Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
Modern Language Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Modern Language Studies
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
The Means and Ends of Empire in
Hernan Cort s's Cartas de relaci6n
GLEN CARMAN
1 See esp. V. Frankl. Also helpful for putting the conquest in its legal and po-
litical context are: Eulalia Guzmin; Jose Valero Silva; Mario Hernandez Sanchez-
Barba; J. H. Elliott, Introduction, and "The Mental World of Hernan Cortes;"
Adrian Blkzquez-Garbajosa; Kathryn D. Kruger-Hickman; and Inga Clendinnen.
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
114 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION
and show how he makes use of various rhetorical devices and emplots
own conquest in order to suit his interests at Court.2 Here I argue that Cor
authorizes his voice not only through legalistic maneuvers, corroborating a
counts, and other well documented strategies that lend his letters an impar
tone, but also by fully engaging that voice in the conquest, so that the act
discovering, conquering, and narrating all seem to serve as merely differen
facets of the same enterprise. This fusion of speaker and protagonist prov
a narrative coherence that mirrors and supports Cortis's ideological justific
tion of the conquest, a coherence that is all the more impressive because se
-eral inconsistencies between his ends and his means threaten to jeopardize
political and textual authority. When Cortes suppresses these contradiction
he demonstrates how, even within the stylistic confines of the carta relator
patiently artful service to "truth" can offer an effective and compelling ser
to empire.
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GLEN CARMAN 115
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
116 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GLEN CARMAN 117
in my opinion, cent
de relaci6n, because
supposed truthfuln
When Stephanie Me
forza in the Cartas
tion of Cortes as M
have explored in d
says: "El merito fun
de forma coherente
entre politica y prin
politico del Renaci
Machiavelli's prince
ertheless recalls Ma
simulatore e dissim
his deception in his
chiavelli's prince bac
acterize himself in M
to the end" with th
means: mezzi) will d
nelle azioni di tutt
iudizio da reclamar
vincere e mantene
orevoli e da ciascun
This divergence of
Hauser mentions, ac
and even against hi
least within the oper
pany with the princ
self as separating po
gives strength and
is a deeply felt sens
a crusade in the nam
6 As Ram6n Menend
6) have shown, the em
by portraying itself a
odds with the Pope (M
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
118 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION
grounding for this notion of truth because the conquistadors see the w
against the infidel as a war against false beliefs. The ideological justifi
tion for Spanish imperialism, not surprisingly, is based on the stable opp
sition between truth and falsehood.
If, however, Cortes's letters flaunt their artifice and characterize the
conquistador as a "gran simulatore e dissimulatore," what truth do they
serve? The ideal of a fixed truth may satisfy the religious grounding of the
conquest, but the day-to-day actions of discovering the New World's se-
crets, destroying "false" beliefs and replacing them with "true" ones, and
of communicating these discoveries and accomplishments back to Europe
require a more adaptable form. The "truth" in the Cartas de relaci6n does
not simply prevail on its own; instead, it requires an artful advocate who
understands that the truth is an idea that depends on words, and that
words depend on those who speak them. Cortes may claim to defend the
truth in his letters, but he also acknowledges the rhetorical nature of that
defense.
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GLEN CARMAN 119
7 The embellishments
aci6n can now receive
of the Cartas de relaci6
and says that the scrib
the level of a historiog
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
120 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION
other than what he sees with his own eyes, Montezuma is referring
what his own enemies from Tlaxcala and Cempoala may have told Co
about him, the Aztec leader. He is talking about lies. Cortes might be
to convince his readers at Court that he is not going to give them a f
account by mistake, for he claims to know the limitations of his med
but how can he convince them that he is not giving a false account on
pose?
