The confrontation between Moctezuma II, the tlatoani of Tenochtitlan since 1502, and Cortés, a subject of King Charles V, brought together two autocratic rulers of far-flung and sophisticated empires whose legitimacy depended on a vast but brittle superstructure. These empires had risen rapidly in preceding years. The Castilian kings did not subjugate Grenada or establish a unified kingdom over the Iberian Peninsula until 1492. In 1520, Cortés addressed his second carta, or letter, to King Charles V, who had assumed the title of Holy Roman Emperor and was on his way to Germany. Charles V had ascended to the throne in 1517.
Moctezuma II was the ninth emperor of Tenochtitlan, which had formed the Triple Alliance with the towns of Texcoco and Tacuba less than a century before to solidify its dominance over the Mexican valley. The nearby city of Tlatelolco, which is located on the northern tip of the island that they shared in Lake Texcoco, was downgraded to the position of tributary subject by the alliance in 1473. The current boundaries of the Aztec kingdom are as follows: east to the Tehuantepec isthmus, west to the borders with Michoacan and Tarasco, and south to the Gulf Coast. These two empires had developed sophisticated means of maintaining their dominance through deference and symbolic, lavish displays of riches.
The Mexica required tribute from their subjugated people in the form of food, money, feathers, exotic animals, and other luxuries in addition to sacrificial victims. They did not require military service. The act of offering human sacrifices, primarily to Huitzilipochtli, the battle god and patron deity of the Mexica people, was a terrifying sight to behold, as the victim’s beating heart was severed from his chest and his blood was spilled over an image of the god. Although the Spanish invaders were horrified by the Aztec practice of human sacrifice, their king was as skilled at maintaining an absolute monopoly on violence.
Public executions of criminals were commonplace, and the Inquisition was authorized to torture and mutilate its victims. In a state that upheld an ideal of racial and religious purity, the conversos and moriscos—subjects who had been compelled to convert from Judaism or Islam—came under great scrutiny.
Additionally, the Mexica imposed a kind of paranoid tyranny. According to Inga Clendennin, the Aztecs’ perception of “living on a razor’s edge” (29), or the volatility of their existence and influence, was seldom hidden by acts of ferocious force. Up to 150,000 people lived on the island metropolis in the brackish lake, but Cortés soon realized that the city was susceptible to crop failure, drought, and disruption of its freshwater supply, which was supplied by an aqueduct that delivered water from springs several miles distant at Chapultepec.
It seems as though Cortés had an innate tendency to target Moctezuma with his murderous plans, so much so that Moctezuma was transformed from a villainous foe into a kindred spirit, or what René Girard refers to as a mimetic adversary, united by a shared ambition to rule over Mexico. In a strategically astute maneuver, Cortés appropriated Moctezuma’s absolute power, implying that the two regimes were actually the same, rather than undermining it since an absolutist monarchy provides no foundation for such a challenge. Cortés had a natural advantage over his opponent.
Moctezuma was unfamiliar with Spain, and Cortés’s rapid acquisition of native American knowledge was due to the fact that this was the first European conquest of continental North America. Like later leaders of Native American resistance like Pontiac and Tecumseh, Moctezuma was unable to deftly use the language of European politics and diplomacy against his enemies or to combine with one conquering power against another. Moctezuma may have learned that he was already familiar with what he found in Spanish political norms if he had had more time to study. The form of king-pleading letters was a common rhetorical device in Spanish colonial works, such as Cortés’s Letters.
The monarch served as the “fountainhead of justice,” the last option for the downtrodden, the injured, and the disgruntled. Every provincial official or missionary felt authorized to appeal to the top, and no deputy was safe from such a challenge. Hence, a high concentration of authority carried inherent vulnerability.This was the writing style used by Cortés. He was a vassal who had openly defied instructions from his superior, the governor of Cuba, Diego Velazquez. He had appealed straight to the king over Velasquez’s head, blithely justifying his insubordination and promised tribute in the shape of gold that was too extravagant to refuse.
Cortés alternatively presented himself as Charles’s equal and servant, his messenger and substitute. Cortés was a cunning manipulator of the contrasts that a world full of absolutist, imperial rulers suggested. For instance, in the fall of 1519, Cortés described traveling toward Tenochtitlan and meeting a cacique in the area, most likely at Zautla.
“After I had spoken to him of Your Majesty and of the reason for my coming to these parts, I asked him if he was a vassal of Mutezuma, or owed some other allegiance,” Cortés wrote. He expressed amazement at my inquiry and inquired as to who among us was not a subordinate of Mutezuma, implying that he is now the world’s ruler. In response, I informed him of Your Majesty’s immense strength as well as the several other princes who were Your Highness’s vassals and were superior to Mutezuma.
This conveys a subject’s rhetoric of flattery as well as a haughty declaration of European superiority, but it also displays some distorted reasoning. Since the entire globe must recognize an absolute king, he must be total and tolerate no rivals wherever. As a result, he must be aware of the entire world. In addition to being treasonous, paying homage to a different king is unimaginable.
Cortés may have felt Moctezuma’s potential to take advantage of this ludicrous logic which holds that Mexico is a part of Spain or that Spain is a part of Mexico even if the majority of people in each country were unaware of the other. Moctezuma must be “Your vassal” since “Your Majesty” Charles is the ultimate ruler. Cortés suggests that all he has to do to become the undisputed ruler of this region is to obtain tribute from Moctezuma, referring to himself as “Your servant.”
Moctezuma’s two speeches, which Cortés included in his second “Letter,” effect this transfer of power by realizing this imagined dictatorship. Although these speeches appear fake to us, it’s vital to remember that Moctezuma’s speeches matched a naturalistic pattern of classical and Renaissance history at the time, and Cortés’s letters were the first account of the conquest to be published.