Cortes, Diaz Accounts Differ Concerning Tlaxcalans: September 7, 1519

There was another day or two of intense fighting in Tlaxcala following a couple previous days of the same. Bernal Diaz went into detail discussing how they would prepare, how the fight would commence, the fields full of warriors arrayed against the relatively small band of europeans and how 'many sword thrusts' and horsemen, cannon and escopetera, efficient use of crossbows and lances all contributed to the daily retreating of the Tlaxcalans and the nighttime necessity of sentries.

But by the seventh or eighth of September, Diaz tells us, the skills that Doña Marina brought as a native, to negotiate with the Tlaxcalans had become essential. Her strength and fearless attitude may indeed have changed the balance in these negotiations and the battles [p. 125]. Her story will be looked at in some detail, later. Eventually, in a few days, the Tlaxcalans were brought over to become allies with the Cortes faction. Their role in the battles against the Mexica of Motecuhzoma would become, perhaps, the most crucial role in overcoming the dominance of those at the center of power in Tenochtitlan.

Cortes does not explain it this way at all. Undeniably by the hand of Cortes himself, after the capital was taken in 1520 and with power firmly in his hands, he wrote his own take on the march west. But again, there are many differences in the stories. In addition to variations in numbers vanquished and villages burnt, the second letter of Cortes, looking back, details these crucial conflicts with the Tlaxcala with a different focus. The time it took, simple details of where and how their camp was maintained, the early ambush, the fierceness of the warriors, the dependency on God in all things for the Christians, all are told in just the same manner as the story in Bernal Diaz, written and published years later. But Cortes makes little mention of negotiation at all with the Tlaxcalans. What he describes is much more like capitulation, a surrender by the Tlaxcalans after days of fighting.

These are days described by Cortes, going out before dawn with over a hundred men or sometimes hundreds more, to set fire to as many villages as they could. These morning sorties setting fire to first, five or six villages one morning (perhaps September 4), then, in the next day, ten more, is not described by Diaz at all.

When chieftains are described as coming to negotiate with Cortes, perhaps on the fifth of September, he is warned, so he says, by the friendly Cempoala that these were really spies trying to find the weaknesses of the Spaniards. With this knowledge, Cortes captured one, then some more and then some more, and they all told the same story. They had come to find out strengths and weaknesses and also were forced to reveal that there were many, many more in the valley beyond and that the forces of Xicotencatl would come at night in a sneak attack. Cortes says he had all their hands cut off and sent them back. This entire story is not described by Diaz until later, after the nighttime attack.

The nighttime sneak attack occurred (perhaps, by Diaz' chronology on the night of Sep 6/7), but Cortes says he knew it was coming and with horsemen and cannon, took the element of surprise himself and ran first at these forces of the younger Xicotencatl, who turned around and escaped. Diaz does not describe Cortes as leading this nighttime counter-attack. Rather, he says the whole camp was ready [lxvi, pp 123-4] and that while the horsemen did give chase and about twenty of the foes were killed, he only found out about this the next day.

Diaz also didn't seem to know this nighttime attack was coming, but instead tells it as part of what the messengers were told in their negotiation with the Tlaxcalans. A kind of parallel narrative told as happening away from where he was at the time. This is where the stories of Diaz and Cortes diverge.

Diaz, after the story of the nighttime attack, goes on at length, exasperated, in a run-on sentence of the desperation of the Spaniard's state [p. 124]. Then, he consolingly assures us that Cortes listened to his men, seeking their counsel in all things, hearing them when they told him to release the prisoners and sue for peace [p. 125].

Cortes tells a different story. In his version, after that attack, and they 'had rested somewhat', Cortes and his men set out at night, attacked a couple small towns, but did not set fire to them, he says, and then attacked a town with more than 20,000 houses. This caused such a tumult that the locals immediately sued for peace.

For Diaz this day also came, but as a result of negotiation and after a speech by the elder Xicotencatl and a glowing description of Doña Marina. The nighttime attack of Cortes is not mentioned at all.

The Tlaxcalans would offer their allegiance to Cortes and would welcom them into the city where the Europeans would stay for a couple weeks. The nature of this alliance as well as the reasons for it, whether borne from pragmatism or from fear still depends on which of the accounts one follows.
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All quotes and pagination fromthat of 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

material from the Second Letter, of Hernán  Cortés: Letters From Mexico, translated, edited and with a new intro by Anthony Pagden, as a Yale Nota Bene book, Yale University Press, USA 2001