Cortés After the Conquest of Mexico

CORTÉS AFTER THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO: CONSTRUCTING LEGACY IN NEW SPAIN By RANDALL RAY LOUDAMY Bachelor of Arts Midwestern State University Wichita Falls, Texas 2003 Master of Arts Midwestern State University Wichita Falls, Texas 2007 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December, 2013 CORTÉS AFTER THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO: CONSTRUCTING LEGACY IN NEW SPAIN Dissertation Approved: Dr. David D’Andrea Dissertation Adviser Dr. Michael Smith Dr. Joseph Byrnes Dr. James Cooper Dr. Cristina Cruz González ii Name: Randall Ray Loudamy Date of Degree: DECEMBER, 2013 Title of Study: CORTÉS AFTER THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO: CONSTRUCTING LEGACY IN NEW SPAIN Major Field: History Abstract: This dissertation examines an important yet woefully understudied aspect of Hernán Cortés after the conquest of Mexico. The Marquisate of the Valley of Oaxaca was carefully constructed during his lifetime to be his lasting legacy in New Spain. The goal of this dissertation is to reexamine published primary sources in light of this new argument and integrate unknown archival material to trace the development of a lasting legacy by Cortés and his direct heirs in Spanish colonial Mexico. Part one looks at Cortés’s life after the conquest of Mexico, giving particular attention to the themes of fame and honor and how these ideas guided his actions. The importance of land and property in and after the conquest is also highlighted. Part two is an examination of the marquisate, discussing the key features of the various landholdings and also their importance to the legacy Cortés sought to construct. This analysis is extended into the second and third generation of the marquisate, an aspect of Cortés’s legacy mostly ignored by scholars, to trace the success or failure of various developments. In looking at Cortés and the marquisate in its entirety (as compared to regional studies), it becomes clear that the marquisate was more important to Cortés than previous historical literature indicates, as it was directly tied to his desire to construct a legacy in New Spain as well as his ideas of fame and honor. Cortés utilized the marquisate not only for economic gain, but for political and social goals as well. Through showing that Cortés was devoted to the development and growth of his marquisate, this research highlights the legacy Cortés sought to construct in Mexico, and the impression he hoped to make on Mexico beyond the conquest. Cortés controlled the largest estate in New Spain, and how he and his heirs managed that land would fundamentally shape New Spain and the history of Mexico. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................1 Historiography and Sources of Conquest ................................................................4 Historiography and Sources Post-Conquest...........................................................21 PART ONE: HERNÁN CORTÉS AND NEW SPAIN II. FAME AND HONOR IN THE NEW WORLD .....................................................36 III. THE NARRATIVE OF CONQUEST ...................................................................64 IV. THE COLLAPSE OF CORTÉS’S MEXICO........................................................87 V. CORTÉS BETWEEN TWO WORLDS ...............................................................101 VI. THE END OF THE FRONTIER .........................................................................112 VII. THE LURE OF THE SOUTH SEA ...................................................................124 VIII. CONQUISTADOR TO COURTIER ................................................................138 IX. LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT ......................................................................149 iv Chapter Page PART TWO: THE MARQUISATE: THE FIRST 100 YEARS X. THE GEOGRAPHY OF CONQUEST .................................................................174 XI. IN THE SHADOW OF THE CONQUISTADOR ..............................................189 XII. A LEGACY OF LAND ......................................................................................204 Coyoacán..............................................................................................................215 The Matalcinco Valley .........................................................................................221 Cuernavaca ...........................................................................................................228 Oaxaca..................................................................................................................251 Teguantepec .........................................................................................................260 Veracruz ...............................................................................................................275 XIII. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................284 APPENDICES ...........................................................................................................305 1. The Grants of the Marquisate ........................................................................305 2. Spanish Money at the Time of the Conquest of Mexico ...............................309 3. Towns and Villages of the Marquisate ..........................................................310 4. Administrators of the Marquisate: The First 100 Years ................................315 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................316 v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A poor boy of lower nobility from Extremadura, Spain, Cortés arrived in the New World with nothing; fifteen years later, he was a prominent landowner and wealthy citizen of Cuba, working directly under the governor, Diego Velásquez. Having already achieved a level of success in the Indies greater than most Spanish settlers, Cortés was nonetheless not satisfied. He knew very little about Mexico or what it might contain, but he was so confident in his belief that better things awaited him that he drove himself into debt and ruined his relationship with Velásquez to fund the expedition. When Velásquez tried to stop him, Cortés reportedly told him, “I beg your pardon, but these things are better done than thought about.” 1 John H. Elliott explains that a key feature of Spanish conquistadors was their “capacity for infinite wonder at the strange world unfolding before their eyes, interpreting its mysteries as much from their store of imagination as from their past experience.” 2 Conquistadors drew on this imagination and cast themselves as the main characters in 1 Bartolomé de Las Casas, History of the Indies , Andrée M. Collard, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 228-229. 2 John H. Elliott, Imperial Spain , (New York: Penguin Books, 2002), 64. 1 their own heroic tales. This power of imagination was later captured in Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605). The titular character is a country gentleman so obsessed with medieval tales of chivalry that his imagination leads him to believe he is a knight-errant, destined to wander the countryside and make a name for himself while ridding the world of evil. In arguably the best known scene, Don Quixote mistakes several windmills for giants and proclaims his intent to vanquish them, achieving wealth and glory in the process. He explains, “Chance has conducted our affairs even better than we could either wish or hope for; look there, friend Sancho, and behold thirty or forty outrageous giants, with whom I intend to engage in battle, and put every soul of them to death, so that we may begin to enrich ourselves with their spoils; for, it is a meritorious warfare, and serviceable both to God and man.” When his companion Sancho Panza realizes Don Quixote’s mistake he pleads that he not attack them, asserting, “I would your lordship would take notice that those you see yonder are no giants, but windmills; and what seem arms to you, are sails; which being turned with the wind, make the mill-stone work.” With equal incredulity, Don Quixote responds, “It seems very plain that you are but a novice in adventures.” 3 Cervantes captures an ethos that would have been familiar to Hernán Cortés, who in 1519 set off from the Spanish island of Fernandina, known today as Cuba, for the eastern coast of Mexico. 4 Bartolomé de Las Casas’s description of Cortés’s departure from Cuba follows in line with the action and ambition that characterized the life of the 3 Miguel de Cervantes, The Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha , Tobias Smollett, trans. (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1986), 62. 4 There is evidence that Cervantes was familiar with Cortés and the conquest of Mexico. In chapter eight of the volume two of Don Quixote , Cervantes mentions the actions of Cortés in the New World in a discussion between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on the issue of the quest for fame. (Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha , 467; Mary Malcolm Gaylord, “Don Quixote’s New World of Language,” Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America , vol. 27, no. 1 (Spring 2007), 84. 2 conquistador. 5 Using whatever resources at his disposal, many times during his life he demonstrated the willingness to sacrifice his previous achievements for the prospect of something greater. From his education as a young man to his status as Marquis of

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