Can A Misplaced Chronology Lead To Narrative Bias? Before the Battle of Cintla, 1519

Next, in the account of Bernal Díaz, he spends two of his chapters (xxxi-xxxii) on the first two days near Tabasco, March 12-13. In them he describes arriving and disembarking at Point Palamares, as well as Cortés claiming that land for Spain, the group fending off some attacks and killing a number of the locals and losing one of their original interpreters, Melchorejo. Cortés had sent out captains in different directions with specific instructions and some of their subsequent findings and actions are told. Aguilar is said to have found out with certainty (here, 'the next day' which supposedly would be the 14th) that Melchorejo had run away and turned to warning the locals and encouraging them to attack the Spanish company at once with full force, since their numbers were so few.

But then with this thought in mind, the next chapter (xxxiii) begins with Díaz explaining what Cortés did to ready for battle, since, as chapter xxxiii begins,

"When Cortés knew for certain they were coming to attack us, he ordered us to bring horses quickly from the ships to land, and the escopeteros, crossbowmen, and all the soldiers to be fully ready with our arms, even if we were wounded." [p. 41]

There were men with some kidney ailment that couldn't fight or walk, then the horses, when they were first taken off the ships walked awkwardly but this was understood because they had been onboard for such a long time. Díaz lists the men that were chosen for the fight with Cortés as captain and then, still in chapter xxxiii, he says,

"Very early the next day, which was the Day of Our Lady of March, after hearing mass... we all fell in behind our standard-bearer..." [p.42]

and then marched toward Cintla. A great long remembered battle followed that day, even according to Cortés and the story of this can be found all over the internet and takes up chapter xxxiv of the chronicle of Bernal Díaz.

However, the next chapter (xxxv) consists of negotiations between Cortés, Aguilar, and some of the local captains taken in battle, emissaries sent from the locals and the next day, further negotiations, including a demonstration of cannon fire. But Díaz said the locals went away very happy that day, saying on next day they would bring back a present for the Spaniards. And this is how chapter xxxv ends.

To my surprise, the very next chapter, xxxvi, starts off by giving the day as the fifteenth of March 1519 (in my text page 48) when the local captains brought many presents and twenty women including the future Doña Marina who would become the lover and interpreter of Cortés.

Looking back, it appears that the story of preparing for, and marching on, and the actual battle of Cintla, was misplaced in the strict chronological order that before this time had been the rule for Díaz up to this point. Our Editors don't point this out explicitly. Yet they do give a footnote for 'the Day of Our Lady of March' quoted above, saying "By tradition March 25"  [p. 42] which could be an oblique way of saying that Díaz just got the day of the battle wrong.

But what this does to the narrative overall is place a larger more momentous battle closer to the beginning of the story, making the story of negotiation that immediately follows in chapters xxxv-vi, in turn, more momentous. There is less chance for true reconciliation after such a great battle, in the mind of the hearer, despite the gifts of beads and entreaties by Cortés. Maybe not, maybe it is just a slip of the pen. But if one were to take out the chapters (xxxiii-iv) here that deal with the battle of Cintla, the narrative would continue without interruption of the calendar as I tried to show above. And it would be a narrative of smaller skirmishes with repeated efforts at reconciliation, for several days. On the twelfth they arrived, and fought off some attackers. On the thirteenth Cortés sends out his captains and the skirmishes continue but Cortés also sends out messengers asking for peace. The day before the fifteenth, Díaz says there were negotiations between Cortés, Aguilar and some emissaries and the day before that as well.

I would like to look at the scholarly work surrounding these days and their accounts to see how modern scholarship understands what seems to be a lapse in the chronicle of Díaz here.

Our Editors and translators say that the text they used is the authoritatively accepted Guatemala manuscript in concert with the recent (2005) definitive critical edition which has the original text, complete with alternate readings and commentary. But that's in Spanish. So my return to this interesting temporal displacement may take some time.

Also I will look at how my theory works if chs xxxiii-iv are inserted in what seems to be the actual chronological flow of events in linear time, on or about the 25th of March.

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All quotes, text and pagination refers to The Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012

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Also, March 12, 1488 is the day that Bartolomeu Dias is said to have made his farthest landing east on the southern end of Africa at Kwaaihoek. The farthest on record that any European had been by sea, they say.
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Also, congratulations to Pope Francis and Argentina and South America and the Catholic Church and Catholics everywhere. So on the day that a new pope is named, today, according to the Oxford book of Saints, is the feast day of Gerald of Mayo. An Irish Saint.