FALL 2003 25 Restaging the Conquest of Michoacán in The
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CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by The University of Kansas: Journals@KU FALL 2003 25 Restaging the Conquest of Michoacán in the 1990s: Victor Castillo Bautista's Ñuño de Guzmán o la espada de Dios Mark A. Hernández The years leading up to the 1992 Quincentennial of Christopher Columbus' first voyage saw an increase in Latin American plays representing the discovery, exploration and conquest of the Americas. Numerous plays staged this encounter with a focus on such Spanish figures as Columbus, Hernán Cortés and Gonzalo Guerrero as well as Amerindian figures such as La Malinche, Cuauhtemoc and Moctezuma.1 The dominant tendency in these plays, argues Juan Villegas, was not to re-read history from the vantage point of the vanquished, but rather to underscore the injustices of the dominant regimes and their interpretation of history (240). In the case of recent Mexican theatre Sabina Berman's Águila o sol (1984), Vicente Leñero's La noche de Hernán Cortés (1992) and Hugo Rascón Banda's La Malinche (2000) follow the dominant tendency outlined by Villegas and employ a variety of dramatic techniques associated with postmodernism (parody, openness, discontinuity, marginality and anachronism) to deform, decenter and demythify received historical "truths" about the conquest of Mexico, which have underscored the Eurocentric vision of this event.2 While the above mentioned plays focus on figures and episodes related to the conquest of Mexico (i.e., the fall of Tenochtitlán), Víctor Castillo Bautista's Ñuño de Guzmán o la espada de Dios: una obra en un acto (1994) centers on the Spanish conquistador Ñuño de Guzmán and the conquest of Michoacán.3 Ñuño de Guzmán arrived in New Spain in 1527 to assume the post of resident governor of Panuco (modern-day state of Tamaulipas), which he held until 1528. As governor, he issued licenses for the branding and exportation of Amerindian slaves from Panuco to Hispaniola - an act for which he would be denounced for generations to come. In 1528 Charles V named him president of the Primera Audiencia of New Spain 26 LATIN AMERICAN THEATRE REVIEW (1529-1533), specifically to act as a counterweight to the growing power of Cortés. (Guzman repeatedly clashed with Cortés and Juan de Zumárraga, a Franciscan, the first bishop and archbishop of New Spain [1527-1548], and leader of the Mexican Inquisition [1536-1543].)4 During his tenure as president of the Primera Audiencia, Guzman would often leave the city to conquer territory, and in 1530 he left on an expeditionary campaign to conquer lands extending to the Pacific Ocean, which included the modern-day states of Michoacán, Jalisco, Zacatecas, Nayarit, Sinaloa, Sonora and Durango.5 On his way through Michoacán, Guzman - accompanied by a band of Spanish soldiers, local settlers, and allied Indians - tortured and publicly executed the Cazonci (hereditary ruler of the Purhépecha Indians), along the banks of the Lerma River on February 14, 1530 (Krippner-Martinez 9). The execution of the Cazonci, which has long been considered one of the most infamous events of the conquest of Mexico, culminated a series of encounters between Spanish conquistadors (mainly Cortés and Guzman) and the Cazonci. By the end of the sixteenth century, Guzman had acquired an immutable reputation for greed and cruelty and had come to symbolize Spanish atrocities against the Amerindians in the New World. His name had become synonymous with the black legend of Spanish colonialism.6 In large measure this uniformly negative portrait originated from the publication of Bartolomé de las Casas' Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (1552). In a chapter entitled "De la Nueva España, y Panuco y Jalisco," Las Casas denounces Guzman for exchanging Indians for cattle, while he was resident governor of Panuco, and for torturing and executing the Cazonci during the conquest of Michoacán. Since the publication of the Brevísima relación, generations of historians and intellectuals have taken their cues from Guzman's political rivals (mainly Cortés and Zumárraga) and reproduced the content of the documents left behind, all of which depict Guzman as cruel, brutal and lascivious (Krippner-Martinez 39).7 Castillo Bautista follows the essence of historical events about the conquest of Michoacán, based on Las Casas' Brevísima relación and the trial record of the Cazonci.8 Nevertheless, he introduces fictitious episodes and figures that alter our understanding of Guzman and the conquest of Michoacán. The play deforms and decenters the official history of Guzman and this event in order to rehumanize him and challenge the idea of "exceptionality" surrounding his conduct towards the indigenous populations in New Spain. Though the play by no means exculpates Guzman for his atrocities against the Purhépecha populations, it no longer casts him exclusively FALL 2003 27 as an