Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/579

Rh connected the name with the highest offices of state, and with the title of grandee.Of the rest of the imperial wives and concubines nothing positive is known, save that a number of them and their daughters were liberally bestowed, as a mark of imperial favor, on prominent personages, including Spaniards. After the conquest they sank into obscurity, although some of them still managed to maintain a certain consideration among the natives, despite their poverty. Bernal Diaz claims that he received one of the concubines; upon Olid was bestowed a daughter, and upon Cortés two, it is said, one baptized as Ana, the other as Inés. Two witnesses declare that Isabel also 'cinco meses questava casada con ... Gallego e que pario una fija y que hera del ... Cortes.' Cortés, Residencia, ii. 242, 39, 244; i. 63, 99, 221, 263. The three daughters confided to Cortés on their father's death-bed were not in the Spanish quarters at the time, at least not all of them, but were found after the conquest and baptized. The eldest and legitimate, the attractive Tecuichpo, was then the wife of the last and captive sovereign, Quauhtemotzin, her cousin, who had married her chiefly with a view to strengthen his hold on the throne, for she was too young for the married state. She was baptized as Isabel, and her Indian husband having been executed, Cortés, on his return from Honduras, gave her in marriage to the hidalgo Alonso Grado, of Alcántara, who had succeeded Ávila as contador, and now held the position of visitador general of New Spain. In consideration partly of Grado's services and partly of Isabel's rank, the captain-general bestowed as dower, in the emperor's name, the town of Tacuba (Tlacopan), with the villages and farms subject to it, together with the title of señora thereof. The deed, which recounts the services of her father and the intrusting of his daughters to Cortés, is signed by him as captain-general and governor of New Spain, and dated June 27, 1523. It is given, among other books, in ''Monumentos Domin. Esp.,'' MS., 65-8. Grado dying soon after, without issue, she married Pedro Andrade Gallego, by whom she had one son, Juan Andrade, the founder of the Andrade-Montezuma family. This branch inherited the Villa Alta villages, in Oajaca, and other estates, which in 1745 were bought up by the crown for a pension of 3000 pesos, continued by the Mexican government in irregular payments. A member of this branch was the bishop of Chiapas a few years later. Certificacion de las Mercedes, MS., 14-18. M. Fossey describes a visit, in 1849, to the poverty-stricken yet proud descendants. Mexique, 497-500. The omission of Gallego's middle name has led the critical Alaman, among others, to assume that this family descends from Isabel's fifth marriage with Juan Andrade. Prescott's Mex. (Mex. 1844), ii. 31. Nor is Prescott free from error in connection with Montezuma's descendants. The Andrade branch became allied to the Condes de Miravalle, and a daughter of this house was the wife of General Barragan, who became presidente interino of the republic, thus raising a descendant of Montezuma once again to the supreme place in the country. The Princess Isabel was married a fourth time, to Juan Cano de Saavedra, by whom she had five children, the inheritors of the Tacuba estates, also exchanged for a pension which was continued by the republic. Of the Princess Acatlan's two daughters, María and Mariana, the former left no issue. Mariana married the conquistador Juan de Paz, bringing a dower of three towns, and after his death she took for husband the conqueror Cristóbal de Valderrama. By him she had a daughter, Leonor, who, marrying Diego Arias Sotelo, gave origin to the Sotelo-Montezuma family. ''Fonseca, Hist. Hacienda,'' i. 464. This work, with its collection of official papers and extracts, gives a mass of information about the imperial descendants and estates. Prescott confounds the mother and daughter. Mex., ii. 351-2. Viceroy Mendoza, in a despatch to the emperor of December 10, 1537, refers to the death, three weeks before, of Valderrama, and speaks of children by the former husband, which are not admitted in Fonseca. Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., ii. 203. Cortés refers to three sons of Montezuma: the heir, who fell on the causeway during the