Tlaxcalans Frighten Cortes Faction: September 4, 1519

The europeans had entered the region known as Tlaxcala on their journey into the interior of Mexico. The day before they had encountered fortifications and had been ambushed. The next day after negotiations failed, a larger battle began. Our Editors summarize chapters lxiii-iv of Bernal Diaz, explaining that one Xicotencatl el mozo (the younger) was waiting with 'more than 40,000 warriors' [p. 117]. The battle raged on until 'eight important chieftains' were killed and 'the Indians retreated in good order' [p. 118]. The story of a horse that was captured and killed and that of its rider Pedro de Morón gets quoted at length by the editors. Many people were killed and some prisoners taken. The next day, they say, Cortes tried to negotiate with some of the prisoners. But the Tlaxcalans would not agree, listing five more chieftains each with 10,000 warriors, waiting to be able to honor their gods with the blood of the newcomers [p. 119].
Immediately after this, in the text of Diaz that the editors provide, a presentation by the locals, of their colors - literally - banners with insignia are shown and explained to Cortes and his men, in this negotiation. Diaz himself doesn't draw out or dwell on the conclusions of what this seemed to mean to the europeans, but this presentation following two days of battle, seems to have literally put the fear of God into many of them.

"They said that they brought out their banner and standard, which was a white bird that looks like an ostrich with its wing outstretched as if ready to fly; each captaincy had its device and livery, because this is how the caciques differentiated themselves from one another, as do the dukes and counts in our Castile. Everything I have said here we took to be true, because some Indians from among those we had taken prisoner, whom we released that day, said the same thing very clearly, although we had not believed it at that time. When we understood that, because we are men and fear death, many of us, even the majority of us, confessed to the Mercerdarian father and the secular priest Juan Diaz, who were hearing cofessions the whole night; and we commended ourselves to God, that he might protect us from being defeated. This is what we did until the next day."

The statement, by Diaz in the middle of this paragraph is not easy to interpret.  What could it mean, when he says that, "Everything ... we took to be true ... although we had not believed it at the time", except that they learned something new here? That the forces that were attacking them were not only vast in number, but very highly organized, even 'as the dukes and counts in our Castile'. This must have been a sobering realization for them, made more devestating if they hadn't thought this vast organization was possible, before.
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All quotes and pagination 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