exceptionally cruel conquistador but rather as a flawed human being. By restaging the conquest of Michoacán and the execution of the Cazonci, which have been featured as the prime exhibits for accusations against Guzman of excessive cruelty, the play puts into question one-dimensional ideological interpretations of this episode, which traditionally portray the conquistadors as pure evil and the Amerindians as unwitting and passive victims in their demise. And the play employs two strategies to alter our understanding of Guzman and the conquest of Michoacán. First, it assigns the Buffoon a pivotal role in the torture and execution of the Cazonci, thereby deflecting exclusive attention from Guzman's role in the indigenous leader's death; and second, it situates Guzman in quotidian scenes to present him as a flawed human being who shares many of the qualities of the macho in 20th century Mexico. While scholars have discussed the multifaceted nature of Mexican machismo (the cult of virility, power, domination and superiority), for the purpose of this article I will follow the lead of the sociologist Evelyn Stevens who posits that its chief characteristics are exaggerated aggressiveness and intransigence in male-to-male interpersonal relationships and arrogance and sexual aggression in male-to-female relationships (90).9 The play, in the end, undermines the dominant trend in Mexican colonial historiography to portray Guzman as the poster child of the black legend of Spanish colonialism. Relations between the Spanish Conquistadors and the Cazonci The on-going conflict between Guzman and Cortés as well as between Guzman and the Cazonci serves as the historical backdrop against which Castillo Bautista reenacts the conquest of Michoacán. Soon after the successful Spanish military occupation of Tenochtiltán, the Cazonci established a close relationship with Cortés. As early as February 23, 1521, soldiers under Cortés' command had met with representatives of the Cazonci - led by the Cazonci's adopted brother, Don Pedro - at Tajimaroa, a village on the border between the regions controlled by the Mexica and Purhépecha empires (Krippner-Martinez 17). As a result of these and other contacts, the Cazonci and Don Pedro had journeyed to Mexico City by 1524 or 1525, where Cortés received them. In 1525, Cortés sponsored the Cazonci in his baptism by Franciscan missionaries, and on June 7, 1525, the newly christened Don Francisco agreed that some male children of the indigenous elite should be educated by the Franciscans (Krippner-Martinez 17). As Krippner-Martinez has argued, the Cazonci struck an alliance with Cortés, which was informed 28 LATIN AMERICAN THEATRE REVIEW by his own political concerns and obligations. The Purhépecha had been one of the few indigenous peoples to maintain their independence from the Aztec empire during the prehispanic era, and a fierce rivalry had existed between them. Thus, the Cazonci had no reason to view the initial Spanish military victory as anything but a boon to his people, and no reason not to seek Cortés out as an ally (Krippner-Martínez 18).10 Like Cortés, Guzman also attempted to forge an alliance with the Cazonci and extract tributes of gold and silver. As early as 1529, Guzman had ordered indigenous rulers from each kingdom to pay homage to the Primera Audiencia in Mexico City. Although the Cazonci did not personally respond to Guzman's request, he sent a Náhuatl interpreter to Mexico City with several gifts. Unimpressed with the gifts, Guzman ordered his soldiers to bring the Cazonci to Mexico City in the spring of 1529 (Verástique 79-80). On that occasion the Cazonci presented Guzman with 20 silver plates and many gold ingots. Nevertheless, Guzman remained unimpressed with the tribute and ordered his guards to imprison the Cazonci until he received more gold. This ransom was eventually paid, and the Cazonci returned to Michoacán in May 1529 (Verástique 80). The following August, Guzman again summoned the Cazonci and ordered him to collect large quantities of weapons, clothing and food to provision Guzman's army, which consisted of 150 cavalrymen, 200 foot soldiers, and between 10,000 and 12,000 Amerindian allies. This army would be leaving Mexico City on a treasure-hunting expedition to the territory of Nueva Galicia (Verástique 80). The Cazonci was also instructed to bring Guzman more treasures of gold and silver. From August until late December 1529, the Cazonci was imprisoned at Guzman's residence in Mexico City, where he was tortured, shackled about the ankles and confined to his room (Verástique 80). Upon release on Christmas day, the Cazonci left for the town of Tzintzuntzan ahead of the army in order to prepare the heavy levy that Guzman required (Verástique 80). And this is the moment at which the play picks up the action. Ñuño de Guzman o la espada de Dios and The Conquest of Michoacán Nuno de Guzmán o la espada de Dios consists of 11 scenes and can be divided into three major sections.