Page:The Native Races of the Pacific States, volume 2.djvu/159



GOVERNMENT IN TLASCALA.

THE PONTIFF OF YOPAA.

He who reads the romantic story of the conquest, feels his heart warm towards that staunch little nation of warriors, the Tlascaltecs. There is that about the men who ate their meat saltless for fifty years rather than humble themselves before the mighty despots of Mexico, that savors of the same material that defied the Persian host at Thermopylæ. Had the Tlascaltecs steadily opposed the Spaniards, Cortés never could have gone forward to look upon the face of King Montezuma, nor backward to King Charles as the conqueror of New Spain; the warriors who routed their allied enemies on the bloody plains of Poyauhtlan, assuredly could have offered the hearts of the invaders an acceptable sacrifice to the gods of Tlascala. The state of Tlascala, though invariably spoken of as a republic, was certainly not so in the modern acceptation of the term. At the time of the conquest it was governed by four supreme lords, each independent in his own territory, and possessed of equal authority with the others in matters concerning the welfare of all.[10] A parliament or senate, composed of these four lords and the rest of the nobility, settled the affairs of government, especially those relating to peace and war. The law of succession was much the same as in Michoacan. The chief before his death named the son whom he wished to succeed him, who, however, did not, as in Michoacan, commence to govern until after his father's death. The old chief's choice was restricted in two ways: in the first place the approval of his three colleagues was necessary;