In his attempt to prove that he is not lying, Cort6s calls on others to cor-
roborate his version of events. Here, his legal training is decisive (Frankl
12; Valero Silva 15; Elliott "The Mental World" 48). During the fifteen
years he worked in Hispaniola and Cuba, first as a notary and later as a
secretary to the governor, a municipal official, and an encomendero, Cortes
must have become an expert at drafting legal documents (Elliott, "The
Mental World" 48). Other voices, in the introductions and addenda to the
letters, frame Cortes's narrative and appear to confirm his account, as does
the first letter, which also gives information about Cortes that would be
difficult for him to give in first person. Frankl makes an excellent case for
reading the first letter as the work of Cort&s, and shows how its structure
and general ideology parallel that of the other letters (9, 58-73). Valero Sil-
va (34) and Elliott ("Introduction" xx) agree that Cortes must have dictat-
ed a large part of the letter, although Bemal Diaz says that Cortes only
read it after it was completed (207; ch. 54). Regardless of who the real au-
thors were, the letter signed by the Municipal Council of the Town of Vera
Cruz serves Cortes's purposes better than anything he could have signed,
which is perhaps why his own "First Letter" has never been found, assum-
ing it was ever written at all (see Garbajosa 31).
Cortis's next step after authorizing his Cartas de relaci6n is to authorize
his conquest of Mexico. This "next" step, however, cannot really be sec-
ondary, because the reliability of any eyewitness account depends on the
reliability of the eyewitness who provides it. Here Cortes shows his under-
standing of the imperial perspective by not separating the notion of loyal-
ty to the truth from loyalty to the king. He must appear to serve both, at
all times and in all ways, because if he can combine his allegiance to the
monarch with the pursuit and defense of "truth," he presumably authoriz-
es his imperial reader in the process and ultimately authorizes Spain's
trans-Atlantic crusade. Fabricating this apparent fusion of word and deed
is perhaps the most important rhetorical move in the Cartas de relaci6n,
since it satisfies the power that Cortes is attempting to persuade.
In the first letter Cortes's zeal for finding out facts sets his expedition
apart from those that preceded it. As Kruger-Hickman notes, "[t]he in-
forming function is made to seem the key duty of the expedition" (80).
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GLEN CARMAN 121
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
122 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTtS'S CARTAS DE RELACION
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GLEN CARMAN 123
is trying to convey.
render his narrative
be effective, as Luis V
to be true ("non ver
tione dicendi 213; 3
guide Cortes's cartas
humanistic historio
composed account, t
vail over a false but
must beat fiction at
ples.
Avoiding the extraneous is a classical topos for all narrative, one that
finds two of its most well-known Spanish proponents in L6pez Pinciano
(2: 39-40; epistola 5) and the canon from the Quijote, who attacks the chiv-
alric novels not because they are untrue, but rather because they are not
true-to-life. For el can6nigo, the monstrosity of their structure matches the
monstrosity of their content and reflects their lack of verisimilitude:
Principios, medios y fines are the the components of the political logic of
principles, means, and ends as well as of the canon's narrative logic of be-
ginnings, middles, and ends.8 If Cortes's principios, medios yfines coincide
with one another and with those of the Crown, then he is telling the
Crown's own story and in such a way that he is always the protagonist,
even as narrator. This convergence of narrative and politics corresponds
to the complete convergence of narrator and protagonist in the Cartas de
relaci6n. By combining these two entities Cortes can present the acts of dis-
covering, conquering, and writing as if they all served the same pursuit
and defense of the truth. Likewise, he constructs the notion of "truth" in
accordance with these three acts. First, he presents the truth as the physical
world, to which one gains access through exploration and observation.
