Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/104





of the most disgraceful destructions of property, recorded in history, is that which was accomplished in Mexico by the first Archbishop of New Spain, Juan de Zumarraga. He collected from all quarters, but especially from Tezcoco, where the national archives were deposited, all the Indian manuscripts he could discover, and causing them to be piled in a great heap in the market place of Tlatelolco, he burned all these precious records, which under the skilful interpretation of competent natives, might have relieved the early history of the Aztecs from the obscurity with which it is now clouded. The superstitious soldiery eagerly imitated the pious example of this prelate, and emulated each other in destroying all the books, charts, and papers, which bore hieroglyphic signs, whose import, they had been taught to believe was as sacrilegiously symbolic and pernicious as that of the idols they had already hurled from the Indian temples.

And yet, it may be questioned, whether these documents, had they been spared even as the curious relics of the literature or art of a semi-civilized people, would have enlightened the path of the historical student. "It has been shown," says Mr. Gallatin, "that those which have been preserved contain but a meagre account of the Mexican history for the one hundred years preceding the conquest, and hardly anything that relates to prior events. The question naturally arises—from what source those writers derived their information, who have attempted to write not only the modern history of Mexico, but that of ancient times? It may, without hesitation, be answered, that their information was traditional. The memory of important events is generally preserved and