Modern Language Studies

The Means and Ends of Empire in Hernán Cortés's "Cartas de relación"

Author(s): Glen Carman
Source: Modern Language Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3/4 (Autumn - Winter, 1997), pp. 113-137
Published by: Modern Language Studies
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3195397
Accessed: 13-05-2019 21:35 UTC

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 The Means and Ends of Empire in
Hernan Cort s's Cartas de relaci6n
GLEN CARMAN

Modem readers cannot easily separate Hemain Cortes's legendary pow-

ers of persuasion from his own linguistic fashioning of himself. For he car-
ries out, so to speak, two conquests. The first is the physical imposition of
Spanish power in Meso-america, a conquest that is accessible to us only as a
historical construct. The second is the control or apparent control of that his-
torical construct. One need not accept Cortes's version of events to recog-
nize his influence on the subsequent historiography of the conquest. And if
the extent of that influence remains a mystery, that is, if one cannot distin-
guish "control" from "apparent control," it is because the double conquest
entails this confusion. Cortes prevails both as a historian and as a protago-
nist of written history in part by conflating the two spheres. Even today it
appears that one cannot completely escape this fusion, for any account of
the conquest that denied the conquistador's attempt to control the writing
of his own history would probably be unconvincing.
The manner in which Cortes succeeds with his Cartas de relaci6n in writing
his own authorization for his break with the governor of Cuba, for his expe-
dition inland, and for his manner of proceeding in the conquest has under-
standably attracted the attention of several recent studies, which demonstrate
how Cortes takes advantage of his familiarity with Spanish law and omits or
distorts the facts in order to make his expedition inland appear to be legal,1

1 See esp. V. Frankl. Also helpful for putting the conquest in its legal and po-
litical context are: Eulalia Guzmin; Jose Valero Silva; Mario Hernandez Sanchez-
Barba; J. H. Elliott, Introduction, and "The Mental World of Hernan Cortes;"
Adrian Blkzquez-Garbajosa; Kathryn D. Kruger-Hickman; and Inga Clendinnen.

Modem Language Studies 27.3, 4 @Northeast Modern Language Association

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114 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION

and show how he makes use of various rhetorical devices and emplots
own conquest in order to suit his interests at Court.2 Here I argue that Cor
authorizes his voice not only through legalistic maneuvers, corroborating a
counts, and other well documented strategies that lend his letters an impar
tone, but also by fully engaging that voice in the conquest, so that the act
discovering, conquering, and narrating all seem to serve as merely differen
facets of the same enterprise. This fusion of speaker and protagonist prov
a narrative coherence that mirrors and supports Cortis's ideological justific
tion of the conquest, a coherence that is all the more impressive because se
-eral inconsistencies between his ends and his means threaten to jeopardize
political and textual authority. When Cortes suppresses these contradiction
he demonstrates how, even within the stylistic confines of the carta relator
patiently artful service to "truth" can offer an effective and compelling ser
to empire.

I. Cortis and Machiavelli

Cortis's rhetorical skill as a letter writer has so thoroughly shaped his

reported rhetorical skill as a conqueror that when Ram6n Iglesia speaks of
Cortes's "politics of attraction" (28-31), or when Manuel Gimenez Fernan-
dez admires his "pluralism" (2), or when Stephen Greenblatt says that "his
military strategy relied as much on rhetoric as on force" (143), one does not
always know if these readers are describing the historical figure or the im-
age that the historical figure largely created for himself. Tzvetan Todorov
acknowledges and, ambitiously and self-reflectively, embraces this confu-
sion of the history and historiography of the conquest. He justifies his
treatment of documents by stating that the questions he is addressing "re-
fer less to a knowledge of the truth than to a knowledge of verisimilitude"
(54):

an event may not have occurred, despite the allegations of one of

the chroniclers. But the fact that the latter could have stated such an
event, that he could have counted on its acceptance by the contem-
porary public, is at least as revealing as the simple occurrence of an
event which proceeds, after all, from chance. In a way, the reception
of the statements is more revealing for the history of ideologies than
their production; and when an author is mistaken, or lying, his text
is no less significant than when he is speaking the truth; the impor-

2 Blazquez-Garbajosa, Kruger-Hickman, and Clendinnen fit into this category

as well. See also Jonathan Loesberg; Stephanie Merrim; Jose Rabasa; Beatriz Pastor;
Viviana Diaz Balsera; Maria Guadalupe Marin; Celia Allen Fryer; and Jorge Checa.

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GLEN CARMAN 115

tant thing is that t

it has been regard
view, the notion o

From this disclaim

New World histori
"symbolization," he
to be exclusively E
Yet when he speak
the truth" (89), or
ensures his contr
draws important co
ter; he is writing h
the discovery that t
become less tragic
locating it within
than that of the A
by acknowledging
the weapons of the c
semiotic weapons
still not necessarily
that sixteenth-cen
Todorov describes
fluenced accounts o
of ideologies, but f
a representation of
own history of the
either already acce
wrong with acknow
historical construct
emplary history, th
own. The "weapons
the weapons used a
quires in order to m
ism. They are the
convinces itself tha
that Todorov's stud
interior conquest.
Todorov's Cortes h
semblance to Corte
that Todorov has p
whether one takes