Second, he refers to a higher truth, the metaphysical world, the most es-
sential principles of which the crusading Christians claim to understand
already. This understanding includes the sense of duty to reveal these
principles to the rest of the world, to spread Christian doctrine so that few-
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
124 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION
er souls will be lost in the worship of "false" gods. In this sense conqu
serves the truth inasmuch as one conceives of the conquest as convers
which is in fact how it is portrayed in the Cartas de relaci6n. Finally, Cor
speaks of truth as event or lived experience. He can only capture this t
in his narrative by controlling that narrative and acknowledging its li
Yet the constraints and necessities that dictate the form that the truth
must take impinge on Cortes's narrative to such an extent that the infor-
mation he conveys to his audience depends on his immediate needs as a
writer, even though writer and audience supposedly share the same inter-
ests: "me esforzare a decir a Vuestra Alteza lo menos mal que pudiere, la
verdad y lo que al presente es necesario que Vuestra Majestad sepa" (161; 2; em-
phasis mine). Cortes will "tell the truth" plus "something else;" except that
this "something else" turns out to be a minus rather than a plus, because
it reveals the constraints placed on the account. Cortes paraphrases his
rhetorical construction of the truth when he makes the audience's knowl-
edge, represented here by the verb "sepa," subordinate to the immediate
needs of the speaker, as if in this brief and specific instance a pragmatic hi-
erarchy could supercede the political hierarchy between monarch and
subject. Expediency in the name of a divine and imperial Truth outweighs
allegiance to a more mundane and immediate concept of truth, under-
stood here as a full account of what happened. There arises even in
Cortes's own narrative the possibility that one notion of the truth may in-
terfere with another.
Whereas the conflict between the Crown's interests and Cortes's alle-
giance to the truth remains merely a possibility or suggestion with respe
to Cortis's correspondence with the king, it is unmistakable in his own de
piction of his conduct throughout Meso-america. In a word, Cortes lies-
early and often. This is not to say that we as readers can easily distinguis
Cortes's truth-telling from his lying, but that he frequently defines his own
actions as deceptive and sets aside his own speech acts into categories of
true and false. Besides his initial duplicity when he allies himself with op
posing states ("con los unos y los otros maneaba, y a cada uno...le dab
credito de mas amistad que al otro" [188; 2]), Cortes says that he lies abou
the purpose of his journey and his orders from Charles V relating directl
to Montezuma. For example, he assures Montezuma's subjects "que Vues-
tra Majestad tenia noticia dd1 y me habia mandado que lo viese, y que y
no iba a mas de verle" (169; 2). Perhaps his most famous fiction is his iden
tification of Charles V with a Mexican Messiah figure, destined to return
to Tenochtitlan from the East. Cortes says that Montezuma recognizes th
European emperor as his natural lord, but not because a Papal Bull of 149
granted dominion over his land to the Catholic monarchs, or because th
Christian "truth" is more compelling than the pagan "lie" he has been liv
ing. Rather, Montezuma submits to Charles V, we are to understand, be
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GLEN CARMAN 125
cause he believes th
chieftain, and that th
Far from illuminati
says he is willing to
gy: "Yo le respondi
aquello que me par
Vuestra Majestad er
All this deception
be significant if it w
es in his Cartas de r
to satisfy, the inter
defense of truth; or
truth. By making t
ing its purported en
perial program. How
same underhanded methods in the name of the Crown?
One possible tactic would be to claim that honesty is not necessar
with "naturales." But Cortes never singles the Mexicans out in this way
He admits that he lies to them, to be sure, but he says that he lies to Span
iards as well. He tells his men that his ships are not seaworthy when he
decides to scuttle the fleet (164; 2), he pretends not to know of all the
members of the Velazquez faction who have taken part in a plot against
his life (448; 3), and he tricks Francisco de Garay into sending a landing
party to him by disguising three of his men as members of the Garay e
pedition (167; 2).
