we are only now coming to terms with as we dis-cover more and more about them, specifically that 86 mitochondrial genomes suggest that the indigenous peoples of the Americas are part of a single founding population. This quashes a number of theories about the origins of Indigenous populations in the Americas.

Carlos Castañeda throws water on the historical accuracy of considering the Toltecs as an aggregate people. He considers the term “Toltec” as a description that denotes a person who was recruited into a band of sorcerers with a tradition that had its origin in the Native American culture of that name—a guild of sorcerers that began in Southern Mexico 10,000 years ago, originally based on harnessing the changes of perception and perspective brought about by working with power plants. Though largely dismissed as fiction, Like the accounts of Sophists in ancient Greece, Castañeda’s accounts nevertheless raise questions about what we think we know about the indigenous populations of the Americas before Cortez. In brief, Castañeda’s focus on the Toltecs is on the mastery of awareness, working on tasks that cannot be done using conventional mindsets.

The end of Act 1 was really an end of an era. The Fall of the fabled Toltec city of Tollan was regarded as the portent of a dire ending for the Toltec empire. Decadence, apathy, and cor-ruption had taken its toll on the people. A war with the Chichimecas at its northern borders did not bode well for the Toltecs. In 1168 or 1175 the Toltecs met their demise. Legend has it that in the year Reed-One of the Toltec calendar, Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl left Tollan, headed East and sailed off into the horizon vowing to return one day to reclaim his empire, thus setting the stage for the fabled meeting between Moctezuma and Cortez whom the for-mer thought the latter to be Quetzalcoatl.

Act 2, Curtain Up

ct 2 covers that period of time from the end of the Toltec empire to the end of the Aztec empire (2000 BCE-1521 CE), roughly 3500 years, a period that can be com-pared to a fin de siècle, except that here we are concerned with two millennia. Of

course, for the principles in this act there was no sense of fin de anything. The period from 2000 BCE to 500 CE is defined by archaeologists as the Formative Period of the Americas during which the great civilizations of the Americas built and organized cities as large as and greater in grandeur than cities of the Old World. The Market of Tenochtitlan (one of the largest cities of its time and now Mexico City) was the most magnificent ever seen by the Conquistadores when they arrived. In Mexico there are ruins of more than 10,000 ancient cities dating from before the conquest by Cortez. Many dominate the countryside; others

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are obscured by urban sprawl except for pyramids supporting monumental 16th-century Spanish churches. Others have yet to be discovered in remote regions.

Mid this hubbub of greatness there was no prescience of impending doom. Life flowed in a cycle of progress that included inquiry and imagination, wonder and innovation, reflection and acceptance of life as it was and had been. The world around them was the product of creation by gods unknown and in whose hands their fates rested. Human activity was mea-sured in terms of propitiating those gods whose largesse was bestowed on the most de-serving. That was the rub: how to assess the most deserving.

This Formative Period saw the improvement of agriculture, the progress of culture, and the development of social structures and stratification as well as the emergence of writing and calendrics leading to the flowering of material productivity. After the fall of the Toltec em-pire, this period experienced political fragmentation and competition for ascendant power, leadership, and control. Ultimately, this period and its termination by Spanish conquest would produce epochal transformation of the world.

In many ways we are all prisoners of our inheritance—that is, the world view of our group and the expectations engendered therefrom. In terms of those expectations, the principals in Act 2 of this drama saw only the portents of grandeur and continuity in the destiny of their group much the way the Nazis of world War II saw their Third Reich stretching out before them for a thousand years.

The Maya

n terms of geography, the Maya civilization extended throughout the present-day Mex-ican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, and the Yucatan Peninsula as well as Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras.I

According to the Mayan long-count calendar their origins began on August 11, 3114 BC. No acceptable theory explains the collapse of the Maya. Evidence suggests that the center of the Mayan empire did not hold due to exceeding the environmental carrying capacity of the Maya population—in other words there were more Maya than the environment could sup-port. But this is conjecture. Important to note is that the Maya never disappeared. They are everywhere in their original territory.

Surviving Mayan monuments like the stepped pyramids of sites in the Yucatan and other monuments at Palenque and Uxmal provide a wealth of information about Mayan society and culture. The still extant Mayan observatory at Tulum overlooks the waters or the Car-ibbean. .

The Mayan writing system represents the spoken language. Maya writing used amatl-

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styled paper from processed tree bark folded in accordion fashion into codices only three of which exist: the Madrid, Dresden, and Paris Codices. The most phenomenal Maya ad-vances were in mathematics and astronomy. But the prize of Mayan calendrical science—the solar year—was far more accurate than that used in Europe as the basis of the Grego-rian calendar. The May had measured the length of the solar year to a high degree of accu-racy. Recently, the Mayan calendar created quite a stir over the end of time on 12.21.2012.

Research has not figured out why, like other civilizations before them, the Maya disap-peared after five centuries at the peak of their development. One theory based on stalag-mite research puts the blame on climate change and droughts. A diminishing food supply of the kind Malthus predicted in the 19th century would have created social upheaval, espe-cially with slash and burn practices of Mayan agricultural production.