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116 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION

the history of ideologies or as an exemplary history in its own right. I

ther case, Todorov demonstrates how completely Cort s's self-mythif
tion succeeded during the sixteenth century and beyond.3
Several critics who have analyzed this self-mythification show ho
Cortes characterizes himself as an infallible military leader and as a po
cian who persuades and seduces Indians and Spaniards alike (Pastor 13
Diaz Balsera 223-226; Merrim 73, 78; Kruger-Hickman 68-69, 101). Wi
the fiction of his letters, at least, Cortes prefers persuasion to violence. Bu
what type of persuasion? For Beatriz Pastor, Cortes represents himsel
something of a plain speaker, a mere medium for a "truth" that trium
on its own (136). According to this reading, Cortes wins obedienc
obeying. Since he always claims to serve the king and the will of a Ch
tian god, his own initiative plays no role: "El personaje no elige, sino
es eligido por Dios para la empresa, y se limita a ejecutar no sus prop
proyectos sino la voluntad divina" (Pastor 144). But, as Jonathan Loesb
observes, the very framing of this project requires initiative, because
vine or not, the project does not always proceed smoothly (246-47
Cortes did not take control of events on a narrative level, then, espec
in the case of the Segunda relaci6n, which he writes after suffering a g
defeat, the king would see how precarious this "divine project" is. In sh
Cort s's masterful telling of the story contradicts what some see to be
obedient role in that story.
One way in which Cortes could avoid this contradiction is present
his narrating voice as a separate entity from the protagonist of his let
If he split himself in this manner, on one level Cortes the narrator co
remain in full control and thus assure the king that his conquest is in
hands, while on another level Cortes the protagonist would merely e
body the institutional power of the Crown and thereby not appea
threaten the king's power.4 Yet, as others have noted, Cortes does not
all of his artifice, either as a protagonist or as a narrator.5 In her stud
the second letter, Viviana Diaz Balsera demonstrates that Cortes takes
show of artifice to a metatextual level in the way he supports his claim
persuasiveness in his speeches to his men by displaying that same pers
siveness in his account of those speeches. Instead of hiding the rhetor
tour de force of his letters, he can flaunt it in order to "prove" that his o
atory is as artful as he says it is (223-24). This display of rhetorical ski

3 For related correctives on Todorov's reading of the conquest see David B

choff (345-48), Inga Clendinnen, and Jose Piedra.
4 Jonathan Loesberg has developed this reading most fully (246-250). See a
Delgado G6mez (57).
5 Kruger-Hickman (68) and Merrim (78).

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GLEN CARMAN 117

in my opinion, cent
de relaci6n, because
supposed truthfuln
When Stephanie Me
forza in the Cartas
tion of Cortes as M
have explored in d
says: "El merito fun
de forma coherente
entre politica y prin
politico del Renaci
Machiavelli's prince
ertheless recalls Ma
simulatore e dissim
his deception in his
chiavelli's prince bac
acterize himself in M
to the end" with th
means: mezzi) will d
nelle azioni di tutt
iudizio da reclamar
vincere e mantene
orevoli e da ciascun

In the actions of all m

court of appeal, we m
victories and uphold
thy, and everyone w

This divergence of
Hauser mentions, ac
and even against hi
least within the oper
pany with the princ
self as separating po
gives strength and
is a deeply felt sens
a crusade in the nam

6 As Ram6n Menend
6) have shown, the em
by portraying itself a
odds with the Pope (M

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118 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION

grounding for this notion of truth because the conquistadors see the w
against the infidel as a war against false beliefs. The ideological justifi
tion for Spanish imperialism, not surprisingly, is based on the stable opp
sition between truth and falsehood.
If, however, Cortes's letters flaunt their artifice and characterize the
conquistador as a "gran simulatore e dissimulatore," what truth do they
serve? The ideal of a fixed truth may satisfy the religious grounding of the
conquest, but the day-to-day actions of discovering the New World's se-
crets, destroying "false" beliefs and replacing them with "true" ones, and
of communicating these discoveries and accomplishments back to Europe
require a more adaptable form. The "truth" in the Cartas de relaci6n does
not simply prevail on its own; instead, it requires an artful advocate who
understands that the truth is an idea that depends on words, and that
words depend on those who speak them. Cortes may claim to defend the
truth in his letters, but he also acknowledges the rhetorical nature of that
defense.

II. Cortes's Written Authority: Fabricating Truth

To establish his authority in his letters to the emperor, Cortes must first
authorize the letters themselves by proving their reliability. One possible
tactic is to appeal to his privileged position as an eyewitness to the major-
ity of events he describes, which is what Bemal Diaz del Castillo does: "di-
go y afirmo que lo que en este libro se contiene es muy verdadero, que
como testigo de vista me halle en todas las batallas y reencuentros de guer-
ra" (65; prol.). Many modern critics also consider the authority of the eye-
witness to be one of Cortis's central claims to reliability (e.g., Loesberg
246; Pastor 97; Kruger-Hickman 54). But even when Cortes mentions the
need to see places and events firsthand, he is often quick to stress the prob-
lematic nature of his eyewitness account. First, he recognizes the unbeliev-
able nature of the wonders of the New World, which are difficult enough
to accept for those who see them with their own eyes ("los que ac-i con
nuestros propios ojos las [cosas] vemos, no las podemos con el enten-
dimiento comprender" [232; 2]) and even more incredible for the chroni-
cler's audience ("era cosa maravillosa de ver, y asi me paresce que es de
oir" [338; 3]). As if to confirm Cortis's fears, nearly a century later Co-
varrubias will declare that the "Cor6nicas de las Indias" are in danger of
being labeled "fibulas": "mirad quantas cosas ay en su descubrimiento y
en su conquista, que exceden a quanto han imaginado las plumas de los
vanos mentirosos que han escrito libros de cavallerias" (580). Beyond the
problem of the fabulous places and deeds, Cortes also confronts the dan-
gers of the language used to describe them. For him, much of the New
World's grandeur will be impossible to describe, especially the temples,

