CORTES AND MONTEZUMA

Life Stories for Young People

HERNANDO CORTES

Translated from the German of
Joachim Heinrich Campe

BY
GEORGE P. UPTON
Translator of “Memories,” “Immensee,” etc.

WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIONS

CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1911

Copyright
A. C. McClurg & Co.
1911
Published September, 1911

THE · PLIMPTON · PRESS
[W · D · O]
NORWOOD · MASS · U · S · A

Translator’s Preface

The story of the career of Hernando Cortesduring his conquest of Mexico is a storyof extraordinary courage, undaunted resolution,and hideous cruelty. It is a story of thesubjection of a “little people,” overcome andenslaved by a superior nation, which, in its lustfor gold and territorial aggrandizement, left nomethods of stratagem, cunning, military science,and barbarous cruelty untried to achieve its purpose.Granted that the early Emperors of Mexicowere tyrannical in their treatment of the nativesand that their religious rites were accompaniedby human sacrifices and cannibalism, Mexicancruelty pales before the horrible scenes enacted byso-called civilized Spain in this dreadful Mexicandrama. The three principal figures are HernandoCortes, Montezuma, and Guatemozin—Cortes, theconqueror; Montezuma, the weak-spirited Emperor,victim of his own people’s fury; Guatemozin, thepatriot. Cortes was a born adventurer, and in hisyouth possessed of skill in all military exercises.He was a man of consummate cunning and captivatingaddress, of soaring ambition and markedability as an administrator and general. Apparentlyhe never knew what it was to fear, and consequentlyno danger was great enough to appall him.He was so skilled in stratagem that no situation wasdevious enough to prevent its solution. He had thesame greed of gold as all Spaniards of his day had,and no means of obtaining it were considered dishonorableas long as they were successful. Butcourageous, resolute, and ambitious as Cortes was,he will go down through the ages branded withinfamy for his treatment of Montezuma, for thefrightful massacres at Cholula and Otumba, for hisexecution of Guatemozin, last of the Aztec Emperors,for the burning of caciques and chiefs which heordered, and for the countless atrocities of his menwhich he permitted. In his old age, like Columbus,he suffered from the neglect of an ungrateful Court,but, while we can sympathize with Columbus inthat situation, we can feel no sympathy for Cortesas we recall the black chapters of his career.

G. P. U.

Chicago, July, 1911.

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