favor of it, and when reminded of the suspicious absence of any deputation from that city, he sent a message to the rulers that they might remedy the omission.[1]
The Cholultec council was divided on the answer to be sent, three of the members being in favor of compliance, and the other three, supported by the generalissimo, opposing any concession.[2] Finally a compromise was effected by sending three or four persons of no standing, and without presents, to say that the governors of the city were sick and could not come. The Tlascaltecs pointed out the disrespect in sending such men and such a message, and Cortés at once despatched four messengers to signify his displeasure, and to announce that unless the Cholultecs within three days sent persons of authority to offer allegiance to the Spanish king, he would march forth and destroy them, proceeding against them as against rebels.[3]
Finding that it would not do to trifle with the powerful strangers, some of the highest nobles in the city were despatched to the Spanish camp, with a suitable retinue, to tender excuses, pleading that they had dreaded to enter Tlascala, a state hostile to them.
They invited Cortés to their city, where amends
- ↑ 'Y dar la obediencia â nuestro Rey, y Señor, sino que los ternia por de malas intenciones.' Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 56. According to Camargo, Patlahuatzin of Tlascala was sent with the message. The Cholultecs seized and flayed his face and arms, cutting off the hands, so that they were left dangling by the skin from the neck. In this guise they sent him back with the reply that thus would they receive the white gods whose prowess he had extolled. The Tlascaltecs demanded that Cortés should avenge the cruelty and the insult, and he did so in the massacre of Cholula. This, continues the narrator, is commemorated in Tlascalan song, but the account is evidently mixed, and probably refers chiefly to some earlier occurrence. Hist. Tlax, 161-2 Brasseur de Bourbourg assumes that Patlahuatzin is merely insulted and illtreated. The two peoples had once been friends and allies, but during the last battle which they fought against their common enemy, the Aztecs, the Cholultecs had suddenly changed sides and fallen on the rear of their unsuspecting allies, inflicting great slaughter. Herrera, dec. ii. lib. vi. cap. xviii.
- ↑ Three of the members are imprisoned for favoring an alliance with the Spaniards, but they escape and come to Cortés, says Herrera, id.
- ↑ Cortés, Cartas, 71, says that he sent this message by the Cholultec messengers.
