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Updated: June 1, 2025
But at the time of the conquest it was frequently in a state of activity, and raged with uncommon fury while the Spaniards were at Tlascala; an evil omen, it was thought, for the natives of Anahuac. Its head, gathered into a regular cone by the deposit of successive eruptions, wore the usual form of volcanic mountains, when not disturbed by the falling in of the crater.
Wavering Tlascala decided for Cortes and he was received with generous, royal and munificent hospitality, which accorded him everything he asked. Messengers were despatched to Hispaniola for reinforcements and every preparation made for the renewal of the campaign. During the fall, troops, horses, men, guns and thousands of the flower of the Tlascalan army were placed at Cortes's disposal.
"To the north lie terrible mountains, of whose passes I know nothing. Our provisions are exhausted, and we must, in future, depend upon maize and other things we can pick by the way. Were we to go there, we should find nothing. "To the south lies Tlascala, whose people are independent of Montezuma. They are fierce and warlike, and would seize and offer you to the gods, without pity."
They will have lost their guns, and if the Aztecs continue to press them as hotly as they did upon the causeway, they may slay them all; but if they give them time to rally, they may yet fight their way back to Tlascala." "And you will stop here with us, Roger. Is it not so?" "If your people will allow me to do so, I will, Amenche.
The people flocked out to meet them, bringing garlands of roses, with which they decorated the Spanish soldiers, and wreathed about the necks of their horses. Priests in their white robes mingled with the crowd, scattering clouds of incense from their censers, and thus escorted the army slowly made its way through the gates of the city of Tlascala.
The news came, in a day or two after the army reached its resting place, that a party of five horsemen and forty foot, who had gone forward in charge of invalids and treasure from Tlascala, had all been massacred; and twelve other soldiers, marching in the same direction, had also been killed.
This was the state of affairs in Tlascala when the Spaniards reached it, and it is easy to see how important it was to Cortés to form an alliance with it, but that was not an easy thing to do. The Tlascalans had heard about the Christians and their victorious advance, but they had not expected that they would come their way.
The little army soon reached the frontiers of the small republic of Tlascala, of which the fierce inhabitants, impatient of servitude, had long been engaged in strife with Montezuma. Cortès flattered himself that his oft-proclaimed intention of delivering the Indians from the Mexican yoke would induce the Tlascalans to become his allies and at once to make common cause with him.
"And what is the one state that has not been conquered by your Confederacy?" "Tlascala. It lies high up among the mountains and, although but a small state, has maintained its independence, and has several times repulsed the attacks of our best soldiers." Roger thought that Tlascala must be a sort of Mexican Switzerland. "It is singular that a small state should have resisted so long," he said.
Cortez at once dispatched messengers after Velasquez and Ordaz, and ordered them to march to join him at Tlascala; recalled a hundred men from Vera Cruz, and then set forward. The troops suffered much in their march across the low country to the foot of the hills, beneath a sun of terrible power. However, they reached Tlascala, and were there joined by Ordaz and Velasquez.
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