Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/580

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DEATH OF MONTEZUMA.

    noche triste, and two surviving boys, 'one said to be insane, the other paralyzed.' On leaving Mexico he took with him one son and two daughters, his concubines probably, all of whom perished. Cartas, 135, 153. Sahagun names two sons, who perished on that occasion. Hist. Conq. (ed. 1840), 122, 126. Ixtlilxochitl gives them different names. Hist. Chich., 302. Cano gives the name Asupacaci to the heir, or only legitimate son, the brother of his wife Isabel, and states that he was killed by Quauhtemotzin, who feared him as the only rival to the throne. Oviedo, iii. 549. Brasseur de Bourbourg follows him, but prefers the name of Cipocatzin for the young prince, while Axayoca is also applied. Cortés' version is more likely to be correct, however. One of the surviving sons, 'Signor di Tenajoccan,' Clavigero, Storia Mess., iii. 133, was baptized with the intervention of his sponsor, Rodrigo de Paz, and died three years after the conquest, 'y se enterrò en la Capilla de San Joseph.' Vetancvrt, Teatro Mex., pt. iii. 141. This author assumes that the youth fled with the Spaniards from the capital and hid at Tepotzotlan. The other prince, son of Miahuaxochitl, daughter of the lord of Tula, and niece of Montezuma — baptized as María, says Vetancurt — received the name of Don Pedro. He accompanied Cortés to Spain in 1528, it appears, at the age of eighteen, and made repeated appeals to the emperor for a maintenance in accordance with his rank. At first some trifling favors were granted, and he, together with a cousin, was educated by the Franciscans in Madrid. Puga, Cedulario, 85. President Fuenleal, of the audiencia, and other prominent persons having added their recommendation, regular pensions and encomiendas were bestowed, including the town of Tula, the seat of his maternal grandparents, upon which was based the second title of Condes de Montezuma y de Tula, conferred on his grandson. The line expired on the male side with the great great-grandson of the emperor, whose daughter married Sarmiento de Valladares, duke of Atlixco, and viceroy of New Spain, thus raising the name again to the highest position in the country. Prescott, following Humboldt, Essai Pol., i. 191, 203, calls Valladares, by mistake, a descendant of Montezuma. The cousin of the vice-queen married Silva, the first marquis of Tenebron, whose descendants inherited the title and estates from the other branch, and became grandees in 1765. Their pension amounted at this time to 40,000 pesos, says Berni, Titulos de Castilla, which represented in part the encomiendas withdrawn by the government. The republic recognized this portion, as it had the pensions to the other branches. Shortly after the independence of Mexico the holder of the title, Alonso Marcilla de Teruel Montezuma, came over with the intention of asserting his claim to the throne of his forefathers, but the prudent possessors of the power thought it best not to admit him, and he passed on to New Orleans, there to put an end to his life some years later. Prescott understands that the septuagenarian had been disappointed in love. Mex., ii. 352. Several members of the Spanish nobility have intermarried with this line, among them a branch of the Guzman family, whence the claim made for the consort of Napoleon III. of having Montezuma's blood in her veins. Gondra gives a portrait of a member married into the Mendoza family. Prescott's Mex. (ed. Mex. 1845), 219. One of the line, Padre Louis de Montezuma, wrote the Historia del Emperador, which has been consulted by Alaman, Disert., i. app. ii. 158. Clavigero gives a genealogic table in Storia Mess., iii. 235, and Carbajal, while plagiarizing the statements and blunders of others, adds a few of his own. Hist. Mex., ii. 378-88. In Fonseca, Hist. Hacienda, i. 455 et seq., are to be found several valuable extracts concerning titles and estates; also in Reales Cédulas, MS., i. pt. i. 5, ii. 4 etc.; Certificacion de las Mercedes, MS.; Mex. Mem. Hacienda, 1848, 35-6; Fuenleal, Carta, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xiii. 222. The family name has been spelled in different ways, also by its possessors, as Motezuma, Muteczuma, Moctezuma, Mocthecuzoma, Motecuhzuma, Moteuhzuma; but Montezuma is the most common form.

    The Historia de las Indias de Nueva-España y Islas de Tierra Firme, by Father Diego Duran, is claimed by its author, in the introductory to chapter lxxiv., to be devoted essentially to the life and rule of this monarch, 'cuya