XXIII. The Last Fragment
Original Publication: Novedades — Editorial Section, June 14, 1948.
Author: LIC. OSCAR MÉNDEZ CERVANTES.
Topics: Faith and Religious Life; History and the Hispanic World.
Fragments of the Epic
By LIC. OSCAR MÉNDEZ CERVANTES
XXIII
THE LAST FRAGMENT.
The last, richly flavored segment of Cortés’s complete epic, which is his whole life, is the hero’s death: ‘conqueror of the New World, conquered by envy,’ as Argensola says. It is well known that his last years were embittered by ingratitude, betrayals, and intrigues; his interminable disputes with the Crown; the scant attention paid to him in the mother country when he went there to settle them; and the utter disregard shown him on the expedition to Algiers, in which Charles V failed because he did not follow his advice. And so, ‘death came to knock at his door’; he reached the end of his days, dying a Christian death in Castilleja de la Cuesta, a place near Seville, on December 2, 1547. ‘With one foot already in the stirrup’ for the final journey, he remembers his dearly beloved Mexico and directs that his bones should ultimately rest in these lands. He also remembers the native people, and declares in his will:
‘Item, because concerning the native slaves of the said New Spain, both those taken in war and those acquired by purchase, there have been and still are many doubts and opinions as to whether they could be held in good conscience or not, and the matter has not yet been settled, I COMMAND THAT WHATEVER IS GENERALLY ASCERTAINED MUST BE DONE IN THIS CASE FOR THE DISCHARGE OF CONSCIENCES CONCERNING THESE SLAVES OF THE SAID NEW SPAIN SHALL BE DONE AND FULFILLED FOR ALL THOSE WHOM I HOLD AND HAVE IN MY CHARGE; and I command Don Martín, my son and successor, and those who succeed him in my estate, to make every inquiry necessary to discharge my conscience and theirs in ascertaining this.’
Cortés’s work endures through the centuries. Its very core, which is ourselves, which is Mexico, bears witness to it. Cortés, as the American Prescott acknowledges, was no ordinary conqueror. He was, in truth, the greatest in History. In human terms, he was the creator of Mexican nationality. His ambition went beyond the mere material substance of command and wealth. He desired both to fulfill aspirations of a very different and higher kind. He wanted—and knew how—to give life to a new nation in which Hispanic culture’s providential role in history would continue; to defend and spread throughout the planet Christian civilization, the only one deserving the name of civilization in all the word’s fullness and scope. His plan was not the extermination of the indigenous people, but their Christianization and Hispanicization, precisely the essential purpose of Spain’s transoceanic undertakings. In the undertaking of our physical, psychological, and sociological blending, it is profoundly symbolic that Don Hernando began the custom of renaming places and settlements with a double designation, including both the indigenous name and a newly added Spanish word, usually the name of a saint. A crusader for Catholicism, he put his very life at supreme risk for it. Had this not been so; had only material motives impelled him, he would never—we emphasize it—have risked his enterprise and his life by overthrowing the idols the indigenous people had venerated or feared, not excluding the most terrible of them, the bloodthirsty Huitzilopochtli or Huichilobos, to whom millions of victims, or at least hundreds of thousands, had been sacrificed. That is why, when he assails the great idol, the immortal words that provide the key and the inner explanation of the Cortesian epic are those we have already recalled: ‘We must venture something for God.’
Four centuries after his death, Don Hernando de Cortés, the creator of Mexico, our Homeland, awaits vindication and even reparation from many of his own children. But these cannot be long in coming, because Mexico, despite the great historical conspiracy forged against it, is once again becoming collectively conscious of its true History. And of its Destiny—ordained by Providence in the History yet to come—and signified by Cortés’s sword and standard, which, bearing on its cloth the highest emblem of the centuries, added this legend that demands to be lived anew today: ‘FRIENDS, LET US FOLLOW THE CROSS, AND IF WE HAVE FAITH, IN THIS SIGN WE SHALL CONQUER.’
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