The collapse of the Classic civilization that occurred sometime near the end of the 9th cen-tury, was a devastating event. Two thousand years from now, will people dig up New York City and wonder what caused our civilization to collapse?

The Mexica/Nahua

he term “Mexica” refers specifically to the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan, a city built in the 14th century on an island in Lake Texcoco which has long disappeared with landfill supporting the modern metropolis of Mexico City. The term “Aztec” is often

used synonymously to describe the Mexica but they are not the same. “Aztec” is the broader term and refers to several different people who trace their origins to a legendary place called “Aztlan.” These groups include the Mexica as well as the Tepaneca, Chichimeca, Xochimilca, and others. All of the Aztecs groups spoke Nahuatl [“Nahua” is the noun and “tl” is simply the noun marker]. Like many of the peoples around them, the Mexica spoke Nahu-atl. The form of Nahuatl used in the 16th century, when it began to be written in the alpha-bet brought by the Spanish, is known as Classical Nahuatl, Nahuatl is still spoken today by over 1.5 million people in and around Mexico City.

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Per tradition, the name of the priest who led the Mexica was Mecitli, who when born was given the name Citli. As he grew strong and mature he became a priest. Because he spoke personally with god, he was revered, obeyed, and as the leader of the people, they were known as Mexica.

The true origin of the Mexica is uncertain. According to one account they came from the desert lands of the Chichimeca somewhere north or the Valley of Mexico; some experts have placed their origins as far north as the Southwestern United States. The elders of the Mexica told the story that in the distant past, which no one could remember, they came over the water in boats from Aztlan (an island surrounded by water), their place of origin

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assailed by a tidal wave. For this reason, some suggest the Mexica were the survivors of the fabled civilization of Atlantis.

Mexica culture and history are primarily known through archaeological evidence found in excavations in the Templo Mayor of Mexico City; from indigenous codices; from eyewitness accounts by Spanish conquistadors and especially from 16th and 17th century descriptions of Aztec culture and history written by Spanish clergymen and literature Aztecs in the Spanish or Nahuatl languages. Based on these histories it appears the Mexica arrived at Chapultepec in or around the year 1248 during which the Valley of Mexico had many city-states, the most powerful of which were Culhuacan and Azcapotzalco. In 1299, the Culhua-can ruler Cocoxtli gave the Mexica permission to settle in the empty barrens of Tizapan.

The Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan would, in the next 100 years, dominate the Valley of Mexico and extend its power to the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific. Over this period, the Mexica of Tenochtitlan gradually became the dominant power in the alliance morphing into “the Aztecs.”

[From the Florentine Codex, Book 10: Ch. 29, “The Mexica]

The Aztecs

s indicated, there was no single mitochondrial group of Aztecs; they were an em-pire of aggregate Nahuatl-speaking American Indians that included the Mexica, the most dominant of the aggregate. Collectively, the Aztecs reigned between the 12th

century CE and the 15th century CE, controlled by the Triple Alliance of the Acolhua of TexAcoco, the Mexica of Tenochtitlan and the Tepaneca of Tlacopan. The territory of the Aztec empire included nearly all of the current country of Mexico.

The Aztec capital was Tenochtitlan—site of present-day Mexico City—quickly became one of the largest cities in the world. In fact, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, chronicler of Cortez in Mexico, was amazed when he first beheld Tenochtitlan (though nothing remains of what Bernal Diaz del Castillo saw):

And after we saw so many cities and towns built on the water, and other cities on the surrounding land, and the straight and level causeway which entered the city, we were amazed and said that it was like the enchanted places recounted in Amadis de Gaula because of the great towers and buildings which grew out of the water, all made of stone and mortar, and some of our soldiers even asked whether what they saw was not a dream, and so no wonder that I write in this way, for there is so much to ponder in all these things that I do not know how to describe them. We saw things never heard or dreamed about before (The Conquest of Mexico, LXXXVII).

Aztec mythology recounts them emerging from the seven caves of Chicomoztoc in a place called Aztlan—the place of whiteness. After seven peregrinations and 150 years, they ar-rive at their portended destination: an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco on which an ea-

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gle is perched holding one end of a serpent in one claw and the other end in its beak (this is today the national emblem of Mexico). The patron gods of the Aztecs were Huitzilopochtle (god of war) and Quetzalcoatl (the feathered serpent god of the morning and of wisdom and largesse).

Arrogating for themselves descent from the Toltecs solidified the Aztec right as rulers of Mexico. Aztec chieftains were addressed as Tlatoani (Speaker for the people and arbiter of laws and customs). Though maligned as cruel and savage warriors, Aztec law forbade pub-lic drunkenness and thievery but decreed bathing daily or more often for personal hygiene.

