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000783 Visit since May 5, 2005
| TRIUMPHS and TRAGEDY... A history of the Mexican people (part 33rd). |
| By Prof. German Estrada - May 2005 |
A NEW SPAIN
 Merstizajes of the New World
III
Settlement, the nuts and bolts of conquest, was left
to private enterprise. Both unable and unwilling to shoulder the task, the
crown entrusted it to individuals. They came to the New World , to quote a wag,
"to serve God, his Majesty and to earn wealth and fame." Or, as Miguel de Cervantes
said, "the New World became a refuge and haven for all the poor devils of Spain."
That statement carried, above all the first three decades of the sixteen century dire
implications for the peoples of Anahuac and their neighbors. Regardless of the rhetoric
of allegiance to God and king, the conquest was a fortune hunt.
In 1521, when Tenochtitlan succumbed, the soldiers of Cortés had
not earned a penny in almost three years. Most of the plunder had been shipped home to
the crown or lost in the bloody Noche Triste. Early explorations uncovered no hidden
deposits of gold or silver. The Spaniards, of course, continue their feverish hunt
for precious metals; in the meantime, the land was apparently the sole source of wealth.
But without men to work it, it had little value, so the Indian became the sine qua non of
Spanish welfare.
Only by exploring the land, which required Indian labor, could the Spanish colony flourish.
Thus began the rape of the Indian, especially brutal between 1521 and 1550. The pillage of
the Indian community including the taking of women, "the most beautiful and the virgins,"
according to the natives of Santo Tomás Ajusco; the Spaniards "were never satisfied."
The hunt for labor and tribute, which the Spaniards exacted from the
Indian, helps explains the never-ending expeditions to explore, pacify, and enlarge the
boundaries of New Spain. Even before the dust had settled on Tenochtitlan, Cortés dispatched
expeditions to the four winds. Before long, Spanish soldiers had seized all of Mexico, marched
into Central America and braved the arid region lying between the Californias and New Mexico.
In this adventure, Spaniards faced untold dangers, beginning with the vast expanses of uncharted
lands.
The subjugation of the Maya of Yucatán, actually never completed until
the middle of the nineteen century, lasted for a decade and a half, from 1527 to 1542.
The mastery of Yucatán was entrusted to Francisco de Montejo, a companion of Juan de
Grijalva on his expedition to Yucatán and later of Cortés. With the blessings of the crown,
which named him adelantado (the head of an expedition), Montejo sailed from Spain in 1527
with four hundred men. In 1540, with the pacification of Yucatán still unfinished, an old and
exhausted Montejo delegated the subjugation of the Maya to his son. Montejo El Mozo (the Young One)
completed what his father had set out to do, founding Mérida, the capital city of Yucatán, in 1542.
The pacification of southern Mexico started in 1521, when Cortés sent Gonzalo de
Sandoval to Coatzalcoalcos (Puerto México). Luis Marín went off to impose Spanish control on the
Zapotecs of Oaxaca and, to do so, pushed south into Chiapas, where he established a town. Chiapas
resisted the Spaniards until 1527, when Diego de Mazariegos subsued its inhabitants. When
Cristobal de Olid, ordered to Honduras about 1523, succumbed to the entreaties of Diego Velázquez,
Cortés determined to punish his erstwhile companion, followed him. On this march, unnecessary because
his allies had already beheaded Olid. Cortés spent nineteen months trekking through Tabasco, Campeche,
and Yucatán. The natives of southern México, unlike their ancient neighbors to the north, weathered these
expeditions because they had the good fortune, says one scholar, to inhabit a region bereft of gold and silver
"that held little potential for commercial profit by Spanish standards and hence little attraction for Spanish settlers."
Santo Domingo Church (1547-60) in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas Source: From the book Triumphs and Tragedy, a History of the Mexican People by his author Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, and with his authorization. (. (W.W. Norton & Company. New York-London).
In the next issue we'll continue with Chapter III of this fascinating book: A NEW SPAIN
Prof. Germán Estrada
estradanav@yahoo.com
Prof. Germán
Estrada is the author of the best selling book,
"México
Mágico: Everything You Wanted To Know
About... But Nobody Told You..." available in Puerto
Vallarta at The Net House, Mail Boxes, Etc., Books,
Books as well as directly from the author by internet.
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