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GLEN CARMAN 119

houses (237, 244; 2),

se hobo en [Tenocht
plumajes, y cosas ta
ni se pueden compr
transparent nature o
the reader's indulge
"inexpressibility to
pressibility of the A
sent, despite the best
by guarding his ton
how the idea of "tr
handling of languag
Cortes's extreme ca
the Old does not dis
tor notes (147-48), it
avail. In the Quinta
rectly parallels the
yo decir la aspereza
yo lo supiese lo po
(580). Years later a s
him by adding: "si
perimentase" (675).7
letter ("cosas tan ma
pueden comprehen
quistador's complain
could ironically jeop
by making any me
credis mas de lo que
ing to Cortes (211;
heart, he would not
would only truly un
based that authority
the complexities an
these complexities a
But Montezuma is
warning to Cortes.

7 The embellishments
aci6n can now receive
of the Cartas de relaci6
and says that the scrib
the level of a historiog

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120 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION

other than what he sees with his own eyes, Montezuma is referring
what his own enemies from Tlaxcala and Cempoala may have told Co
about him, the Aztec leader. He is talking about lies. Cortes might be
to convince his readers at Court that he is not going to give them a f
account by mistake, for he claims to know the limitations of his med
but how can he convince them that he is not giving a false account on
pose?
In his attempt to prove that he is not lying, Cort6s calls on others to cor-
roborate his version of events. Here, his legal training is decisive (Frankl
12; Valero Silva 15; Elliott "The Mental World" 48). During the fifteen
years he worked in Hispaniola and Cuba, first as a notary and later as a
secretary to the governor, a municipal official, and an encomendero, Cortes
must have become an expert at drafting legal documents (Elliott, "The
Mental World" 48). Other voices, in the introductions and addenda to the
letters, frame Cortes's narrative and appear to confirm his account, as does
the first letter, which also gives information about Cortes that would be
difficult for him to give in first person. Frankl makes an excellent case for
reading the first letter as the work of Cort&s, and shows how its structure
and general ideology parallel that of the other letters (9, 58-73). Valero Sil-
va (34) and Elliott ("Introduction" xx) agree that Cortes must have dictat-
ed a large part of the letter, although Bemal Diaz says that Cortes only
read it after it was completed (207; ch. 54). Regardless of who the real au-
thors were, the letter signed by the Municipal Council of the Town of Vera
Cruz serves Cortes's purposes better than anything he could have signed,
which is perhaps why his own "First Letter" has never been found, assum-
ing it was ever written at all (see Garbajosa 31).
Cortis's next step after authorizing his Cartas de relaci6n is to authorize
his conquest of Mexico. This "next" step, however, cannot really be sec-
ondary, because the reliability of any eyewitness account depends on the
reliability of the eyewitness who provides it. Here Cortes shows his under-
standing of the imperial perspective by not separating the notion of loyal-
ty to the truth from loyalty to the king. He must appear to serve both, at
all times and in all ways, because if he can combine his allegiance to the
monarch with the pursuit and defense of "truth," he presumably authoriz-
es his imperial reader in the process and ultimately authorizes Spain's
trans-Atlantic crusade. Fabricating this apparent fusion of word and deed
is perhaps the most important rhetorical move in the Cartas de relaci6n,
since it satisfies the power that Cortes is attempting to persuade.
In the first letter Cortes's zeal for finding out facts sets his expedition
apart from those that preceded it. As Kruger-Hickman notes, "[t]he in-
forming function is made to seem the key duty of the expedition" (80).

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 GLEN CARMAN 121

Since the speakers in

substantial about the
of supplying the mo

las relaciones que h

han hecho, ansi de
que fue descubierta
han podido ser cier
sera sta que nosotro

The first expedition

Hispaniola after onl
(109; 1). Juan de Gri
productive. At Cozum
without proceeding
tom6 a sus naos sin c
does not even leave the coast when he reaches the mainland, and conse-
quently Cortes--or, if you like, the Municipal Council of the Town of Vera
Cruz-accuses him of having invented all that he describes of the interior.
This is, however, the wrong type of inventiveness, because in rhetorical
terms it is at the primary stage of inventio or discovery that Grijalba falls
short. In the first letter the historical validity of an explorer's account
seems to depend on the extent to which the rhetorical act of discovery par-
allels the physical act of exploration. Since Grijalba never really leaves his
ships, he has, so to speak, no rhetorical ground to take off from, only a lost
chance at discovery that will lead him astray, that is, away from the truth,
which is understood here as concrete information, the terra firma of histor-
ical discourse: "nunca mas vido cosa alguna de la tierra que de contar
fuese, por lo cual Vuestras Reales Altezas pueden creer que todas las rela-
ciones que desta tierra se les han hecho no han podido ser ciertas, pues no
supieron los secretos dellas mas de lo que sus voluntades han querido es-
cribir" (116). Between the "cosa" and the "voluntades" lies a gulf that
would divide history and fiction according to their two types of discovery.
According to the first letter, Grijalba and the others were inventive be-
cause they merely made up stories to tell, whereas Cortes is inventive be-
cause he has the curiosity to discover the secret of every place he visits:
"Como el dicho capitin Fernando Cortes este tan inclinado al servicio de
Vuestras Majestades y tenga voluntad de les hacer verdadera relaci6n de
lo que en la tierra hay, propuso de no pasar mas adelante hasta saber el
secreto de aquel rio y pueblos" (126). Each of the Cartas de relaci6n and
many of the other letters to the emperor drive home the same message, so
that by the Quinta relaci6n Cortes can speak of "el estilo que tengo, que es