The Aztecs believed that the earth had been destroyed four times and they were living in the time of the Fifth Sun which would end in destruction and cataclysm. Worshippers of the Sun (Tonatiuh), the Aztecs considered themselves as caretakers of the giant sun- stone (piedra del sol) Calendar discovered in Mexico City in 1790. The Aztec sun-stone calendar divides the year into 18 months of 20 days and tells the story of the five suns.

On the eve of conquest, the population center of the Aztec empire may have been as high as 50 million (Borah and Cook, 4).

END OF ACT 2

e don’t know what the Aztecs may have thought when Cortez laid siege to Tenochtitlan in 1521 after murdering Moctezuma. One expression comes to mind: “How could this be?” Legend has it that Cuahtemoc (his brother or

cousin) sought to rally the Aztecs in repulsing the Spaniards who were clearly outnum-bered by the Aztecs. Some historical pundits posit the improbability of Aztec success in that endeavor principally because of Spanish technology—steel, armor, horses, the wheel. Maybe not! Where was Huitzilipochtle? Quetzalcoatl?

WImportant to bear in mind is that just as the Spaniards did not bring civilization to Mexico, they did not conquer Mexico in 1521. In1521 they conquered Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the Aztecs. The Spaniards spent the next 300 years attempting to dominate the land once ruled by the Aztecs who did not go gently into that good night of colonization (Ortego y Gasca, “Golden Eyes of the Condor,” Scribd, 2009).

Some stories about the fall of the Aztec empire suggest that Moctezuma temporized too long about Cortez being the embodiment of Quetzalcoatl. In other words, he was suckered by a long-standing myth about the return of Quetzalcoatl. We have no way of ascertaining the truth of this story. We can say that Cortez’ decision to scuttle his fleet in order to avert desertion of his troops was a gutsy decision that paid off.

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It’s hard to believe that a warrior population like the Aztecs who had built an empire non plus ultra could be so easily hoodwinked into submission? Like Paul Harvey used to say, there may be a story behind the story. Part of the “back” story involves a Tlaxcalan woman who may not have been a principal player in the fall of the Aztec empire but who as a char-acter in the drama loomed large in the end of Act 2 as consort to Cortez—she was Mal-intzin, Cortez’ Tlaxcalan interpreter whom the Spaniards called Doña Marina. She was one of two women who in the fall of the Aztec empire and the beginning of Spanish colonialism in Mexico played roles that would impact the history of Mexico into the 21st century.

Malintzin would become the Mexican emblem of survival in the face of domination. The second woman would be Tonantzin known as “La Virgin de Guadalupe” after she appeared to Juan Diego—the Indian—at Tepeyac on December 12, 1531. Tonantzin would become the Mexican emblem of faith in the face of survival.

This story would be played out in various ways over the next 300 years of Spanish colonial-ism in Mexico.

Denouément and Final Curtain

he denouément of Mexico before Cortez is a well known historical fact: Cortez 1 – Montezuma 0. Despite the paucity of reliable information (no diaries, no letters, not a single page) about the denouément of Mexico before Cortez, history offers us ne-

vertheless a snapshot of the events that attend the end of the Aztec empire and the rise of Spain in America.

TImportant to note is that the conquest of Mexico was a process not a one-shot event of the moment. Amor and weaponry gave the field of battle to the Spaniards, but the Aztec warriors gave as good as they got. The Christian god was not a god of peace; nor was Hui-tzilopochle, the Aztec god of war. Later, Cortez would justify his aggression against the Az-tecs as one in which he was simply maintaining order among the king’s vassals since, accor-ding to Spanish law, the Spanish King had no right to demand that foreign peoples become his subjects. Accordingly, so the story goes, on behalf of his people, Moctezuma had willin-gly commited the people of his empire as subjects of the Spanish King.

In her book Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico Camilla Town-send, writes: “It is preposterous to think that the most powerful warrior King in all the land, who had ruled successfully for seventeen years, would suddently and immediately re-linquish his domains without further ado” (86). Unfortunately, Spanish accounts and histo-ries have tended to portray the Indians of Mexico as befuddled children eager to give the-mselves to the superior Spanish beings who had come to their land.

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Upon their arrival at Tenochtitlan, as guests in the palace of the emperor Moctezuma, the Spaniards saw the chinampas in which the Aztecs grew their food hydroponically and the aquaducts that carried fresh wáter to dwellings and public buildings. No mention is madde of how the Aztecs controlled human waste and other effluents harmful to Lake Texcoco and their wáter supply. However, given the technology of the Aztecs there is every reason to be-lieve that sanitation was no problem.

Interestingly, during this initial period of hospitality by Moctezume, Cortez wrote “While I stayed, . . . I did not see a living creature killed or sacrificed” (Ibid., 93). Yet, much was made of human sacrifice in subsequent Spanish annals of the conquest.

In time, Cortez held Moctezuma hostage at knife-point and played out his hand in declaring victory over the Aztecs when Spanish reinforcements (ships, men, horses, armor) arrived with Panfilo de Narvaez at Veracruz, the port founded by Cortez where he landed in Mexico in 1519.

