On Communication For Cortes: In Cholula, October 1519

Matthew Restall pops the bubble surrounding the false notions of communication between europeans and the locals during the conquest and colonial periods. He looks at a number of these stories in the essay, "The Lost Words of La Malinche" **, giving an overview of how communication is generally believed now to have been both expert and a failure then, on both sides. Yet, the effects of this perfect and non-existent necessity of communication are still widely misbelieved as 'proving Spanish superiority' with regard to 'outcomes'. Restall reminds us that Christopher Columbus was not really interested in communicating with the locals substantively, and his settlements ended up destroyed and overcome by the locals. On the other hand, Cortes was seen as so expert in his awareness and use of communication and actions that he was able to communicate both his current agendas and also to account for and prepare for his future needs. But also, in retrospect, he knew that his explanation of things would become 'the history of the victors'. 'With God's Grace,' of course.

Communication was a many-folded thing. Cortes needed to talk to his men, he needed to talk to his translators, and not just those times when he had to talk to the locals. There were Cempoalan friends, and now the Tlaxcalan allies, there were the Mexica ambassadors who were always nearby and whoever at present he had to interrogate, thru translators to find out what else the locals, or Montezuma, was thinking or preparing for. Cortes had to maintain things with the priests that had come along. He had to prepare things to say to the king, to his God.
In addition, maintaining solid and clear lines of communication was a necessity for Cortes as he and his company ventured inland in 1519. As they moved onward and the situation became more uncertain, he saw the clear need for a possible escape route and those lines of communication. This would necessitate a chain of friendly or subservient locals all along that path back to the camp on the coast, at Vera Cruz. Anthony Pagden agrees with Bartolomeo de las Casas and HR Wagner, that this may have been the primary reason for the massacre that occurred at Cholula. But he doesn't give much reason for that (he might elsewhere) in this footnote mentioning the idea.[n. 27, Second Letter:*.] But there is a real logic to the idea that something had to be done, if not massacre thousands of locals who, by some accounts, acted like they just wanted to help. At some point going inland, Cortes had recognised that the farther they went the harder it would be leaving again if they had to refight every town they came in contact with, on the return route. Plus, he must have felt they had to show or, prove their allegiance, fulfill promises to the Cempoala and Tlaxcalans once they had entered this Mexica ruled town and received word there that these locals were indeed waiting in ambush. It makes the story of the massacre more plausible to think that Cortes felt very pressured into doing something in Cholula, for the new allies, the locally hated foes of the Tlaxcala and Cempoalans. And after the fact, it would not be something that Cortes would want to make a big deal about to his king, or his God, if he was so pressured.

Restall reminds [p. 87**] that the translators in many instances of Spanish conquest were usually inadequate. The wide use of the Requirimiento, for instance, showed a cruel lack of awareness of the situations westerners found themselves in. This was a church-approved speech given to the locals that demanded specific impersonal obesiance in Christian terms and simulataneously established legal power over whoever heard it, whether the hearer understood what was being said or not. Since the discovery of the new world, the church had realized that they needed to convert these souls, the state realised that they had to exert power over them too. The Requirimiento became the legal way to do both. Legally, this communication had been used at the beginning of a battle. Read aloud in order to demand that any foes instantly become a Christian, renouncing personal idols and drop all antagonisms, or be killed for not obeying the requirement just made. A very real 'cease&desist' demand made at the point of a sword. 

Malintzin, the single crucial link of communication for Cortes had to exert some kind of pressure on him too. He knew he couldn't easily find another translator. She had her own survival to think of. She knew for now, that she had to stay with Cortes as they went inland, especially if the Mexica were as hostile and treacherous as they seemed to be in Cholula. Camilla Townshend says, "...if she valued her life at all, there could not have been any contest in her mind about remaining behind anywhere that the Spanish went." [p. 82 †]

We have seen Cortes use deceptive words and hidden agendas against his own men to further his agenda. Now his communications can be seen acting in other ways. The theme of terrible communications which, are then turned into perfect examples of perfection for historical purposes, will continue.

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* note 27, pp 465-66, from 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
** Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest by Matthew Restall, New York, Oxford University Press Inc., 2004

† Malintzin's Choices: an Indian Woman In The Conquest of Mexico, Camilla Townshend, University of New Mexico Press, as part of the series Dialogos, 2006