Footnotes of Anthony Pagden: On Tlaxcala

One of the great things about Anthony Pagden's English translation of the letters of Hernan Cortes are the extensive, explanatory footnotes. Really. Not merely lists of published sources, the expansion of footnotes here, provides much needed contexts to shed real light on this far away, long-ago world. As a central, primary text, these letters, while written hundreds of years ago, continue to have wide influence and have generated some of the most extensive commentary and analysis all by themselves. If we add to this that the events Cortes set in motion and depicts, took place in a world very foreign to his audience (and the rest of us), then, much that needs unpacked, for simple clarity, remains. Furthermore, while there was much analysis for centuries in the wake of this watershed event of the european conquest of Mexico, it was only recently that a more critical eye has been leveled at these histories and commentaries. Recent scholarship has also expanded greatly in the last forty years to include findings in archaeology, anthropology, linguistic and ethnographic studies. Pagden's translation, which first appeared in 1971 did much to spur these inquiries for readers in English and other languages, even when he 'gets it wrong'. His work can be seen as a springboard, a platform from which much else can be discovered.

So it makes sense to look at some of the contexts that Pagden supplies for his work. For example, when Cortes mentions in his second letter that he initially sent messengers to Tlaxcala, Pagden uses the occasion to give some background of the city and region. This is one example - quoted in full - of 456 such footnotes in this revision of the five letters of Cortes, published in 1986.

"Tlaxcala (probably "Land of Bread") was a province founded on the remains of the old Olmec civilization sometime in the thirteenth century A.D. The Tlaxcalteca were composed of three main ethnic groups, speaking Nahuatl, Otomi and Pinome. The Nahuas, however, soon established themselves as the dominant race, while the Otomis were ranged along the frontiers, much like march warriors. They were respected for their valor, much prized as captives by the Mexica but regarded as barbarians. The Pinomes probably became assimilated with the Otomis; they were the most backward of the three groups, and their name became a synonym for savage. Tlaxcala was divided into four confederate states, Tepeticpac, Ocotelolco, Tizatlan and Quiahuixtlan, each ruled by a Tlatoani (pl., Tlatoque) or "speaker." Matters of national importance were decided in conference, but in all other affairs the four states were autonomous. Most Amerindian states were organized on similar lines, a fact which the Spaniards, with their European notions of kingship, failed to understand for some time. When at last they did realize, the divided Indian state became a common feature of colonial rule (Charles Gibson, Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century, pp 89 ff.).

The relationship between the emergent Mexica empire and Tlaxcala was at first quite amicable. But Tlaxcala was wealthy - her riches derived from an extensive mercantile network that reached from coast to coast - and the Mexica soon began to make efforts to avail themselves of these  resources by conquest. The Tlaxcalteca resisted, and despite their ever-diminishing power managed to remain independent, though hemmed in on all sides by dependencies of the empire. Finally, together with Cholula and Huexotzinco, Tlaxcala reached an agreement with Mexico whereby, on certain prearranged occasions, they fought staged battles Xochiyaoyotl, or "Flower Wars," with each other. The purpose of these wars was to provide sacrificial victims for the altars of the victors. They also served as a proving ground for young warriors and enabled the Mexica, who invited the chieftains of the "Enemies of the House," as they were called, to witness these sacrifices, to apply diplomatic pressure upon a people they had failed to defeat in war. An appearance of open hostility was maintained for the benefit of the common people, and neither side would have passed over an opportunity such as Cortes offered to overthrow the other.

Main sources for the history of preconquest Tlaxcala are Diego Muñoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala (title varies) and the work of Tadeo de Niza, now lost, but used extensively by Ixtlilxóchitl for vol. II, chap. LXXXIII et seq. of the Historia Chichimeca. A complete bibliography may be found in Gibson, op. cit., pp. 235-291."

This is footnote 13 of Anthony Pagden, out of 119 notes just for the second letter of Cortes. A few more will be brought to attention here as the story unwinds.
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found in pp. 461-2 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