The exhibition of Hernán Cortés In Madrid it arrives for a few centuries late. The Extremaduran conqueror is, certainly, One of the most relevant characters in the history of Spain and America. She starred in one of the greatest feats of all time, the conquest of the Aztec empire, that dwarfs the most daring adventure film and pales the most crazy chivalrous fantasies. But, however, the gates of glory are closed to him. Shortly after the 500 years of that epic, It doesn't even have a statue in Madrid, Capital of that complexed Spain whose domains widened until Mexico current and southern the United States. Let's not say in the DF, where a bust of his would surely not resist foot beyond a few hours.
Cortés have to be content with a statue in his Medellín natal, the obligatory recognition of the Pacense municipality to his most illustrious son. But not even there the memory of the conqueror is safe from the unlearn. A few years ago, coinciding with the Bicentennial of the Independence of Mexico, His effigy woke up painted red. The boarters that perpetrated the patochad.
Shortly after the 500 years of that epic, Hernán Cortés does not even have a statue in Madrid
Cortés is the main victim of the black legend that the enemies of that empire where the Sun never set out conscientiously for the old Europe to try to change the course of history. And they got it -Thanks, especially, that Spain put a lot on its part-, Leaving that yes a few bodies along the way. The most illustrious is that of the Extremaduran conqueror, whose memory continues, 500 years after, Soterrada under a cluster of prejudices and thick words, as heavy as a gigantic mountain of rubble.
I am not a historian, but only a journalist who asked questions on the path of knowledge. I have been reading everything that falls into my hands on Hernán Cortés for more than twenty years, especially original chronicles of the conquest (Perhaps because of this professional deformation of always going to the direct sources of the news), And I'm still asking me the same question: Why?
The shelves of history are full of forgers of empires that delimited their borders with a rib of blood. Two of the greatest, Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great (undoubted referents for the conqueror of Mexico) They did not succeed in their military campaigns with an olive branch between the teeth. Cortés either, But he has not been forgiven.
The shelves of history are full of forjadores de empires that delimited their borders with blood, But Cortés has not been forgiven
In the collective imagination, Often built with materials as weak as the straw hut of the child's fable pig, Cortes is a cruel conqueror that submitted the greatest empire in America, With permission from the Maya, with only 400 men after burning their ships on the coasts of Veracruz. Neither is true. Just a couple of blows, Like those of the story of the story, They are enough to disrupt them.
Cortés conquered the empire of Moctezuma with 400 Spanish, yes, But if that deed could be completed successfully it was, especially, Thanks to the indigenous troops that joined their cause, fed up as their villages of Azteca tyranny were, that their children ended up sacrificed in the main temple of Tenochtitlan (The current DF) and of the abusive taxes imposed on them. The conquest of Mexico, led by Cortés, It is above anything else a Mexican company. That apparent contradiction, still pending assume for modern Mexico, as mestizo as the Extremaduran conqueror wanted, It is a Gordian knot that prevents, five centuries later, that Mexico reconcile with Cortés "with its virtues and its defects", as the great wanted Octavio Paz.
The conquest of Mexico, led by Cortés, It is above anything else a Mexican company
Nor ordered to burn their ships so that the soldiers could not return to Cuba and followed the way to the heart of the Aztec empire. Although the epic rezum scene everywhere, The truth is that (As the chroniclers of the time attest to the time), Cortés ordered the ship in the sand, disable them so that there was no going back. But there were no flames or more fire than the one who burned in the heart of the conqueror to enter the unknown to the meeting of Moctezuma.
Who? Black legend on Cortes owes a lot to the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas And his "very brief relationship of the destruction of the Indies". Of the houses, indulgent with many other conquerors, He was very severe with Extremaduran, and denounced hard the cruelty that the Spaniards tried in New Spain to the indigenous people, enslaving them to their benefit. The image of the eldest conquerors of gold torture the Indians has been sculpted in the collective consciousness. Everything, course, It was Hernán Cortés' fault.
Fray Bartolomé de las Casas denounced a reality that existed, But after justice he yearned, he ended up behaving unfairly
What does not tell of the houses is that those same indigenous people were enslaved by the Aztecs, who own their lives, being able to even deliver them to be sacrificed to their gods. What does not tell of the houses is that he himself came to the New World from Spain with a slave cargo… black, Because the slavery of the black race did not hold him, apparently, Too many moral reproaches. What does not tell of the houses is that the first labor legislation of Mexico, in 1524, He already prohibited colonizers from working in the field for women and children under twelve years old (When today our civilization has not yet been able to end child exploitation). They were brutal behaviors in brutal times.
What does not count on the houses is that, In those years, In Spain, slaves still were shook and burned homosexuals. Behaviors that, five centuries later, We have not even been able to eradicate around the world (regrettably, In the 21st century, torture and enslave and even homosexuals are persecuted in many countries). The Dominico denounced a reality that existed, But after justice he yearned, he ended up behaving unfairly, by generalizing those behaviors to all colonizers and blaming the high death of the indigenous people to the cruelty of the Spaniards, There was, When the truth is that the epidemics and diseases were the cause of the vast majority of deaths.
They were brutal behaviors in brutal times: In those years in Spain, slaves still were shocked
Tlaxcala is, probably, the most significant exponent of the reluctance of the majority of the Mexican people to assume that they were their ancestors, as Mexican as they, who fulminated the Aztec Empire and successfully culminated the conquest under the orders of Hernán Cortés. The Tlaxcaltecas were Cortés' main allies, His main support in the moments of trouble, His army body in the advance towards Tenochtitlan. And, especially, determinants were after the Sad night and the heroic battle of Otumba, When the handful of surviving Spaniards, defeated and exhausted, It would have been easily crushed if it were not for the loyalty of Tlaxcala, who welcomed the conquerors and thickened with their soldiers the hosts of Cortes who later returned to the Aztec capital to finally submit to the Mexican Empire.
The visible head of that alliance with the Spaniards was his chief, Xicotencatl «El Viejo», that certainly has no statue in Tlaxcala. Yes it has it, however, Your son Xicotencatl "The Younger", that betrayed the Spaniards and was hanged without contemplation in order of Cortés with the applause of his father. Not even tlaxcala is faithful to the memory of the conqueror. On the contrary, The alliance with the Spaniards is a stigma that still endures for the people who, above any other, The Mesticism of current Mexico flagged, The modern Mexico that enlightened Hernán Cortés, A father still repudiated by his children.