Giving vent to their zeal in conquering the Aztecs, the aggressive Spaniards were routed and suffered defeat by the Aztecs in what has been called “la noche triste” (the sad night), the Spaniards retreated from Tenochtitlan suffering heavy losses. Aztec exultation over this victory did not last long. Spanish motivation only increased to retake the city, which they did in 1521, bringing to an end Aztec hegemony over Mexico.

Moctezuma Xocoytl II

ftentimes reviled as the most loathed man in Spanish annals and regarded histori-cally by Mexicans as a fool, simpleton, and traitor to his people and nation, it doesn’t appear likely that Moctezuma II, the 9th emperor of the Aztecs, will be ele-

vated to any grand consideration in the annals of Mexican history. As Tlatoani of the Aztec empire, that is, chief spokesperson, Moctezuma II has been more tarnished by Spanish and Mexican annals than he deserves.

OThere was a Moctezuma I, Grandfather of Moctezuma II (also known as Xocoytl which means “the younger”) who reigned from 1502 to 1520 when he was murdered by Cortez. Moctezuma II was 54 when he died. The information we have about Moctezuma II comes to us from references in the works of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, chronicler of Cortez’ conquest of Mexico, Bernardino de Sahagún, from Hernán Cortéz himself, Fernando Alvarado Tezozó-moc, and other passing references elsewhere. The imperial line of the Aztecs was not hereditary.

Sahagún described Moctezuma II as weak-willed, superstitious, and indulgent. Alvarado Tezozóc, a grandson of Moctezuma II mostly relates his grandfather’s genealogy. In post-

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conquest literature Moctezuma II is aggrandized as an eloquent speaker and just ruler in order to strengthen the Spanish accounts of Mexico’s wealth and importance in the Spanish empire as well as the majesty of the vanquished ruler. What was little bruited was that Moctezuma II was a warrior who led his armies into 43 military victories.

Some historians point out, however that Moctezuma’s life as emperor was one of pure lux-ury, living in ornately decorated palaces that housed gardens and zoos with rare Mexican animals, adding that he dressed in the finest garments made expressly for him. At meals he was served sumptuously with lots of chocolate—his preferred drink—served in golden goblets. Aztec nobility considered chocolate the drink of the gods as well as an aphrodisiac.

Moctezuma’s descendants are reported to exist in present-day Mexico. In 1733 Vivaldi wrote an opera with Moctezuma as the title character. As a monumentalist, Moctezuma II’s projects have been unearthed in situ in Mexico City. Portrayed in anthropomorphic form as a figure costumed with regalia, he was personified as a deity. Soon after the conquest, Moctezuma’s palace was dismantled and destroyed by the Spaniards who constructed on top of it the palace of the Spanish Viceroy.

After

he facile description of Spain in America is to characterize the Spanish enterprise in the Americas as a relentless search for gold, failing to note the extent of Spanish settlement in the American hemisphere. Admittedly the Spanish search for the min-

eral wealth of the “New World” was a paramount motivation but so was territoriality and national purpose. Spain’s global reach at the end of the 15th century and its extension in the 16th century can be likened to the American extension of its territory in the 19th cen-tury “from sea to shining sea” propelled by Manifest Destiny.

TSpain’s first steps in the Americas were pacific enough until the Spanish monarchs were given free rein per the Aristotelian doctrine of “natural slavery” This Doctrine of Natural Slavery comes from Aristotle who believed that some men are born to be slaves.

This Doctrine of Natural Slavery was brought to the attention of the Pope and the Spanish monarchs in 1510 by “a Scottish professor in Paris, John Major, [who] was the first to apply to the Indians the Aristotelian doctrine of natural slavery” (Hanke, 14).

The wonder is that in 1521 Hernando Cortez was able to “conquer Mexico” with only 11 ships, 508 men, 16 horses, 10 brass guns, dogs, and collaborating Indians (including Mal-intzin—Doña Marina—consort to Cortez). It should be noted that horses, guns, armor, and steel constituted a formidable arsenal in 1519 (including the wheel). Despite the greater

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strength of force by the Aztecs, that formidable arsenal of the Spaniards carried the day for the invaders.

This is not to diminish in any way the strength of character or the valor of the Aztec mili-tary and their allies. There was a fly in the ointment. Moctezuma was unsure if Cortez was the incarnate embodiment of Quetzalcoatl—the plumed white serpent god of learning and knowledge and death and resurrection who as the mythical Aztec high priest had vowed in an encomium of farewell to return. In his uncertainty, Moctezuma (like Hamlet in his uncer-tainty about his father’s commandment) temporized in his decision of how to handle Cortez and the Spaniards.

This account of Moctezuma and Cortez is highly speculative with suspicion falling on Cortez as its propagator, exploiting it in order to suggest the gullibility of the Aztecs and the ease with which he “conquered” Mexico. Still, the story persists, figuring prominently in my play Madre del Sol/Mother of the Sun (Ortego, 1981). The truth of the story may never be known but the story functions in the narrative of the conquest of Mexico as a way to explain the delay and vacillation of Moctezuma anent the presence of Cortez in Mexico at that particu-lar point in time.