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122 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTtS'S CARTAS DE RELACION

no dejar cosa que a Vuestra Majestad no manifieste" (526; 5). He w

have us believe that he cannot bypass anything of note in his explora
or in his accounts.

The rhetorical stage of inventio, which normally lies outside narrative,

assumes a prominent place in Cortes's letters because he turns the very
process of discovery into subject matter. As he writes about the adventure
of finding something worth relating ("que de contar fuese" [116; 1]),
Cortes attempts to establish his own obsession with truth-finding by cul-
tivating an image of the truth as solid ground. By defining the truth in
physical terms, Cortes equates the truth with the limits of the known
world, limits that he himself extends by means of discovery, and limits
that he defines with other sorts of "truth telling." Cortes not only attempts
to stake out a claim to honesty by contrasting his "reliable" speech with
that of other major figures in the drama ("pues ansi era," Cortes says of
Montezuma, "que e1 no me guardaba la palabra ni me decia la verdad"
196; 2); he also presents the limits of the known world as the limits of the
world "in the know," that is, the lands acquainted with the word of God,
because service to the "truth" also means spreading the good news (the
Christian gospel) to the New World. From Cozumel (124-25; 1) to Tenoch-
titlan (239; 2) and beyond (559-60, 573-74; 5), Cortes professes a special
knack for converting the inhabitants of Meso-america, for spreading the
truth to them about Christianity, and for convincing them that they are
now vassals of the Spanish monarch. Before Cortes's arrival, C6rdoba has
almost no verbal exchange with the natives, and Grijalba, according to the
Primera relaci6n, only talks business, saying that he has come to trade ("res-
catar" 114, 115). In contrast to Cortes's evangelizing mission stand the nar-
row interests of these captains and, above all, the greed of their superior,
Diego Velazquez (117; 1). Whereas Cortes's rival appears to take an inter-
est only in gold and thereby, according to the tradition of the Siete Partidas,
excludes himself from royal service (Frankl 49-51), Cortes can claim to
spread the word and keep his word, and thereby serve his king as a reli-
able communicator.

This reliability may seem monotonous on occasion thanks to the

lengthy descriptions and legalistic prose that the carta relatoria requires o
its authors (see Delgado G6mez 57), but Cortes not only manages to keep
his story moving; he also keeps his reader aware of his efforts in this re
gard. He takes pains to avoid the dangers of the digression, since for him
any elaboration is prolixity, and prolixity can lead to a lie: "me parescia
justo a mi principe y sehior decir muy claramente la verdad sin interponer
cosas que la disminuyan y acrecienten" (232; 2). He repeats these senti-
ments frequently (161, 242, 291, 305; 2. 385; 3. 622; 5), as if he might arriv
at the truth by purifying his narrative, by deleting the elements that, how-
ever truthful they may be in themselves, would distort the larger truth h

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 GLEN CARMAN 123

is trying to convey.
render his narrative
be effective, as Luis V
to be true ("non ver
tione dicendi 213; 3
guide Cortes's cartas
humanistic historio
composed account, t
vail over a false but
must beat fiction at
ples.
Avoiding the extraneous is a classical topos for all narrative, one that
finds two of its most well-known Spanish proponents in L6pez Pinciano
(2: 39-40; epistola 5) and the canon from the Quijote, who attacks the chiv-
alric novels not because they are untrue, but rather because they are not
true-to-life. For el can6nigo, the monstrosity of their structure matches the
monstrosity of their content and reflects their lack of verisimilitude:

No he visto ninguin libro de caballerias que haga un cuerpo de fabu-

la entero con todos sus miembros, de manera, que el medio corre-
sponda al principio, y el final al principio y al medio; sino que los
componen con tantos miembros, que mas parece que llevan inten-
ci6n de formar una quimera o un monstruo que a hacer una figura
proporcionada. (3: 395; 1.47)

Principios, medios y fines are the the components of the political logic of
principles, means, and ends as well as of the canon's narrative logic of be-
ginnings, middles, and ends.8 If Cortes's principios, medios yfines coincide
with one another and with those of the Crown, then he is telling the
Crown's own story and in such a way that he is always the protagonist,
even as narrator. This convergence of narrative and politics corresponds
to the complete convergence of narrator and protagonist in the Cartas de
relaci6n. By combining these two entities Cortes can present the acts of dis-
covering, conquering, and writing as if they all served the same pursuit
and defense of the truth. Likewise, he constructs the notion of "truth" in
accordance with these three acts. First, he presents the truth as the physical
world, to which one gains access through exploration and observation.
Second, he refers to a higher truth, the metaphysical world, the most es-
sential principles of which the crusading Christians claim to understand
already. This understanding includes the sense of duty to reveal these
principles to the rest of the world, to spread Christian doctrine so that few-

