Imaginary interview with Hernán Cortés
by Charactorium · Hernán Cortés (1485 — 1547) · Military · Exploration · 5 min read
It is in Cuernavaca, in the coolness of a patio of the palace Cortés had built for himself, that an old comrade-in-arms comes to find him in this year 1544. Bernal Díaz del Castillo is no longer the young soldier who once landed on the coasts of Yucatán: he bears the scars of twenty battles and the project of writing, one day, the true story of what they lived through. In the air float the smell of cacao and the distant sound of Indian masons. The two men have known each other since Cuba, since the embarkation of 1519, and this time the soldier comes with his questions, not his sword.
—Don Hernán, I was on the beach at Veracruz when our ships sank. Tell me truly: did you give that order out of calculation or despair?
Out of calculation, Bernal, always out of calculation, even when the heart trembles. You remember the murmur in the ranks: Velázquez's men wanted to return to Cuba, to denounce our enterprise as treason. As long as a single sail remained afloat, those men dreamed of retreat. I had the hulls run aground on the pretext that they were worm-eaten, and suddenly there was no way but inland. I had already founded Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, my own council, my own legitimacy, beyond any authority of the governor. Without ships and with no master above me, I was free — and you were all free with me, whether you liked it or not. The fear of a cornered man is worth ten sated men.
As long as a single sail remained afloat, those men dreamed of retreat.
—You know that without her, none of us would have returned. How did it happen that this Nahuatl woman, Marina, became your voice before all the lords?
You speak truly, and you witnessed how many parleys where she stood at my side. She was given to me as a slave among others, at Tabasco, but she spoke Nahuatl and Maya, and soon Spanish better than a clerk. Without Marina, I would have heard from the Tlaxcalans only a din of threats; through her I learned that they hated Mexico even more than we did. She weighed words, sensed traps, warned me of betrayals that faces hid. The Indians called me by the same name as her, so much did they believe we were one will. A well-handled tongue won me more victories than all our arquebuses combined.
A well-handled tongue won me more victories than all our arquebuses combined.
—Remember the terror of the Indians before our mounts. Do you truly believe it was steel and powder that gave us the advantage?
The steel of Toledo, yes, cut where their obsidian shattered, and our morions turned aside their clubs. But the most terrible weapon, Bernal, was astonishment. They had never seen a horse: a rider seemed to them a two-headed beast, a demon risen from the sea. The thunder of our cannons, the smoke, the smell of sulfur — all that struck their minds before striking their flesh. We were barely five hundred, sixteen horses, a few pieces. Against multitudes, numbers would never have saved us. It was the terror of the never-before-seen that served us as an army, until they understood that we bled like them.
It was the terror of the never-before-seen that served us as an army.
—I will never forget Moctezuma descending from his litter under the canopy of green feathers. Why did you seize your host in his own palace?
You who marched behind me on the great causeway, you know the vertigo that seized us before Tenochtitlan, vaster than any city in Castile. We were a handful of men in the heart of a city of two hundred thousand souls, on an island, with bridges that could drown us at a word. To hold Moctezuma in our hands was to hold the entire empire without giving battle: a captive sovereign still commands, and his people obey out of habit. I treated him as a great prince, not a prisoner — but I slept with my sword under the bed. It was not cruelty, Bernal, it was the only narrow door between us and massacre.
To hold Moctezuma was to hold the entire empire without giving battle.
—That night, June 30, 1520, we fled through water and blood. They say you wept under the tree. Is it true, Hernán?
We saw things that night that I wish upon no Christian. The Noche Triste, you lived through it like me: the broken bridges, the gold that dragged men to the bottom of the lake, two-thirds of our men swallowed up or sacrificed on their altars. At dawn, under the great ahuehuete, yes, my eyes were wet — not from weakness, but from rage and grief for so many brave men. But a captain who weeps must, the next moment, count what remains. I raised my head, I counted the living, the horses, and I was already thinking of the siege. Fifteen months later, Tenochtitlan fell. Nothing great is built without first having nearly lost everything.
Nothing great is built without first having nearly lost everything.
—When you received us in Moctezuma's palace, gold flowed in streams. Did this wealth blind you, as some already reproached you?
The gifts he gave us, Bernal, surpassed imagination: disks of gold as large as wheels, headdresses of quetzal feathers, wrought jewels that I sent to Charles V so that he might see the greatness of what he was gaining. But gold was never my only hunger, whatever the jealousy of Velázquez's men may say. I wanted a land, a name, a lasting work in the service of God and the emperor. Gold slips through the fingers; a Nueva España endures. Those who saw in me only a greedy man never bore the weight of a conquest where every ounce had to buy the loyalty of starving men.
Gold slips through the fingers; a Nueva España endures.
—Our Indian allies, the Tlaxcalans, marched by the thousands at our side. In truth, were we the conquerors, or merely their blade?
A question from a man who has seen the battlefield, not from a clerk in Seville. We were nothing without them, I admit between us: the Tlaxcalans gave us tens of thousands of warriors, porters, maize, their towns for rest. They had hated Mexico for generations and saw in us the instrument of their revenge. But a blade does not wield itself: it was we who knew how to bind these enemy peoples, negotiate through Marina, choose the hour of the siege. They fought their old war; I fought another, for the Crown. Let us say we were the head, and they the body — and neither conquers alone.
We were the head, and they the body — and neither conquers alone.
—You who founded Villa Rica before even marching inland, tell me: did you already know you were defying Governor Velázquez?
I knew it, and that is why I took care with formalities. By founding Veracruz, I created a town council, a cabildo, which appointed me captain in the direct name of the king. Thus I no longer answered to Diego Velázquez, but to Charles V himself. Everything was recorded, sealed, sent by my first Cartas de Relación. A prudent man does not rebel: he makes himself necessary, then he writes to the emperor before his rivals do. You saw me drafting those letters late into the night — it was not vanity, it was my paper armor against the judges of Castile.
A prudent man does not rebel: he makes himself necessary.
—After the fall of the city, you built Mexico on its ruins, with the very stones of the temples. Why this superimposition, Hernán?
Because a city is conquered not only by the sword, Bernal, but by the memory one plants there. To raze Tenochtitlan and flee would have been to leave a field of ruins where rebellion would have sprouted again. I ordered that the city be rebuilt on the same spot, on the ancient grid, and that the stones of the temples serve for the churches of the true faith. Where men were sacrificed, Mass would henceforth be said. It was practical — the foundations existed — and it was symbolic: Nueva España was born from the very body of the old empire. I wanted a capital worthy of the emperor, not a heap of ashes.
Where men were sacrificed, Mass would henceforth be said.
—One last thing, my captain. Of all those who marched with you, whom do you miss the most, in these days of Cuernavaca?
Strange request from a living man sitting before me! But I answer you frankly, since it is you. I miss the brave men who fell on the Noche Triste, those whose bodies I could not even recover. I miss that ardor of the early days, when everything was to be dared and the court had not yet entangled us in lawsuits. Today I plead, I count my lands, I watch for dispatches from Castile — and even old Velázquez himself seems almost a companion to me, now that his like harass me. Keep memory of all this, Bernal. Men quickly forget what great things have cost.
Men quickly forget what great things have cost.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Hernán Cortés's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.