The rout of the Spaniards on June 30, 1520 (thereafter identified historically as “la noche triste”) provides ample evidence of Aztec military resolve to expel the Spaniards but for the consideration alluded to above. The fighting was ferocious: accounts of Spanish losses vary. Cortez claimed the loss of 150 Spaniards as well as 2,000 indigenous allies. Other chroni-clers put the loss at 450 Spaniards and 4,000 allies. One source reports the loss of 1,150 Spaniards (more than the number of Spaniards accompanying Cortez).

Subsequent accounts of “la noche triste” report that no man was left unwounded. That rout strengthened Cortez’ determination to take Tenochtitlan by force and to claim the Aztec empire for Spain. Survivors included Doña Marina (la Tlaxcalteca)—thereafter known as “la malinche” (the traitor) for supporting Cortez against the Aztecs. Later, Mexican history would pin the downfall of Aztec Mexico on la malinche, a term—malinchismo—that would come to characterize “treason” in Mexican Spanish. In the latter half of the 20th century, Oc-tavio Paz, Mexico’s only Nobel Laureate for literature, would blame the ills of Mexico on la malinche (Paz, 1961).

Returning weeks later with a larger force, Cortez successfully captured and secured the city of Tenochtitlan. This military victory did not signal the conquest of Mexico only the con-quest of Tenochtitlan—Mexico City. But Cortez hyped the victory as “the conquest of Mex-ico” in order to bolster his prowess as a Conquistador which would elevate his status at the royal court of Spain.

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or the Spaniards, the next 300 years (1521-1821) were years of prolonged conflict with the indigenous populations of Mexico which included hundreds of indigenous groups. In those 300 years the Spaniards changed the face of Mexico. As the

Spaniards fanned out over Mexico, a hybrid population of “Mestizos” (those of Spanish and Indian “blending”) came into being—products of genetic mixing and intergroup gene flow between the Spaniards and the Indians of Mexico. In the 20th century, these mestizos—ho-mologous beings—would be called “la raza cosmica” by Jose Vasconcelos the great educa-tor of Mexico.

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In the almost 300 year presence (40 BC-260 AD) of Romans in England, the face of Britan-nia was changed by the Roman occupation. The 800 year (711-1492) occupation of Spain by the Moors had a profound effect on Spanish life and culture. It should be no surprise then that in 300 years the Spanish presence in New Spain had a profound effect on Mexican life and culture. In a piece of mine entitled “Montezuma’s Children” published as a cover story in The Center Magazine (November/December 1970), and submitted for Pulitzer con-sideration, I wrote:

The face of Mexico is an Indian face. Traveling the length and width of modern Mexico one is more impressed by the Indian influences on Mexican culture than the European influences. The imposing pyramids of Teotihuacan are more impressive than the elegant façade of Cha-pultepec Castle. One is more fascinated by the legend of Ixtazihuatl than by the exploits of Cortez. Although the crown and church of Spain almost succeeded in Europeanizing Mon-tezuma’s children they were unable to convert the Indian masses into their own physical im-age. In our time Indian rather than Spanish blood has become a source of national Mexican pride. To be Spanish is to be gachupin (from the Aztec word qatzopin), a foreigner, an op-pressor, a rapist of the ancient Indian culture. To be a Mexican is to be a member of la raza, the race of Montezuma’s children. More than two-fifths of the Mexican population are pure-blooded Indians, more than half have some Indian blood in them.

The focus of Spain’s progress in Mexico during those 300 years was the Christianization of the Indians and their transmogrification into Spaniards. To a large extent Mexico is a Chris-tian nation, and while there are many ways and mores of Spain visible in Mexico, that visi-bility is a veneer, for barely below the surface of everyday Mexican life lies the Indian face of Mexico. The most enduring success of Spain in Mexico is in the language. The language of Spain took root in Mexico (as it has in all of Spanish America) and blended with the indige-nous languages of Mexico has become Mexican Spanish. Important to keep in mind is that that in their initial conflict with the Aztecs, the Spaniards sought to gain control of a land that was not their own and to dominate a people whose language they had never heard be-fore (Townsend, 142).

A Christian element of considerable proportions manifested itself in 1531 that helped in

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the Spanish campaign to pacify and dominate the Indians of Mexico. On December 12, 1531, a mysterious lady (in blue) appeared to Juan Diego an Indian on his way via Tepeyac (on the outskirts of Mexico City) to visit his sick uncle. The apparition instructed Juan Diego to carry a message to the Bishop of Mexico to build a church on the site where she ap-peared. Duly carrying out the lady’s instructions, Juan Diego finally convinces the bishop about the lady’s wishes. The Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe today receives thousands of visitors annually and displays Juan Diego’s tilma on which is mysteriously etched the figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Subsequent histories of this appearance suggest the apparition could have been Tonantzin, “the earth mother” of the Aztecs who reportedly appeared periodically to the Aztecs on that site in Tepeyac. The significance of that apparition is that the Spanish church in Mexico cap-italized on the myth of Tonantzin by syncretizing her myth with the Church’s account of Our Lady of Guadalupe thus expediting the Christian conversion of the Indians of Mexico.

