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Ruy González's 1553 Letter to Emperor Charles V An Annotated Translation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Arthur P. Stabler  and
John E. Kicza
Arthur P. Stabler
Affiliation:
Washington State University, Pullman, Washington
John E. Kicza
Affiliation:
Washington State University, Pullman, Washington
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Extract

The letter sent by Ruy González, a councilman of Mexico City, to the Spanish monarch, Charles I (Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire), in April 1553 constitutes an excellent example of the genre of correspondence sent by the conquerors and early settlers of the colonies back to Spain. These men, self-assured and successful, proud of their achievements and unbothered by moral doubt, though now generally well off and powerful, were nonetheless greatly perturbed in their old age by a growing governmental reluctance to allow them to pass on their status and wealth undisturbed to the next generation. To them there appeared to be a great influx of royal and ecclesiastical officials, characteristically accompanied by dependents and sycophants seeking favor and grants, as well as an unjustified questioning of the moral probity of the actions of the conquerors themselves. In this climate, feeling that his wisdom and deeds were unappreciated, Ruy González sent his several-page letter to the king, justifying his life, arguing his point of view, and advising changes in royal policies towards the colony that he had helped to found.

Type
Document
Information
The Americas , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , April 1986 , pp. 473 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1986

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References

1 del Paso, Francisco y Troncoso, , ed., Epistolario de Nueva España, 1505–1818, v. 1–16, Mexico: Antigua Libería Robredo, 1936–1942.Google Scholar

2 de Gómara, Francisco López, La conquista de Mexico, Zaragoza: casa de Agustín Millan, 1552.Google Scholar

3 del Paso, Francisco y Troncoso, , ed., Colección de Mendoza, O Codice mendocino documento mexicano del siglo XVI que se conserva en la Biblioteca Bodleiana de Oxford, Inglaterra, Mexico: Museo nacional, 1925.Google Scholar

4 Mexico City was built on the ruins of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. on an island in the middle of a large lake. Complaints about the unhealthy and unsafe location of the city were common in the first century after the conquest and in fact the city was badly flooded several times. As González goes on to relate, there were well-maintained canals that flowed through most parts of the city.

5 That González was a city councillor of the capital city of the colony for something over twenty years attests to his status and wealth. Only individuals of note were appointed to the council and a decline in fortune would have probably brought about his removal from the body. This is a further reason for doubting his statements about his impoverished station.

6 “Sea” is this context refers to the lake in the Valley of Mexico.

7 Here we see the often-repeated lament of the conquerors and early settlers that the crown is getting bad advice because it is listening to the wrong parties.

8 The famed las Casas has been the subject of numerous studies. An early colonist of the Caribbean, he became a Dominican friar, a fervent defender of the Indians, and an influential voice in the Spanish court. He argued that lay Spaniards should not have access to the labor of peaceful Indians and that such Indians should not be exposed to any Spaniards but friars. Las Casas had served as bishop of Chiapas in 1545–46. He then returned to Spain, renouncing his bishopric, frustrated by the failure of his reform program in Chiapas. He remained in Spain until his death, participating actively in the ongoing debate there on the character of the Indians and how they should be treated. The hard feelings that the early settlers had towards las Casas are obvious in the following passage. See Friede, Juan and Keen, Benjamin, eds., Bartolomé de las Casus: towards an understanding of the man and his work, Dekalb. Northern Illinois University Press, 1971.Google Scholar

9 The writings and debate over “The Christian Right of Conquest” are legion, and González is trying to cast las Casas in the worst light possible by arguing that his attacks on the actions of the conquerors also call into question the Spanish monarch’s sovereignty over the Americas and their people.

10 There can be no doubt that the families of the conquistadores and most of the Spanish colonists were perturbed by las Casas’ arguments. However, las Casas’ recommendations were never applied to any area of importance in the Americas, but were instead relegated to brief experiments in outlying areas.