8 I am indebted to Mary Gaylord for pointing out this parallel to me.

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124 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION

er souls will be lost in the worship of "false" gods. In this sense conqu
serves the truth inasmuch as one conceives of the conquest as convers
which is in fact how it is portrayed in the Cartas de relaci6n. Finally, Cor
speaks of truth as event or lived experience. He can only capture this t
in his narrative by controlling that narrative and acknowledging its li
Yet the constraints and necessities that dictate the form that the truth
must take impinge on Cortes's narrative to such an extent that the infor-
mation he conveys to his audience depends on his immediate needs as a
writer, even though writer and audience supposedly share the same inter-
ests: "me esforzare a decir a Vuestra Alteza lo menos mal que pudiere, la
verdad y lo que al presente es necesario que Vuestra Majestad sepa" (161; 2; em-
phasis mine). Cortes will "tell the truth" plus "something else;" except that
this "something else" turns out to be a minus rather than a plus, because
it reveals the constraints placed on the account. Cortes paraphrases his
rhetorical construction of the truth when he makes the audience's knowl-
edge, represented here by the verb "sepa," subordinate to the immediate
needs of the speaker, as if in this brief and specific instance a pragmatic hi-
erarchy could supercede the political hierarchy between monarch and
subject. Expediency in the name of a divine and imperial Truth outweighs
allegiance to a more mundane and immediate concept of truth, under-
stood here as a full account of what happened. There arises even in
Cortes's own narrative the possibility that one notion of the truth may in-
terfere with another.
Whereas the conflict between the Crown's interests and Cortes's alle-
giance to the truth remains merely a possibility or suggestion with respe
to Cortis's correspondence with the king, it is unmistakable in his own de
piction of his conduct throughout Meso-america. In a word, Cortes lies-
early and often. This is not to say that we as readers can easily distinguis
Cortes's truth-telling from his lying, but that he frequently defines his own
actions as deceptive and sets aside his own speech acts into categories of
true and false. Besides his initial duplicity when he allies himself with op
posing states ("con los unos y los otros maneaba, y a cada uno...le dab
credito de mas amistad que al otro" [188; 2]), Cortes says that he lies abou
the purpose of his journey and his orders from Charles V relating directl
to Montezuma. For example, he assures Montezuma's subjects "que Vues-
tra Majestad tenia noticia dd1 y me habia mandado que lo viese, y que y
no iba a mas de verle" (169; 2). Perhaps his most famous fiction is his iden
tification of Charles V with a Mexican Messiah figure, destined to return
to Tenochtitlan from the East. Cortes says that Montezuma recognizes th
European emperor as his natural lord, but not because a Papal Bull of 149
granted dominion over his land to the Catholic monarchs, or because th
Christian "truth" is more compelling than the pagan "lie" he has been liv
ing. Rather, Montezuma submits to Charles V, we are to understand, be

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 GLEN CARMAN 125

cause he believes th
chieftain, and that th
Far from illuminati
says he is willing to
gy: "Yo le respondi
aquello que me par
Vuestra Majestad er
All this deception
be significant if it w
es in his Cartas de r
to satisfy, the inter
defense of truth; or
truth. By making t
ing its purported en
perial program. How
same underhanded methods in the name of the Crown?
One possible tactic would be to claim that honesty is not necessar
with "naturales." But Cortes never singles the Mexicans out in this way
He admits that he lies to them, to be sure, but he says that he lies to Span
iards as well. He tells his men that his ships are not seaworthy when he
decides to scuttle the fleet (164; 2), he pretends not to know of all the
members of the Velazquez faction who have taken part in a plot against
his life (448; 3), and he tricks Francisco de Garay into sending a landing
party to him by disguising three of his men as members of the Garay e
pedition (167; 2).
Another possible solution would be for Cortes to present his tactics as
sanctioned by God. He certainly uses divine sanction elsewhere, so that
his often miraculous military victories seem to prove his faith in God an
his service to the divine truth (e.g. 131-32; 1). But to say that God sanction
his deceit because it serves the divine truth is to beg the question. How ca
deceit serve the divine truth? As Sissela Bok has observed, "[t]o lie for th

9 Elliott ("Mental World" 51-53) and Pagden (Letters 467-78) have explored
some of the European myths that could account at least in part for Cortes's inclu
sion of this story of the returning leader. Diaz del Castillo (1: 274-75; ch. 78) and
Cervantes de Salazar (111.49) say that Cortes heard from the Tlaxcalans of a legen
concerning a returning chieftain. Le6n-Portilla ("Quetzalcoatl") makes the best
case for taking Cort&s's story as historical, or at least as indirect evidence of som
Quetzalcoatl-Cortes identification. He bases his argument on Cortes's second let
ter, Motolinia (who says that the Spaniards were always called teules, gods), G6
mara (who gives the first printed mention of Quetzalcoatl), the Anales hist6ricos
la naci6n mexicana (1528), Sahagtin's Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espahia, an
the Anales de Cuauhtitldn.

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126 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION

sake of the truth...is surely the most paradoxical of excuses" (86). But t
are many examples of just such an attempt at justification, especially, a
Cortes's case, when the lies are presented as serving a higher truth, su
as some political or religious dogma: "The more dogmatic the belief t
one possesses truth, the greater the liberties taken on its behalf with truth
telling!" (Bok 91). Certainly this rationale plays a role in Cortes's use of
ception, but such an attempt at justification within the letters can never b
satisfactory because the letters build their own authority on the not
that the Crown's ends and means will coincide in every way and on ev
level.