Separate but equal was never a consideration for the Spaniards in their efforts to Hispani-cize the Indians of Mexico. Cohabitation of Spanish males and Indian women was open and encouraged, leading to a taxonomy of racial categories of which only the category of “mes-tizo” (product of miscegenation) survives today unlike the various categories of the “plan-tation south” which have survived into our own time.

The consequence of this early period in the 300 year colonial rule of Mexico by the Spaniards was a marginalization of the Mexican Indians described as nepantilism—the colonial mentality. Nepantla is a Nahuatl term meaning “the space between” where endan-gered people are congregated for forced acculturation. In modern terms, Gloria Anzaldua defines this space as a place of healing, a place where one learns the skills of survival. The borderlands is such a space/place. For Anzaldua, the borderlands as Nepantla is “a place of power” not a forced confinement.

espite the ferocious start of the Spanish entrada (incursion) into Mexico (1519-1521), the next 300 years were frenetic years during which the Spaniards transformed Mexico into a veritable New Spain (Spain in America). The development and spread of Spanish hege-

mony over its claimed territories in the Americas was fairly rapid albeit less effective than its hege-mony in the motherland, but effective nevertheless in establishing a social order that mirrored in little the mores, customs, and architecture of the homeland.

DIn literature, Spanish literature of the New World was in the same tradition as Spanish literature of the Old World (See Picon-Salas, 1968). In terms of literary output, Spain in America is a substantial subject (See Wagner, 1967).

The Spaniards in America documented all activities, due perhaps to the bureaucratized nature of Spanish royal authority. Letters and their attendant protocols were indispensable to the march of Spanish empire in America, though at times that march was ground to a halt between communica-

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tions from the Old World to the New. The numerous entradas into what is now the southwest of the United States were carefully authenticated by the esribanos (recording secretaries) accompanying the conquistadores.

The literature of Spain in Mexico consisted mostly of diaries, travel accounts, and relaciones (narra-tives). During the Spanish colonial period, Mexico produced such writers as Juan Ruiz de Alarcon (1581-1639), the noted dramatist of Spain’s Golden Age, author of La Verdad Sospechosa (Suspi-cious Truth); the nun Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz (1648-1695), sometimes called the Mexican Keats or the Tenth Muse of Mexico; and Carlos de Siguenza y Gongora (1645-1700), one of the first great Mexican born intellectuals. There would be others, but none of later generations would equal the stature of Peninsular and Criollo writers of this period.

In other aspects of Mexican society during the early stages of Spanish colonization, Indigenous Mex-icans were educated in schools expressly designed for the education of Indians who were on the up-per rungs of the social ladder. Indians at the bottom of the social ladder were not educated. Peninsu-lares (Spaniards born in Spain) and Criollos (Spaniards born in the Americas or outside of Spain) sent their children to exclusive schools for Peninsulares and Criollos. For education in the profes-sions, Criollos and select Mexican Indians studied in Spain or elsewhere in Europe. Mexican Indians were limited in the professions they could enter.

Surprisingly there sprang up in Mexico over the 300 years of Spanish colonial rule a dual track of social symbiosis that worked out well for the Spaniards and tolerably well for the Indians. While not perfect, this co-existence allowed for the expansion of each group and for their eventual amelio-ration—such as it was for the Indians.

Needless to say, the Columbian Exchange produced more benefit for the Spaniards than for the In-dians mostly because of steel over stone at first, then numbers and religion, not counting the diminution of Indian populations due to diseases spread by the Spaniards. Between 1520 and 1600 as many as 14 epidemics whittled away the populations of Indians in the Americas—the deadliest of which were smallpox (viruelas), chicken pox measles (sarampión), scarlet fever, and syphilis. The lugubrious catalogs “of every European people who have had prolonged contact with the native peoples of America are full of references to the devastating impact of Old World diseases” (Crosby, Jr., 42). Of the million Indians on Santo Domingo when the Spaniards first arrived, by 1548 only 500 had survived (45).

Important to bear in mind is not only the psychological effect of epidemic diseases but the fact that the pandemics “killed great numbers in the Indian empire [that] affected their power structures, striking down the leaders and disrupting the processes by which they were normally replaced” (54). Spaniards capitalized on the botanical knowledge of the Indians which is why so many of the New World fruits and vegetables and bean products such as chocolate made their way to Spain and Europe. Reciprocally, the Old World brought fruits and vegetables to the New World. The pig and the horse were two of Spain’s more notable contributions to the New World. It was the pig that was responsible in modern parlance for the word “barbeque”—from the Spanish “barbacola” meaning from snout (barba) to tail (cola) [in the word “cola” the intervocalic consonant “l” was dropped and pronounced “coa” which has become the “que” part of the word “barbeque.”