Another possible solution would be for Cortes to present his tactics as
sanctioned by God. He certainly uses divine sanction elsewhere, so that
his often miraculous military victories seem to prove his faith in God an
his service to the divine truth (e.g. 131-32; 1). But to say that God sanction
his deceit because it serves the divine truth is to beg the question. How ca
deceit serve the divine truth? As Sissela Bok has observed, "[t]o lie for th
9 Elliott ("Mental World" 51-53) and Pagden (Letters 467-78) have explored
some of the European myths that could account at least in part for Cortes's inclu
sion of this story of the returning leader. Diaz del Castillo (1: 274-75; ch. 78) and
Cervantes de Salazar (111.49) say that Cortes heard from the Tlaxcalans of a legen
concerning a returning chieftain. Le6n-Portilla ("Quetzalcoatl") makes the best
case for taking Cort&s's story as historical, or at least as indirect evidence of som
Quetzalcoatl-Cortes identification. He bases his argument on Cortes's second let
ter, Motolinia (who says that the Spaniards were always called teules, gods), G6
mara (who gives the first printed mention of Quetzalcoatl), the Anales hist6ricos
la naci6n mexicana (1528), Sahagtin's Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espahia, an
the Anales de Cuauhtitldn.
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
126 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION
sake of the truth...is surely the most paradoxical of excuses" (86). But t
are many examples of just such an attempt at justification, especially, a
Cortes's case, when the lies are presented as serving a higher truth, su
as some political or religious dogma: "The more dogmatic the belief t
one possesses truth, the greater the liberties taken on its behalf with truth
telling!" (Bok 91). Certainly this rationale plays a role in Cortes's use of
ception, but such an attempt at justification within the letters can never b
satisfactory because the letters build their own authority on the not
that the Crown's ends and means will coincide in every way and on ev
level.
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GLEN CARMAN 127
III. Conqueri
Any depiction of la
tracts from other f
noticeably from th
admits that the con
confession he can m
one considers the r
perior weaponry, th
pox epidemic, and-in the initial stages-Montezuma's indecisive
behavior, the real role of rhetoric in the conquest may have been minor.
But if Cortes can emplot these other factors, or at least the ones he knows
about, in rhetorical terms, then he can make artifice central to his service
to the empire.
When Aristotle proposes to define rhetoric as "an ability, in each [par-
ticular] case, to see the available means of persuasion" (1355a), he empha-
sizes the idea that rhetorical discourse is less concerned with transmitting
knowledge than with adapting itself to the confines of common knowl-
edge, or at least to the knowledge of each particular audience. Cortes like-
wise characterizes his own speeches within the Cartas de relaci6n as more
accomodating than imposing, even when he is in fact imposing a new or-
der and ideology on his audience. Jose Rabasa describes Cortis's dialogue
with the Aztecs as "apparently neutral," because, when Cortes accepts the
Aztecs' identification of the Spaniards with the descendents of former in-
habitants of Mexico, he incorporates Aztec culture and history into a new
order dominated by the Spaniards (145-52). For the audience outside of
the letters, however, there is nothing neutral about this exchange. The rhe-
torical power that Cortes wields within his narrative reflects his domina-
tion as much or more than any "native mythology." If Cortes uses a
"particularly modern form of colonial power" by claiming to rely on an ex-
change that pretends to be objective (Rabasa 152), it is worth stressing that
Cortes makes this pretense transparent for the reader of the Cartas de rel-
aci6n (see Checa 205).
By claiming that the key to his success and to the empire's success in
Mexico relies on his artful use of language, Cortes not only suppresses the
problem of how his service to the divine and imperial Truth can involve
the use of artful deception; he also makes it possible for his letters, by
themselves, to prove his suitability for the conquest, because they display
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
128 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION
his art at every level. Diaz Balsera shows how this self-authorization o
ates with regard to Cortis's speech to his men in Tlaxcala: "Al Cortes a
mar que logra como capitain persuadir a sus soldados, el lector pu
juzgar el grado de credibilidad que merece como cronista sin tener que
lir fuera del texto. Mientras mas o menos persuasivo sea Cortis conta
su exito persuasivo como capitan, tanta credibilidad ganarda este pasa
como testimonio de su alegado liderazgo" (223). In other words, Co
convinces his audience outside of the letters by showing that he is conv
ing in them. But Cortis never reproduces his own convincing orator
the narrative. Instead he redirects his speeches in the letters so that t
only address the audience outside of the letters, that is, his ideal rea
Charles V. His rhetorical skill as a writer may support his claims to rhe
ical success as a speaker, but that speaker's conquering voice is never
display. When Corteis does reproduce a speech, it is the voice of the c
quered, Montezuma, who addresses Cortes and thus places the conque
in the same audience as the ideal reader, a move that can only help au
rize Cortis's conquest by identifying him with the emperor.