Cortes cannot resolve the problem outright, because according to the

terms he has set, the truth must prevail at every level of the conquest.
What appears to be a contradiction for us, however, does not necessarily
appear to be a contradiction for Cortes. For instead of confronting his di-
lemma, he suppresses it by showing that on every level service to the truth
requires an artful mastering of language. If, when the "truth" means
"what happened," the form it takes will inevitably suit the needs of the
moment, this notion seems even more logical in the New World where the
needs of the moment are especially unpredictable and where one of
Cortes's favorite figures for the truth is territory within the boundaries of
knowledge. This territority, and hence this truth, is constantly stretched by
his own exploration. At the end of his fourth letter Cortes explains why he
must interpret his orders freely and even add to them:

y siempre ternm cuidado de afiadir lo que mas me paresciere que

conviene, porque como por la grandeza y diversidad de las tierras
que cada dia se descubren y por muchos secretos que de cada dia de
lo descubierto conoscemos hay necesidad que a nuevos acontec-
imientos haya nuevos paresceres y consejos, y si en algunos de los
que he dicho o de aqui adelante dijiere a Vuestra Majestad, le pare-
sciere que contradigo algunos de los pasados, crea Vuestra Excelen-
cia que nuevo caso me hace dar nuevo parescer. (523; 4)

New information requires a revised plan of action, though the general

plan supposedly remains the same, in accordance with Spain's imperial
project. Cort6s takes advantage of the fact that Spain's place in the New
World, although dependent on ideological consistency, also depends on
the adaptability and initiative of those on the frontier, because the New
World is too new, the whole "truth" is not yet known. Even if on a meta-
physical level Christiandom feels that it does possess the whole Truth, on
a physical, everyday plane it must confront the expanding world that-for
better or worse-it would embrace. Cort6s conflates these two levels with-
in his narrative and subordinates them to his own rhetorical powers. He
claims to present the truth properly to the inhabitants of Meso-america

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 GLEN CARMAN 127

and back to the Europ

take on a certain p
New Spain. He depic
of the "truth" and s

III. Conqueri
Any depiction of la
tracts from other f
noticeably from th
admits that the con
confession he can m
one considers the r
perior weaponry, th
pox epidemic, and-in the initial stages-Montezuma's indecisive
behavior, the real role of rhetoric in the conquest may have been minor.
But if Cortes can emplot these other factors, or at least the ones he knows
about, in rhetorical terms, then he can make artifice central to his service
to the empire.
When Aristotle proposes to define rhetoric as "an ability, in each [par-
ticular] case, to see the available means of persuasion" (1355a), he empha-
sizes the idea that rhetorical discourse is less concerned with transmitting
knowledge than with adapting itself to the confines of common knowl-
edge, or at least to the knowledge of each particular audience. Cortes like-
wise characterizes his own speeches within the Cartas de relaci6n as more
accomodating than imposing, even when he is in fact imposing a new or-
der and ideology on his audience. Jose Rabasa describes Cortis's dialogue
with the Aztecs as "apparently neutral," because, when Cortes accepts the
Aztecs' identification of the Spaniards with the descendents of former in-
habitants of Mexico, he incorporates Aztec culture and history into a new
order dominated by the Spaniards (145-52). For the audience outside of
the letters, however, there is nothing neutral about this exchange. The rhe-
torical power that Cortes wields within his narrative reflects his domina-
tion as much or more than any "native mythology." If Cortes uses a
"particularly modern form of colonial power" by claiming to rely on an ex-
change that pretends to be objective (Rabasa 152), it is worth stressing that
Cortes makes this pretense transparent for the reader of the Cartas de rel-
aci6n (see Checa 205).
By claiming that the key to his success and to the empire's success in
Mexico relies on his artful use of language, Cortes not only suppresses the
problem of how his service to the divine and imperial Truth can involve
the use of artful deception; he also makes it possible for his letters, by
themselves, to prove his suitability for the conquest, because they display

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128 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION

