At that time Cortés was thinking of a return to Spain. He was
thirty-five, still young enough to thirst for a full recognition at home
of his great deeds. While making his preparation for departure, he heard
of the insurrection of his lieutenant Olid in Honduras, who had declared
himself independent. It was necessary for him to hasten at once to
chastise his boldness. Aguilar, the interpreter, was dead, and Cortés,
who had never troubled himself to acquire the Mexican dialects, had to
send for Marina to accompany him, as interpreter only. This caused the
rumors about the death of his wife to circulate more than before.
Cortés, warned of the danger, took a decisive step to silence all such
insinuations. At Orizaba, he caused the sudden marriage of Marina with
one of his officers, Don Juan de Jaramillo.
Poor Marina was required to carry her devotion, her absolute obedience
to her chief, to the extreme point of marrying a man she scarcely knew.
She yielded. It is said that she never lived with her husband, but
withdrew at once to her birthplace, at Païnala, where her own family
still lived; that her guilty relatives threw themselves at her feet,
afraid that she would have them destroyed by the Spaniard. She forgave
them, and passed the rest of her life far away from the capital, in
obscurity. She died young, when Cortés was yet at the height of his
fame, before he had suffered the mortification of seeing himself
overlooked by the court of Spain.
Not long after the expedition to Honduras, Cortés carried out his
intention of crossing to Spain. On this first visit he was, as we have
seen, received with acclamations, and loaded with praise and honors.
When he again entered Mexico, with the title of Marquess of the Valley
of Oaxaca, he brought with him a Spanish bride, Doña Juana de Zuñiga,
daughter of the second Count of Aguilar, and niece of the Duke de Bejar.
So Malintzi, if her shade returns to wander under the _ahuehuetes_ of
Chapultepec, has her own grief to mourn, in addition to the ruin she
helped to bring upon her people.
XIX.
INDIANS.
The Conquest was complete. Tenochtitlan was no more, and the Aztec kings
with their dynasty were blotted out. So were all the other independent
states of Anahuac, for if here and there a petty chieftain were allowed
still to call himself lord of his domains, it was a mere form, to keep
him and his people contented, while in reality the Spaniard controlled
every thing throughout the conquered land. The terrible war gods were
overthrown, their temples and images thrown down and hidden under
ground. Even the annals of the country, the picture-writings, which the
Spaniards imagined to be impious scrolls connected with the heathen
belief of the savages, were destroyed. Before long distinctive names of
the separate tribes were wiped out, as details of no importance, and all
the native races of the country went by the common title of Indios.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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