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“The society of colonial Spanish America was one of the most equestrian in all history” (Crosby, 81-82). Horses were so plentiful that Spaniards, Mestizos, and Indians became accustomed to the sad-dle. By the 17th century, Spaniards had carried cattle everywhere in Spanish America and became one of New Spain’s greatest economic assets (88). Ironically, “the greatest effect of the horse on the Indian was to enhance his ability to resist the advance of Europeans” (104). The impact of livestock on the Indians is generally gauged as positive—they went from being plant eater to meat eaters. Ac-cording to Crosby, “the Europeans and their animals changed the rules of the battle for the survival of the fittest” (111).

Though decimated at first by epidemics of European origin, by the 18th century the Indian popula-tions of Mexico exceeded the Spanish populations in the country. Crosby contends that “the one fac-tor that will promote population growth . . . is the increase and improvement of the food supply” (167). The food sources for both Spaniards and Indians underwent an amalgamation as significant as the genetic fusion of the two populations.

An aspect of the Spanish colonial period of Mexico (1521-1821) not given much notice is the role of dogs. Mexican dogs (xoloitzcuintle) were hairless, did not bark, resembled guinea pigs, and, accord-ing to an account by Columbus, were castrated, fattened, and raised for eating (Varner and Varner, 7). Interestingly, there is the word “esquintle” in the Mexican language (Spanish blended with Nahuatl) which comes from the Aztec word “xoloitzcuintle” for dog and is used in the Mexican lan-guage to describe “children.”

Spanish dogs were ferocious, many of them bred as weapons in the Spanish arsenal. The first “dog-ging” of Indians is recorded on the island of Jamaica on May 5, 1494 with Columbus using Irish wolfhounds. Like the Indians, when faced with starvation, Spanish soldiers ate their dogs. Dogs were used by the Spaniards to control the Indians who came to fear Spanish dogs that were bred as trackers and killers. The Conquistadores found justification for their use of dogs in warfare from the Greeks and the Romans who used mastiffs, greyhounds and Molassian hounds. The Spaniards also used greyhounds as hunters of meat. In time, the Indians came to bond with dogs just as the Spaniards had bonded with their dogs.

Sixteenth and seventeenth century Mexico were centuries of slow progress for the Spaniards in their efforts to “civilize’ the country. The history of Mexico abounds with accounts of Spanish bat-tles with the various Indian tribes in their march north toward what is now the Hispanic Southwest [see the documentary film North From Mexico, Greenwood Press 1971 narrated by Felipe de Ortego y Gasca]. The Spanish efforts in Mexico seem now to have been prologue for the Mexican War of In-dependence which did not turn out well for the Indians but did for the Criollos who had fomented the crisis.

Indeed, the Spaniards overlaid on Mexico a veneer of Spanish culture and architectural accou-trements uniquely Spanish, but at the expense of the Mexican culture and architectural splendor that was there before the arrival of the Spaniards. By the end of the 18 th century, much of Mexico had been transformed into Spain in America—not entirely. In rebuilding Mexico into the image of Spain in America, the Spaniards simply covered over Aztec buildings and monuments and built on

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top of them which, only in the 20th century, was discovered and uncovered by Mexicans in their search for their indigenous past.

Paradoxically, towards the end of the 18th century, Spain allied itself with the rebellious American colonies in their efforts to free themselves from England, little realizing perhaps that the seeds of independence were being scattered across the Americas. Thirty-four years later on the 16th of Sep-tember of 1810, Mexico would embark on the road to independence and, like England in 1776, Spain would be forced to defend its Mexican colony in a war that ended in 1821.

By and large, the American War for Independence was supported by Spain and its American colonies since Spain also had a quarrel with England for its constant intrusions into Spanish territo-ries. On the 21st of June, 1779, Spain officially declared war on England and pressed hard on the British fleet blockading the ports of England’s American colonies. In fact, Spanish regiments fought side by side with Washington’s troops (passim, Chávez, 2002).

In the Atlantic, Spanish forces in Cuba and the Caribbean led by José de Gálvez, his nephew Bernar-do de Gálvez and Francisco de Miranda effectively obstructed English strategies to hem in the American colonists. Miranda distinguished himself fighting against the English at the battle of Pen-sacola in 1781, among the last battles against England. The city of Galveston, Texas, would later be named for Bernardo de Gálvez; Miranda became president of Venezuela in 1810 the same year the Criollos of Mexico declared their independence from Spain.

By the end of the 18th century, the political situation in Mexico had become a tinderbox. Indepen-dence seemed like the only solution for the Spanish colonists. For the Indians, independence would come a hundred years later in 1910-1921 after the bloody Mexican War for independence 1810-1821.

axonomizing the 300 year rule of Spain in Mexico, one can label the first 100 years as the period of transition for both Spaniards and Indians; the second 100 years as the period of dysphoria (for the Indians) and grandeur (for the Spaniards); and the third 100 years as the

period of discontent (principally for ambitious Criollos and dissident Indians). TAll together, the Spanish colonial period in Mexico established centers of power that persist in vari-ous guises today. Inhibited by the Mexican Constitution of 1924, the Catholic Church nevertheless continues to wield considerable power in Mexico, though not as openly as it did in the 19th and early 20th century. Though no longer visible as it once was, per se, the landed gentry of latifundias (spa-cious plantations) abound in Mexico—controlled and administered now by modern protocols of business—and still affect the daily lives of Mexicans. The elite classes of Mexicans that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries have consolidated their interests and control of Mexico’s resources into cartels, giving them more power today than they exerted in times past.

