brightly. Bird-songs filled the air, and hardly a breath of wind moved the leaves, glittering in the brilliant sunlight, as these bronzed men of iron sinews moved sternly on to the demoniac deeds of war. The natives, in preparation for the conflict, had been all the night rallying their forces. The shore was lined with their war-canoes, and the banks were covered with Indian troops drawn up in martial array. Gorgeous plumes decorated their persons, and the rays of the sun were reflected from their polished weapons. As soon as the Spanish boats appeared, the vast army of the natives raised shouts of defiance, and the ear was almost deafened with the clangor of their trumpets and drums.
The battle.
The charge.
Victory.
The battle soon commenced. The sky was almost darkened by the shower of arrows thrown by those upon the land. The warriors in the canoes fought fiercely with their javelins. The conflict was bloody, but short. Native valor could avail but little against European discipline and art. The spears, stones, and arrows of the natives fell almost harmless upon the helmets and shields of the Spaniards; but the bullets from the guns of the invaders swept like hail-stones through the crowded ranks of the natives, unimpeded by their frail weapons of defense. Cortez himself headed a charge which broke resistlessly into the hostile ranks. Appalled by the terrific thunder and lightning of the musketry, the Indians soon scattered and fled, leaving the ground covered with their slain.
March to Tabasco.
Cortez now reviewed his troops in triumph upon the shore. He found that fourteen were wounded, but none slain. To attend to the wounded and to rest his exhausted men, he again encamped. The bloodstained banner of the cross, which they had so signally dishonored, floated proudly over their intrenchments. Prayers were offered and mass celebrated in honor of the victory achieved by Christian arms against idolaters. The next morning the Spaniards marched unresisted to Tabasco, the capital of the province, a large town upon the river, but a few miles above the place where the invaders had effected a landing. The inhabitants, men, women, and children, fled from the place in dismay.
Possession taken of the town.
Gathering of the natives.
Cortez took possession of the town in the name of the King of Spain. But the whole surrounding region was now aroused. The natives, in numbers which could not be counted, gathered in the vicinity of Tabasco, and organized their forces anew, to repel, if possible, the terrible foe. They were assembled on the great plain of Ceutla. Cortez had anticipated this, and was also gathering his strength for a decisive battle. He sent to the ships for six pieces of cannon, his whole cavalry of sixteen horses, and every available man. A few only were left to guard the vessels. This powerful re-enforcement soon arrived. Thus strengthened, his whole army was called together to celebrate the solemnities of mass, and to implore the blessing of God in extending the triumphs of the cross over the kingdom of Satan. Thus they marched forth, with powder, and ball, and neighing steeds, to the merciless slaughter of those brave men who were fighting for their country and their homes.
The two armies meet.
The conflict.
The Spaniards now advanced to meet their foes. It was a lovely morning, the 25th of March. The natives, in point of civilization, raised far above the condition of savages, had large fields in a high state of cultivation, waving with the rich vegetation of the tropics. After a march of three or four miles through a country cultivated like a garden, they arrived at the ground occupied by the native army. The lines of their encampments were so extended and yet so crowded that the Spaniards estimated their numbers at over forty thousand. To meet them in the strife Cortez had but six hundred men. But his terrible engines of destruction made his force more powerful than theirs. The natives were ready for the battle. They greeted their assailants with a war-whoop, which rose in thunder tones over the plain, and showered upon them volleys of arrows, sling-stones, and javelins. At this first discharge, seventy Spaniards were wounded and one was slain. The conflict soon raged with all imaginable horrors. The natives fought with the courage of desperation. They seemed even regardless of the death-dealing muskets. And when the terrible cannon, with its awful roar, opened huge gaps in their ranks, manfully they closed up, and with new vigor pressed the onset. The odds were so fearful that for some time it seemed quite doubtful on which side victory would rest.
The cavalry charge.
Cortez, heading his cavalry, swept around the plain, and, by a circuitous route, came unperceived upon the rear of the tumultuous foe. The sixteen horsemen, clad in steel, urging their horses to their utmost speed, with loud shouts and sabres gleaming in the air, plunged into the midst of the throng. Their keen-edged swords fell on the right hand and on the left upon the almost naked bodies of the natives. At the same moment, the energies of musketry and artillery were plied with murderous carnage.
Terror of the natives.
The fight.
Estimates of the number killed.
The natives had never seen a horse before. They thought the rider and the steed one animal. As these terrific monsters, half human, half beast, came bounding into their midst, cutting down and trampling beneath iron hoofs all who stood in the way, while at the same time the appalling roar of the cannonade seemed to shake the very hills, the scene became too awful for mortal courage to endure. The whole mighty mass, in uncontrollable dismay, fled from the presence of foes of such demoniac aspect and energy. The slaughter of these poor Indians was so awful that some of the Spaniards extravagantly estimated the number left dead upon the field at thirty thousand. Though many of the Spaniards were wounded, but two were killed.
Cortez immediately assembled his army under a grove upon the field of battle to give thanks to God for the victory. The pomp and pageantry of war gave place to the pomp and pageantry of the Church. Canonical robes and banners fluttered in the breeze, processions marched, the smoke of incense floated in the air, and mass, with all its imposing solemnities, was celebrated in the midst of prayers and thanksgivings.
"Then," says Diaz, "after dressing our wounds with the fat of Indians whom we found dead thereabout, and having placed good guards round our post, we ate our supper and went to our repose."
The declaration.
Under the placable influence of these devotions, the conqueror sent word to the vanquished that he would now forgive them if they would submit unconditionally to his authority. But he declared that if they refused this, he would ride over the land, and put every thing in it, man, woman, and child, to the sword.
The natives submissive.
The spirit of resistance was utterly crushed. The natives immediately sent a delegation to him laden with presents. To impress these embassadors still more deeply with a sense of his power, he exhibited before them the martial evolutions of his cavalry, and showed them the effects of his artillery as the balls were sped crashing through the trees of the forest. The natives were now effectually conquered, and looked upon the Spaniards as beings of supernatural powers, wielding the terrors of thunder and lightning, and whom no mortal energies could resist.
The new religion.
St. Mary of Victory.
They had become as little children. This Cortez thought a very suitable frame of mind to secure their conversion. He recommended that they should cast down their idols, and accept instead the gods of papal Rome. The recommendation of Cortez was potent over the now pliant natives. They made no opposition while the soldiers, whose hands were hardly yet washed of the blood of their relatives, hewed down their images. With very imposing ceremonies, the religion of the conquerors was instituted in the temples of Yucatan, and, in honor of the Virgin Mary, the name of Tabasco was changed into St. Mary of Victory.
Motives which actuated the adventurers.
In all this tremendous crime there was apparently no hypocrisy. Human motives will seldom bear