The physical conquest narrated in the letters also functions as a me
of persuasion for the audience outside of the text. Cortis cannot persu
the king to grant him his commission if he does not succeed in battle;
success in battle serves to demonstrate his loyalty to the Crown just
much as it supposedly confirms his faith in God, because according to
ideological framework in which he operates the divine and the impe
truth are one and the same: "Y como traiamos la bandera de la cru
pufibamos por nuestra fe y por servicio de Vuestra Sacra Majestad en
muy real ventura, nos dio Dios tanta victoria que les matamos mucha g
te sin que los nuestros rescibiesen daho" (178; 2). Cortes conquers in M
ico in order to convince the king to allow him to conquer in Mexico.
circle ends in 1522 when Cortis finally receives the authorization he
been seeking. This victory, however, does not mean that he can stop pl
ing his case. After narrowly surviving his Honduran expedition, whic
describes in his fifth letter, he must face the prospect of a residencia, or
quest, into his actions as captain and governor. The fifth letter then st
as a defense against the accusations that he is ambitious and unloyal to
Crown: "si ansi fuera, no me fuera yo seiscientas leguas desta cibdad
tierra inhabitada y caminos peligrosos y dejara la tierra a los oficiale
Vuestra Majestad" (277; 5).
Even if Cortes does not fare well at the residencia, there is yet anot
audience to which he can appeal, for his letters reach the printing pre
well as the Court. Although such cartas relatorias as Cortis wrote were
usually written for publication, and Cortis may not have originally
tended to have his own letters published, he evidently grasped the im
tance of appealing to an audience that extended well beyond the king,
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GLEN CARMAN 129
10 By contrast, Walte
(66), and Delgado G6m
vorable de la historia,
emperador" (54).
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
130 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION
These last words give a peculiar twist to the passage, first by hinting that
the circumstances dictate the wording ("cosas que me paresci6 decirles
desta calidad") and then by emphasizing where the imperial "truth" re-
ceives its special power. According to Cortis, the soldiers do not fight sim-
ply because he has reminded them that they should be good vassals and
Christians. They fight, we are to believe, because that is what he wants
them to do.
Yo les hice entender con las lenguas cuin engaiiados estaban en ten-
er su esperanza en aquellos idolos...y que habian de saber que
habia un solo Dios, universal Sehor de todos...Y el dicho Muteequ-
ma y muchos de los prencipales de la dicha cibdad estuvieron con-
migo hasta quitar los idolos y limpiar las capillas y poner las
imAgenes, y todo con alegre semblante. Y les defendi que no matas-
en criaturas a los idolos...y en todo el tiempo que estuve en la dicha
cibdad, nunca se vio matar ni sacrificar alguna criatura. (239; 2)
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GLEN CARMAN 131
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
132 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION
He seizes Montezuma so that the Aztec emperor will not change his min
and while he holds him captive Cortes sets about defining Montezuma
role as an emperor-vassal. In response to the news from the coast that
Montezuma's vassal Cualpopoca has had some Spaniards killed at Mo
tezuma's orders, Cortis approaches the emperor with another version
events, giving him the opportunity to punish his supposedly guilty su
jects and thus show the Spanish monarch "su buena voluntad" (215;
Montezuma plays his role perfectly in the Cartas de relaci6n, with the result
that Cualpopoca, Cualpopoca's son, and fifteen others are publica
burned at the stake, even though beforehand Cortes has them admitti
that they were following Montezuma's orders. The real proof of Mont
zuma's supposed conversion appears when Cortes begs him to go free:
me dijo todas las veces que gelo decia [que se fuese a su casa] que 61 est
bien alli y que no queria irse" (218; 2). Cortis claims to have turned ph
ical control into mind control, imprisoning Montezuma's will along wi
his person.