These loci of power were adamant in their resistance to independence which was essentially driven by liberal Criollos. For Conservatives in Mexico, the status quo suited them just fine. This is not to say there were no dissident voices from Conservative quarters. In the main, however, these centers of power were content with the social order as it had evolved in Mexico. While they conceded that

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there was much to be gained by independence, they also saw independence as the upheaval of what they perceived as a smoothly functioning status quo. Why disturb it?

According to James Diego vigil, “the most crucial forms of change” are ideas (107). That the idea of independence “caught the attention of every disenchanted person in the New World” (108) is a bit of embroidery. As an idea, Independence did catch the attention of many in the New World. In the events leading up to the American Revolution, the idea of independence caught the attention of Thomas Paine who took up the cause of independence with zeal in pamphlets that ignited the pas-sion of many Americans. On the other hand, many American loyalists simply moved to Canada than participate in the revolutionary fray.

So too, on the eve of Mexican independence, many Mexicans simply moved elsewhere than be party to the “chaos” of independence. Surprisingly a fair number of Mexicans relocated to the United States to cities like San Diego, Los Angeles, Tucson, El Paso, Laredo, Brownsville, and San Antonio. Those who stayed in Mexico suffered through a war of independence that lasted 11 years at a con-siderable loss of life. For many it was a War of Independence to no avail.

On the eve of the War for Independence, the Indians of Mexico were highly Hispanicized and rapidly losing their identity as Indians. In the cities of Mexico, large numbers of them roamed the streets as vagrants. (Ruiz, 144).

From San Miguel de Allende in the Mexican state of Guanajuato, on the evening of September 15, 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla called out to Mexicans with a cry for liberty in what has be-come known as the Grito de Dolores. At dawn on September 16, the motley army of insurgents

struck for independence by marching euphorically on the city of Guanajuato, a major colonial min-ing center. They were victorious in their first battle.

In the following months a number of battles ensued between Spanish royal forces and insurgents, and, despite the odds, it appeared that the insurgents had the upper hand. But in January of 1811 Father Hidalgo and his forces were captured by the Spanish army. Court-martialed, defrocked, and

tortured, Father Hidalgo was found guilty of treason and executed by firing squad in Chihuahua, on July 31, 1811. Thereafter, his head was cut off and displayed in Guanajuato as a warning to the rebels. With this martyrdom Father Hidalgo became the father of his country.

Essential to the Royalist cause was sustained power over Mexico City which represented the central authority of the Spanish government. In retrospect, some historians contend that an assault on Mexico City by the insurgents could have precipitated an early end to the War for Independence. But that strategy seems not to have emerged as part of the plan for them. So, too, the Royalists seemed to be defending their authority without a plan. According to Ruiz, the War for Indepen-dence left the Mexicans with “a formidable burden of wrack and ruin” (186). Six hundred thousand perished during the war.

What started out as a revolt against the crown by discontented Mexican Criollos turned into a rebel

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lion for social justice with the alliance of the Indians called by Father Hidalgo to defend la patria (the homeland). But that alliance was tenuous at best. The cabal of Criollos heading the revolt against the crown had no intention of elevating the Indians to their level no matter how moreno claro (light) their skin. They did not give “a tinker’s damn for the plight of the poor” (Ruiz, 150).

Key to Father Hidalgo’s success in rallying Indians and Mestizos to his side was the banner he chose to symbolize his call for freedom—a banner with the image of la Virgin de Guadalupe (the Virgin of Guadalupe), the patron saint of Mexico (See “Madre del Sol/Mother of the Sun: Our Lady of Guadalupe—the Play” by Felipe de Ortego y Gasca). La Guadalupana as the Virgin of Guadalupe be-came known was the cornerstone of Mexican nationalism, turning the War for Independence into a religious war and into a war against slavery which is why Mexico abolished slavery in 1829.

In many ways the Mexican war for independence was a war of los letrados (intellectuals) against the lemmings (small arctic rodents who follow their leaders to the point of suicide)—the Royalists who to the end defended the crown and its policies in Mexico. As for the Criollos, they believed that by their victory over Spain, “God had enthroned them as the chosen people” (Ruiz, 166).

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Chávez, Thomas E. Spain and the Independence of the United States, University of New Mex-ico Press, 2002

Crosby, Jr. Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Greenwood Press, 1972.

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Hanke, Lewis. Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern World. Indiana University Press, 1959.

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Ortego, Philip D., Script Consultant and Narrator, North From Mexico, documentary film based on the work by Carey McWilliams, Greenwood Press, 1971.

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