his art at every level. Diaz Balsera shows how this self-authorization o
ates with regard to Cortis's speech to his men in Tlaxcala: "Al Cortes a
mar que logra como capitain persuadir a sus soldados, el lector pu
juzgar el grado de credibilidad que merece como cronista sin tener que
lir fuera del texto. Mientras mas o menos persuasivo sea Cortis conta
su exito persuasivo como capitan, tanta credibilidad ganarda este pasa
como testimonio de su alegado liderazgo" (223). In other words, Co
convinces his audience outside of the letters by showing that he is conv
ing in them. But Cortis never reproduces his own convincing orator
the narrative. Instead he redirects his speeches in the letters so that t
only address the audience outside of the letters, that is, his ideal rea
Charles V. His rhetorical skill as a writer may support his claims to rhe
ical success as a speaker, but that speaker's conquering voice is never
display. When Corteis does reproduce a speech, it is the voice of the c
quered, Montezuma, who addresses Cortes and thus places the conque
in the same audience as the ideal reader, a move that can only help au
rize Cortis's conquest by identifying him with the emperor.
The physical conquest narrated in the letters also functions as a me
of persuasion for the audience outside of the text. Cortis cannot persu
the king to grant him his commission if he does not succeed in battle;
success in battle serves to demonstrate his loyalty to the Crown just
much as it supposedly confirms his faith in God, because according to
ideological framework in which he operates the divine and the impe
truth are one and the same: "Y como traiamos la bandera de la cru
pufibamos por nuestra fe y por servicio de Vuestra Sacra Majestad en
muy real ventura, nos dio Dios tanta victoria que les matamos mucha g
te sin que los nuestros rescibiesen daho" (178; 2). Cortes conquers in M
ico in order to convince the king to allow him to conquer in Mexico.
circle ends in 1522 when Cortis finally receives the authorization he
been seeking. This victory, however, does not mean that he can stop pl
ing his case. After narrowly surviving his Honduran expedition, whic
describes in his fifth letter, he must face the prospect of a residencia, or
quest, into his actions as captain and governor. The fifth letter then st
as a defense against the accusations that he is ambitious and unloyal to
Crown: "si ansi fuera, no me fuera yo seiscientas leguas desta cibdad
tierra inhabitada y caminos peligrosos y dejara la tierra a los oficiale
Vuestra Majestad" (277; 5).
Even if Cortes does not fare well at the residencia, there is yet anot
audience to which he can appeal, for his letters reach the printing pre
well as the Court. Although such cartas relatorias as Cortis wrote were
usually written for publication, and Cortis may not have originally
tended to have his own letters published, he evidently grasped the im
tance of appealing to an audience that extended well beyond the king,

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GLEN CARMAN 129

court, and the Counci

mark that one of th
[literally 'wanderin
platearum podia va
Spanish along with
letters, Cortes succ
and beyond, making
portance. So successf
apparently considers
er in the Indies and
lication and distribu
knows that he has al
of his fifth letter he
coming inquest, sat
a todo el mundo ten
con que los fago. Y
(661; 5). The legacy o
large extent the ma
the debate over diff
bear on the land rig
as on the human rig
Cortes prevails outs
vails within them: b
ers, as for his men
only makes sense of
to his own terms. D
when many of his m
he is able to make th
the king:

yo los animaba dici

tra Alteza y que jam
y que estaibamos en
mayores reinos y s
facer lo que a crist
migos de nuestra fe
ria y en este consig
tiempos ninguna

10 By contrast, Walte
(66), and Delgado G6m
vorable de la historia,
emperador" (54).

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130 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION

paresci6 decirles desta calidad...y los atraje a mi prop6sito, y a facer

lo que yo deseaba, que era dar fin a mi demanda comenzada. (182;
2)

These last words give a peculiar twist to the passage, first by hinting that
the circumstances dictate the wording ("cosas que me paresci6 decirles
desta calidad") and then by emphasizing where the imperial "truth" re-
ceives its special power. According to Cortis, the soldiers do not fight sim-
ply because he has reminded them that they should be good vassals and
Christians. They fight, we are to believe, because that is what he wants
them to do.

If the unadorned truth is not enough to convince the Spaniards, then it

will be less likely to suffice for the Indians. Neverthless, Cortes claims to
draw them to his cause by means of persuasion. Iglesia calls this facade
Cortis's "politica de atracci6n" (31), the fiction that allows Cortis to de-
clare that life proceeds as usual in the city of Cholula the day after the
Spaniards have massacred, by Cortis's own count, more than 3,000 of its
inhabitants: "despues de les haber hablado muchas cosas acerca de su yer-
ro solt6 dos de ellos. Y otro dia siguiente estaba toda la cibdad poblada y
Ilena de mujeres y nifios muy seguros, como si cosa alguna de lo pasado
no hobiera acaescido" (194; 2). Just as he says that he attracts his men to his
purpose, Cortes maintains that his words can bring back the Cholulans
and even attract them into his alliance with the Tlaxcalans (194; 2). It is
hard to overstate Cortis's claims to success in winning the respect and
even the love of the Indians. Upon his return from Honduras, the Indians
of New Spain receive him, he says, "como si yo fuera su propio padre"
(641; 5). Small wonder that the image of Cortis as a beloved conqueror has
persisted into the twentieth century (Iglesia 69), only to give the revisionist
studies, such as Guzman's, a more polemical tone.
Even more important for his Cartas de relaci6n, and definitely more dif-
ficult for modern readers to believe, is Cortis's assertion that he convinces
the Indians to give up their idols and sacrifices:

Yo les hice entender con las lenguas cuin engaiiados estaban en ten-
er su esperanza en aquellos idolos...y que habian de saber que
habia un solo Dios, universal Sehor de todos...Y el dicho Muteequ-
ma y muchos de los prencipales de la dicha cibdad estuvieron con-
migo hasta quitar los idolos y limpiar las capillas y poner las
imAgenes, y todo con alegre semblante. Y les defendi que no matas-
en criaturas a los idolos...y en todo el tiempo que estuve en la dicha
cibdad, nunca se vio matar ni sacrificar alguna criatura. (239; 2)

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GLEN CARMAN 131

The "alegre semblan

with images could r
selves, or to the sm
redecorating. Every
look could be deceiv
ra's, will acknowled
especially given the
plies instant unders
This phrase, "hacer
peatedly in the Car
claims great success
seems to grow, buil
persuading them to
guides (566, 622, 629
of the emperor (638
of arms, and far mo
de Alvarado has fail
love: "que por amor
All of this peacefu
(239; 2), through in
of Cortis's own skil
would, if the interp
"lenguas." But that
operation with the
Diaz del Castillo wi
planation for her ac
her: "la lengua que
Putunchan (192; 2).
"Marina, la que yo c
la habian dado con o
en to the Spaniards r
who is left to expla
to join him just as t
turning Marina into
ecdoche to a body p
tengo"), he appears
in her case, to turn