Others do not always submit so easily in the Cartas de relaci6n, but even
with the most recalcitrant adversaries Cortes portrays the use of force, no
matter how devastating, as just another instrument within a larger strate-
gy of persuasion. When he says that he has his men cut off the hands of
suspected Tlaxcalan spies, he also sends the mutilated spies back to their
lord with a message about his invincibility (179; 2); likewise, when he at-
tacks defenseless towns, he continually describes these massacres as ex-
emplary punishments (e.g. 180-81; 2). It comes as no surprise, then, that he
turns the burning of Cualpopoca into a public spectacle or that he often
says that he fights even when he is weak precisely to hide his weakness
(e.g. 403; 3). This emphasis on the importance of psychological warfare, so
often commented on by critics, obviously forms part of a narrative strate-
gy that presents the conquest as something other than mere physical
struggle. Cortes claims to convince by conquering as much as he claims to
conquer by convincing. His use of violence has no meaning within the let-
ters except as a means of persuasion (see Merrim 78).
By the Quinta relaci6n Cortes takes the game of appearances to another
extreme, in which he pretends to have magic powers. He claims to have
discovered through an informant that some of the Aztecs that he has
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GLEN CARMAN 133
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
134 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION
that service to the "truth" also relies on artifice, which is what he ends
doing, consciously or not, by linking the supposed veracity of his accou
first to a judicious handling of language and then to a mastery of langua
Even in Cortis's dispatches to the monarch, the presentation of what
sees and what he does requires that he confront the problems of med
tion, so that he can claim to have the rhetorical skill, the art, that is neces-
sary to meet such a challenge.
Any rhetorical defense of the truth, however, places the notion of truth
into question. When Cortes links the supposed veracity of his Cartas de r
aci6n to his own ability to master language, he already strikes at the he
of the problem. If his account has to be artful to be reliable, then there
nothing fixed about its content. His own capacity and his own immedia
needs determine what he says and how he says it: "me esforzar6 a decir
Vuestra Alteza lo menos mal que pudiere la verdad y lo que al presente
necesario que Vuestra Majestad sepa" (161; 2). The truth "lies" somewhe
between those two factors. Indeed, Cortis's definition of his conquest
service to the truth changes as the conquest proceeds, as he explores a
discovers "secrets" that extend the bounds of his knowledge and of th
Spanish empire. The conquest itself redefines the limits (Lat. fines) of t
physical truth, even though the higher, spiritual Truth that supposed
justifies the conquest remains fixed. Cortes mediates between and event
ally fuses these two notions of truth by pursuing the physical and the spir-
itual ends of the Spanish empire within the same coherent narrative.
DEPAUL UNIVERSITY
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GLEN CARMAN 135
Works Cite
Aristotle. Aristotle
George A. Kennedy
Bla"zquez-Garbajos
Mexico': Politica, ps
4-46.
Bok, Sissela. Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. New York: Ran-
dom, 1979.
Clendinnen, Inga. "'Fierce and Unnatural Cruelty': Cortes and the Con-
quest of Mexico." Representations 33 (1991): 65-100.
Curtius, Ernst Robert. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Trans.
Willard R. Trask. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1967.
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
136 MEANS AND ENDS OF EMPIRE IN CORTES'S CARTAS DE RELACION
L6pez Pinciano, Alonso. Filosofla antigua poetica. Ed. Pedro Mu~ioz PeiXa.
Valladolid, 1894.
Machiavelli, Niccol6. II principe e discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. Ed.
Sergio Bertelli. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1960.
---. The Prince. Trans. Robert M. Adams. New York: Norton, 1977.
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GLEN CARMAN 137
---. Trans. and ed. Letters from Mexico. By Hemrni Cortes. 2nd ed. New Ha-
ven: Yale UP, 1986.
This content downloaded from 132.174.251.189 on Mon, 13 May 2019 21:35:47 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms