Whose Idea Was This: The First Letter Returns To Spain: After Veracruz

The letter that is called the First Letter of Cortes, sent according to Diaz on July 26, 1519 to be delivered to the crown in Spain, making requests to settle along the Mexican coast, first had to get there and be received. That they were sent was one thing. That they were sent with a representative that could be trusted, another thing. That this representative would then be accepted, letter received and then heard or read by the king and his ministers, still more improbable. That all that did in fact was known to happen, that Diaz was able to relate and put the story of this trans-Atlantic communication into a - more or less - concurrent part of his larger story, was certainly helped because he wrote this account nearly forty years later.
Perhaps this is why in Diaz that we get this story, spread out as it is and with certain elements of it repeated. At one point he says,

"... do not find me guilty because I leave something and wander off the course of events to talk about what happens further on." [p. 102]

In the First Letter of Cortes, a certain rationale of intent, an argument is offered for the establishment of a settlement and colony in what would be called New Spain. Diaz offers the same rationale when he claims in his chapter xlii that the men wanted nothing else than to settle immediately and begin to work exclusively for God, and king, and themselves, rather than anyone else. It is only later, in chapter liii, that this discussion is mentioned to have occcurred later, after returning from resolving the issues in Cempoala and Cingapacinga.
For when they arrived, a ship had come from Cuba, says Diaz, bearing news from Spain, that Diego Velazquez had been granted the right to settle and colonize these lands. This was the news he says, that got them all talking, and the Velazquez loyalists excited, and the escalation of factions occurred.

Yet, because of the way the story is told there seems not only a catch-22 for the Velazquez loyalists - who in fact began to lose their bargaining power as a result of this info - but also, one finds, a series of (I don't know what else to call them but) prior sine qua non intentions, set up to justify what was about to happen. That is, if you set out to find out what caused this, you find yourself thinking it was probably Cortes' idea but, yet, he had said it was the men's idea, in that first letter. On the other hand, Diaz said it was both the men's idea and Cortes' actions blaming it on the men, but that was his idea, too. Without Cortes the men would not and without the men, Cortes would not have gone through what was to follow. That is the story they both told, with these very accounts.

And the time these things occurred happened in different contexts, as well. The talks were after they had resolved issues with the locals, they were after they received rich gifts from the Mexica, they were after the letter and captains from Cuba arrived, they were after other disturbances brought up by the Velazquez loyalists.  Probably there was a bit of all this and maybe it's just partly how Diaz remembered it, in bits and pieces. Still, the causality question remains unanswerable in just such a way that makes it more compelling, in the telling, too.

In this most recent version, then [chp liii], it should be mentioned that the two representatives to be sent, 'men of business' Diaz reminds, went around and got the members to sign and affirm that they wanted to give their portion of gold that had been found so far, to the King, rather than keep it for themselves. This went in the First Letter, according to Diaz, along with the mention of Cortes being voted as their chief, and that Cortes too, wrote a letter, 'an honest report, but they had not seen it' and then that this all went, intended for Spain. Pilots were chosen to steer the ship 'through the Bahamas' and thus avoid Cuba and Velazquez.

But, instead, word was spread on Cuba before the letter and representatives of this Cortes faction, went to Spain. Francisco de Montejo insisted they stop at his farm there. Puertocarrero had got sick and more provisions were needed, Meanwhile, on Cuba, a sailor went from town to town telling everyone, Diaz says, what the company with Cortes were doing in Newest Spain and that the sailor had been sent by Montejo. [chp liv]

Velazquez was furious, blamed the man who had encouraged him to let Cortes go in the first place, and ordered two ships to head these messengers off when they reached the Bahamas and also, all the gold they were carrying back to Spain. But when they got there, these were told the ship had already sailed through the sandy shoals and was on its way.

"If Diego Velazquez was miserable before he sent the ships, he was even more distressed when he saw them return ....  friends advised him to send a complaint ... to the bishop of Burgos, who was president of the Indies ... to the island of Santo Domingo, to the Royal Audencia that resided there, and to the Jeronymite friars who were acting as governors there...." [pp. 100-101]

But Diaz tells us, without saying when, that these friars became convinced that Cortes and his company were doing the right thing by sending all their share of gold back to the King and that this distressed Velazquez further. He not only sent representatives back to Spain, but, says Diaz, spent the next year going up and down Cuba raising a fleet of eighteen ships and some 1300 men to go to Mexico and capture Cortes. Velazquez put Panfilo de Narvaez in charge of this new fleet. All this happens in Diaz chapter lv.

Diaz in his chapter lvi says, that the ship with the gold, and the First Letter, and the representatives of the Cortes faction, did arrive in Valladolid. But the king of Spain had recently been made emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and was in Flanders learning what was needed to become one. This meant the Bishop of Burgos, who Cortes thought was more friendly to Velazquez was in charge, as president of the Indies. A position he profited from. Sharp words passed between the Bishop and the representatives of Cortes, Diaz assures us. In the end the emperor heard about the gold and gave his permission, but that came much later. And of course, much else would happen in the meantime.
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All quotes from Bernal Díaz de Castillo: The True History of the Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012