Otumpa, six leagues distant, each containing between three and four thousand householders. This province and lordship of Haculuacan has many other villages and hamlets, and very good lands and farms. It joins on one side with the province of Tascaltecal, of which I have already spoken to Your Majesty.
This lord, called Cacamazin,[1] rebelled, after the imprisonment of Montezuma, as well against the service of Your Highness, to which he had offered him
Plot to
Capture
Cacamtzin
self, as against Montezuma. Although he was required many times to obey the royal mandates of Your Majesty, he never complied, for, besides my sending to require him, Montezuma also sent to summon him, but he answered that, if anything was wanted of him, they should come to his country, and that there he would show what he was worth, and the service he was obliged to render. According to my information, he had gathered a multitude of warriors well prepared for action. As I was unable to
- ↑ While Cacamatzin was kept in Montezuma's capital, his brother had been killed by the Spaniards, and a tribute levied on Texcoco, with such methods that it differed only in name from pillage. When the King contrived to escape from Mexico, he assembled other princes of the neighbourhood in Texcoco, among whom were his brothers Coanococh and Ixtlilxochiti, to whom he proposed that a stand should be at once made against the invaders. Premature wranglings over the division of the fruits of their expected victories broke up this council, not only without any practical decision having been reached, but with sharpened animosity between the three rival brothers. Montezuma's part in the treachery, which Cortes naively describes, was despicable. Coanococh and Ixtlilxochitl were among the conspirators who betrayed the King.
Cacamatzin, when brought into Montezuma's presence to hear his exhortations to make peace with the Spaniards, upbraided the Emperor for his cowardice and treachery. His death will be noticed in a later note.
Toltecs. When I visited them in 1884 they were then so overgrown with vegetation, and in such a state of progressive dilapidation, that their total destruction seemed assured, unless prompt measures were taken for their preservation. (Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères. Charnay, Ancient Cities of the New World.)