11 A standard argument was that the conquest of the Americas was justified because of the great number of peoples who would thereby be converted to the true faith.

12 Diego de Velázquez, governor of Cuba at the time, planned the conquest of Mexico, secured authorization for the undertaking from the crown, and placed Cortés, one of his own officials, at the head of it. Cortés quickly established that his expedition would be autonomous from the sponsorship of Velázquez and therefore sent his own envoys to the Spanish monarch. When informed of this, Velázquez sent an expedition under Pánfilo de Narváez to Mexico to seize Cortés and to take over the enterprise. But as related earlier. Cortés managed to gain control over the new force, which included Ruy González, instead.

13 While the Spanish crown did obtain spiritual sanction for the conquest from the papacy, it is difficult to imagine that González had been bothered much about such a consideration at the time he joined the original expedition.

14 The name of the last Aztec emperor has many transcriptions. In English it is often Montezuma, and in Mexico it is commonly Moctezuma. Most ethnohistorians of Mexico render his full name as Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin.

15 The argument that the Emperor of Mexico was not a legitimate lord was a standard justification for the Spanish conquest. While they could, the Spanish had no qualms about ruling through manipulation of Montezuma. After his death and the final capture of Tenochtitlan, the Spanish began this new argument. The Aztecs certainly had gained a great empire through force and did relegate some part of the subjugated people to a form of slavery and sacrificed yet others. But in doing so, the Aztecs differed more in scale than in character from earlier Mesoamerican empires.

16 This is an interesting example of the distinct cultural values of the Spanish and the Mesoamerican peoples. The Spanish believed fervently in the legitimacy of primogeniture in royal lineage, with the eldest son inheriting all titles and properties. Among the Indians of Central Mexico, however, the title of monarch passed through an entire generation of males in a family before moving down to the next generation, but only those male members whom the family considered capable of handling the responsibility were eligible. All others, such as Montezuma’s elder brother, would be passed over, no matter what their standing in the birth order.

17 Here González refers to the famous Triple Alliance among the city-states of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tacuba, in which the three combined their forces to create the initial empire.

18 By the time of Montezuma, Texcoco and Tacuba had receded in importance as the military power of Tenochtitlan was asserted. Upon the arrival of Cortés, the royal families of the two cities split over the issue of whom to support and the Spanish had little difficulty getting them over to their side.

19 Some lands belonging to captured provinces were redistributed to the nobles and functionaries of Tenochtitlan. In Mesoamerica the practice of enslaving prisoners of war goes back hundreds of years.

20 Iztaquimaxtitlan was a moderate-sized community that is located in the present-day State of Puebla. It had acted as a garrison city near the border of Tenochtitlan’s rival, Tlaxcala, and had remained loyal to Montezuma until forcibly taken in 1520.

21 Tlaxcala was an autonomous state and bitter rival to Tenochtitlan that was located in generally infertile land and was surrounded by states subject to the Aztec empire when the Spanish arrived. After failing in their attempts to defeat the Spanish, the Tlaxcalans joined with them and became staunch allies.

22 Chalco was a fertile province south of the lake region in the Valley of Mexico.

23 Once the military effectiveness of the Spanish became clear and it was perceived that the Aztec empire might be overthrown, a number of the city-states which had been subject to the empire struck their own separate agreements with the Spanish.

24 The Epistolario has here alcanzado (to follow, reach, etc.) rather than alancado, from alancear or alanzar, an archaic meaning of which was to throw out or eject (cf. lanzar, lanzador).

25 Little of this took place in actuality. Instead, the Spanish settlers took over themselves the lands belonging to deposed members of the Aztec nobility.

26 Here again it is difficult to argue that the Spanish domain over the different peoples was any less demanding than that of the Aztecs. Those people who had been enslaved under the Aztec empire generally remained slaves under that of the Spanish.

27 Many of the peoples subjugated to the Aztec empire did assist the Spanish or remain neutral in the struggle between the two sides.