11 Diaz del Castillo sa

ther sold her to trave
speaking peoples of T
battle of Cintla (1: 158

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132 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION

Central to Cortes's fusion of conquest and rhetoric is the case of Mo

tezuma. When he decides to take the Aztec emperor captive, he claims
conquer his mind along with his body:

me paresci6...que convenia al real servicio de Vuestra Majestad y a

nuestra seguridad, que aquel sefior estuviese en mi poder y no en
toda su libertad porque no mudase el prop6sito y voluntad que
mostraba en servir a Vuestra Alteza. (214; 2)

He seizes Montezuma so that the Aztec emperor will not change his min
and while he holds him captive Cortes sets about defining Montezuma
role as an emperor-vassal. In response to the news from the coast that
Montezuma's vassal Cualpopoca has had some Spaniards killed at Mo
tezuma's orders, Cortis approaches the emperor with another version
events, giving him the opportunity to punish his supposedly guilty su
jects and thus show the Spanish monarch "su buena voluntad" (215;
Montezuma plays his role perfectly in the Cartas de relaci6n, with the result
that Cualpopoca, Cualpopoca's son, and fifteen others are publica
burned at the stake, even though beforehand Cortes has them admitti
that they were following Montezuma's orders. The real proof of Mont
zuma's supposed conversion appears when Cortes begs him to go free:
me dijo todas las veces que gelo decia [que se fuese a su casa] que 61 est
bien alli y que no queria irse" (218; 2). Cortis claims to have turned ph
ical control into mind control, imprisoning Montezuma's will along wi
his person.
Others do not always submit so easily in the Cartas de relaci6n, but even
with the most recalcitrant adversaries Cortes portrays the use of force, no
matter how devastating, as just another instrument within a larger strate-
gy of persuasion. When he says that he has his men cut off the hands of
suspected Tlaxcalan spies, he also sends the mutilated spies back to their
lord with a message about his invincibility (179; 2); likewise, when he at-
tacks defenseless towns, he continually describes these massacres as ex-
emplary punishments (e.g. 180-81; 2). It comes as no surprise, then, that he
turns the burning of Cualpopoca into a public spectacle or that he often
says that he fights even when he is weak precisely to hide his weakness
(e.g. 403; 3). This emphasis on the importance of psychological warfare, so
often commented on by critics, obviously forms part of a narrative strate-
gy that presents the conquest as something other than mere physical
struggle. Cortes claims to convince by conquering as much as he claims to
conquer by convincing. His use of violence has no meaning within the let-
ters except as a means of persuasion (see Merrim 78).
By the Quinta relaci6n Cortes takes the game of appearances to another
extreme, in which he pretends to have magic powers. He claims to have
discovered through an informant that some of the Aztecs that he has

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GLEN CARMAN 133

brought with him o

plot, as presented in
temoc, who is no lo
cording to Cortis it
his artful handling
has Cuauhtemoc and
who are supposedly
is confident that th
ened: "porque nunca
a revolver. Porque c
guna cosa se me pue
says, that he uses a c
to find out what th
sina era la verdad, y
y se me descobrian
equates the truth w
the same device to c
he does to "chart" h
in this case his artif
to the Cartas de rela
keep his allies hones
acceptable maneuver
de relaci6n show th
ing, and informing
By arguing that Co
rative strategy, I am
or even that he claim
takes the other fact
in rhetorical terms
placing the conquest
level my reading fo
guage of conquest s
tery of language, t
authorize Cort&s as
To satisfy the offi
self indispensable
Crown's project) an
level as different f
what these letters i
his handling of his
habitants of Meso-a
to the Crown relies
Cortis can only rec

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134 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION

that service to the "truth" also relies on artifice, which is what he ends
doing, consciously or not, by linking the supposed veracity of his accou
first to a judicious handling of language and then to a mastery of langua
Even in Cortis's dispatches to the monarch, the presentation of what
sees and what he does requires that he confront the problems of med
tion, so that he can claim to have the rhetorical skill, the art, that is neces-
sary to meet such a challenge.
Any rhetorical defense of the truth, however, places the notion of truth
into question. When Cortes links the supposed veracity of his Cartas de r
aci6n to his own ability to master language, he already strikes at the he
of the problem. If his account has to be artful to be reliable, then there
nothing fixed about its content. His own capacity and his own immedia
needs determine what he says and how he says it: "me esforzar6 a decir
Vuestra Alteza lo menos mal que pudiere la verdad y lo que al presente
necesario que Vuestra Majestad sepa" (161; 2). The truth "lies" somewhe
between those two factors. Indeed, Cortis's definition of his conquest
service to the truth changes as the conquest proceeds, as he explores a
discovers "secrets" that extend the bounds of his knowledge and of th
Spanish empire. The conquest itself redefines the limits (Lat. fines) of t
physical truth, even though the higher, spiritual Truth that supposed
justifies the conquest remains fixed. Cortes mediates between and event
ally fuses these two notions of truth by pursuing the physical and the spir-
itual ends of the Spanish empire within the same coherent narrative.
DEPAUL UNIVERSITY

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 GLEN CARMAN 135

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