The capitulation of Moctezuma was probably not quite as simple as Cortes and even the later recollections of the local Mexica would remember and relate. The versions of Cortes and Diaz differ on central points. Other recollections and manuscripts reveal inconsistencies among the different versions and compared with other portions of the overall tale, a strange lack of information about the details of this capture and complete capitulation is apparent.
Camilla Townshend helpfully provides a guide first, to underscore the inconsistencies among the versions and second, to posit motives for Cortes, Moctezuma and the other parties directly engaged. A generation later the locals tried to understand why Moctezuma had given up so completely. Perhaps he had been temporizing with his enemies - he always did - waiting for a time to strike. He welcomed guests and treated them to what could be offered and when they would leave satisfied, then he would strike. But the time never came. So the later Mexica would tell themselves.
Townshend goes farther and makes a clear case for a combination of motives for the great ruler, based on a basic analysis of the local political situation. For example, Moctezuma knew,
"... the Spaniards generally won their battles.... The heartland of the empire accepted the arrogance of their Mexica neighbors in exchange for peace and the privilege of living close to power. If the Mexica could not deliver a quick victory on the outskirts of their own capital, they were politically doomed. If the emperor's army could not win quickly and easily here - and he knew for certain from his spies and generals that it could not - then they could not fight." [p. 90]
Townshend quotes both Cortes' secretary Gomara and, Diaz affirmatively in this. On the one hand, Gomara said both that it would be dishonorable for Moctezuma to fight and lose near the capital and also, that Moctezuma did not want more trouble for himself. This of course, would imply that those other locals would immediately rise against him - the Otomi, the Tlaxcala - even if he did win against the Spaniards. She quotes Diaz to affirm that Moctezuma knew they would attack in the surrounding towns as well. Perhaps, as she states, the locals or Moctezuma already had a longer view in mind: the Spaniards had come already and would likely come again.[pp. 90-91]
Next, our guide shows a series of disputes over the the first version of the quick capture of Moctezuma. She says it probably didn't happen, despite both the record of Cortes and the later Nahua remembrances of the Codex Florentinus. She even supplies motives for the early acceptance of Cortes' claim that Moctezuma had been captured at all. It would do no good for people like Gomara and Diaz to dispute such a tale. The problem with the story of the quick capture is that there are also a number of sources which say that Moctezuma continued being rather busy being emperor even after the Spaniards had arrived and been brought in and housed and fed and given tours and ready access to the great ruler and his ministers. Meanwhile,
"... Moctezuma continued to live in various palaces, to go on hunting expeditions, to meet regularly with his advisers, and to give all orders regarding the operation of the kingdom. And except when Malintzin was present, his supposed captors never knew what he and his companions were talking about." [p. 93]Townshend acknowledges in a footnote here, that 'Francis Brooks wrote a pathbreaking article' on this notion - that Moctezuma was largely unfettered at this time - in "Motecuzoma Xocoyotl, Hernan Cortes, and Bernal Diaz del Castillo: The Construction of an Arrest," Hispanic American Historical Review 75 (1995).
She also cites further sources for discrepancy in the Chronicle of Andrés de Tapia (a participant), the priest named Motolinia who came later and who left the capture out of his story, as well, and the later court cases that came up in subsequent decades.
Andres de Tapia's story she singles out as revealing several details of Moctezuma's relative freedom. There is the wealth in Moctezuma's dinner cupboard when the Spaniards were there, that Moctezuma had sent local messengers to find out about still more newcomers who came ashore in the new year, as well as the close-quarters and general busyness of the Spaniards themselves while they were there in the city. [pp. 94-95]
The motive of Cortes was much more straightforward. The goal of Spanish conquerors of the previous generations (a tactic used against Moslem princes up until the retaking of Granada in 1492), was to first capture the leader, make him beholden to the Spanish - by persuasion, coercion or force -while still being held responsible for his holdings. This is what Cortes wanted. The fact it did not turn out that way with Moctezuma as chosen captive-leader would cause many problems for Cortes. But it was also what Cortes wanted, in a different way.
A year later when Motecuzoma was dead, Cortes wrote to his king Charles V, telling him that this great local king had given up and ceded all his lands to Charles in Spain. This was a legal move, because once a king can be said to rule, then he can come in and take possession of the land and use its resources to battle insurgents or put down disturbances. But first, they had to say it was now a possession of the king, in Spain. This, what appears today as a kind of sleight of hand, was precisely how the legal understanding worked in Spain in the sixteenth century. Again, not at all how the locals in mesoamerican saw themselves and their relations with others. They continued to sacrifice to their gods.
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quotes and pagination from 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
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