28 This reference to the pinturas, or Aztec picture-writing, presages the one mentioned below (see n.38).

29 The Indian peoples were quick to begin petitioning the Spanish crown with often exaggerated accounts of their support for Cortés’ expedition in an effort to gain exemptions or other rewards for their services.

30 The evening of June 30. 1520, termed “The Sad Night.” Cortés and his men sought to flee Tenochtitlan under heavy attack from the Aztecs after having been trapped by the now insurgent natives.

31 In fact, the Spanish did have a military encounter after they had gotten out of the island city of Tenochtitlan and before they reached the safety of Tlaxcala, but by and large the Aztecs remained on the defensive and the other Indian peoples assumed their customary neutrality.

32 The Mexicans did not in fact pursue the Spaniards across the countryside but instead regrouped.

33 González’s “point” here as a matter of fact is somewhat beclouded by his loose grammar, his rambling sentences, and above all by his ambiguous system of punctuation. It is possible, for example, to honor the period after razón (see Spanish text), and disregard the one after prueban; this would have the effect of having the “ill-educated” people affirming that the Aztecs had all the enumerated vices, and thus cause the reader to expect that González will refute this (which we do not think he does). Another ambiguity is which side in the war committed the desordenes and pecados, etc. Our solution, as seen, is to have the list of the sins of “this people” by the grammatical continuation of the “fourth point” being made, letting the “ill-educated people” affirm only that the war of the conquistadores was “cruel and senseless,” and finally, to separate the desordenes and pecados from the Aztec sins and make them an admission of Spanish mistakes in the war: mistakes which González later whitewashes by pointing out that such things happen in all wars.

34 The use of several words meaning the same things, “say and relate,” “affirm and maintain,” “wind up and complete” etc. is a distinguishing mark of Renaissance style, in Spanish, French, Italian, and other literatures.

35 Once again González justifies the conquest on the grounds of the immorality of the Aztecs, when, in fact, all the listed phenomena were characteristic of broader Mesoamerican culture.

36 Charles I of Spain was simultaneously Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, and thus entitled to this form of address.

37 At this time in Spain a spirited debate was ensuing over the related questions of the character of the Indian peoples and the Spanish right to conquer and govern these lands. González’s nemesis, las Casas, was prominent in the debate.

38 This is probably the passage, dealing with the Aztec “ancient pictures of great authenticity” which attracted the attention of Paso y Troncoso, who was in the process of editing just such a manuscript (cf. Introduction).

39 This was a common refrain of the conquerors and first settlers in their old age. They continually argued that only they truly understood the Indians and how the colony should be run, but that instead of being listened to, they had to accept ineffectual rule and considerable disdain from the officials that the monarch sent over to rule in his name.

40 González here certainly seems inconsistent in criticizing the friars for going out and teaching the natives “on whose behalf they came.”

41 González hardly overstates the ambitions of the friars here. They did seek preeminence over the Indian villages and to transform society. However, their success in these endeavors in no way matched their stated goals.

42 Here González, if he has expressed his thought correctly, shows an almost Calvinistic severity: a city so sinful has no right to be so prosperous!

43 This is the body created by Charles I in 1524 to administer his American empire.

44 These were lawyers trained in the specialized colleges of Spain who typically gained employment as government officials and were very loyal to the monarch and who promoted the power of the state.

45 The Court served as the highest appeals court in any colony. Its rulings could only be appealed to Spain and only in certain types of cases. Its members had high rank and prestige and not inconsiderable power. The head of the court could rival the Viceroy in effective power and might even replace him in his absence.

46 This sentence, beginning with “and in the confusion,” almost redeems González as a writer: it is almost classical in its balance and fine choice of word and phrase.

47 In view of what we have seen regarding González’s wealth and his overtaxation of his native “tributaries,” this statement appears more than disingenuous (cf. Introduction).

48 This also is a standard assertion in documents and letters: that all deeds and personal gains were ultimately directed at glorifying one’s monarch.