Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/815

Rh

 truth and falsehood. When in addition to the writings of the Spaniards we have native records and architectural remains as collateral evidence, every honest searcher after truth may be satisfied.

In regard to the two writers by the name of Diaz who accompanied the first expedition to Mexico, I have spoken of the Itinerario de Grijalva of the priest, and before closing this volume I will review the Historia Verdadera of the soldier. Following these were the memorials of the relatives of Velazquez, wholly unreliable; the relation of the Anonymous Conqueror, whose statements were for the most part true; many documents, such as the Carta del Ejército, and Probanza de Lejalde, as well as the Cartas de Cortés, in the main true, but which may properly be accepted only after close scrutiny and careful comparison; the reports of Zurita, and the innumerable papers and documents lately brought to light by Navarrete, Ramirez, Icazbalceta, Ternaux-Compans, and others, and published as Coleccion de Documentos Inéditos, Coleccion de Documentos para la Historia de Mexico, etc.; native and Spanish historians, Tezozomoc, Camargo, and Ixtlilxochitl; Duran, Veytia, Sahagun, Mendieta, and Las Casas; Oviedo, Peter Martyr, and Gomara; Herrera, Torquemada, Solis, and Clavigero; Bustamante, Robertson, Prescott, and Brasseur de Bourbourg. These and others of but little inferior importance offer ample foundation on which the modern historian may safely rear his superstructure.

I say that it is easy enough to determine truth from falsehood in such a study as this, where the evidence is so abundant and the witnesses are so widely separated. When Torquemada enters into a long argument to show that the misery wrought by the conquest was the punishment by God for the vices of the Mexicans, I do not discuss the matter. I willingly admit that the ancient historian knew, if indeed he knew anything about it, more concerning the mind of the deity than the modern, though the latter might ask if the sufferings of the Spaniards were not in like manner on account of their vices.

The books treating of Cortés' achievements, as I have said, form an immense array, as may be expected from the importance and interest of what Robertson justly terms "the most memorable event in the conquest of America," involving the subjugation of the richest and most advanced country therein, the fall of its beautiful and renowned city, and one of the most daring campaigns ever undertaken. The narrative reads indeed like a romance rather than history based on stern facts, and it is not strange that men have arisen who seek to cast doubt, not alone on certain incidents, but on the main features of the achievement and the field.

One method of doubt has been to lower the estimate of native culture and resources; to sneer at the large cities, magnificent palaces, regal state, certain industrial and fine arts, picture-writing, and other evidences of a higher culture. Such statements reveal to the experienced student a lamentable disregard or ignorance of evidence extant, of ruins with their massive form, their beautifully designed ornamentation, their admirable sculptured and plastic delineation of the human figure, both far in advance of the conventional specimens of Egypt, and the former equal in many respects to the productions of the higher Greek art. The picture-writing, again, reveals the phonetic element so developed as to endow the Mexicans with that high proof