Mexico: Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development

"From what I have seen and heard concerning the similarity between this country and Spain, its fertility, its extent, its climate, and in many other features of it, it seemed to me that the most suitable name for this country would be New Spain, and thus, in the name of your Majesty, I have christened it. I humbly supplicate your Majesty to approve of this and order that it be so called." Thus wrote Hernan Cortes, the greatest natural leader of men since Julius Cæsar, to the sovereign whom he endowed, as he subsequently told him bitterly, with provinces more numerous than the cities he had inherited from his forefathers. From the first appearance of the Spaniards upon the vast elevated plateau upon which the Aztec empire stood the invaders were struck by its resemblance in climate and natural products to their European homeland. In his first letter to the Emperor Cortes wrote: "The sea coast is low, with many sandhills.... The country beyond these sandhills is level with many fertile plains, in which are such beautiful river banks that in all Spain there can be found no better. These are as grateful to the view as they are productive in everything sown in them, and very orderly and well kept with roads and convenience for pasturing all sorts of cattle. There is every kind of game in this country, and animals and birds such as are familiar to us at home.... So that there is no difference between this country and Spain as regards birds and animals.... According to our judgment it is credible that there is everything in this country which existed in that from whence Solomon is said to have brought the gold for the Temple."
Here, for the first time, the Spanish explorers in their wanderings had come across an organised nation with an advanced civilisation and polity of its own. The gentle savages they had encountered in the tropical islands and the mainland of the isthmus had offered little or no resistance to the white men or to their uncomprehended God. The little kinglets of Hispaniola, of Cuba, and of Darien, divided, unsophisticated, and wonder-stricken, with their peoples bent their necks to the yoke and their backs to the lash almost without a struggle. Their moist tropical lands, near the coasts, were enervating, and no united organisation for defence against the enslaving intruders was possible to them. But here in the land of the Aztec federation three potent states, with vast dependencies from which countless hordes of warriors might be drawn, were ready to stand shoulder to shoulder and resist the claims of the white demi-gods, mounted on strange beasts, who came upon giant sea-birds from the unknown, beyond the waste of waters. But the fatal prophecy of the coming of the avenging white God Quetzalcoatl to destroy the Aztec power paralysed the arm and brain of Montezuma, and rendered him, and finally his people, a prey to the diplomacy, the daring, and the valour of Cortes, aided by the dissentient tribes he enlisted under his banner.
The vast amphibious city of Tenochtitlan, when at length the Conquerors reached it, confirmed the impression that the land of which it was the capital was another wider and richer Spain. Its teeming markets, "one square twice as large as that of Salamanca, all surrounded by arcades, where there are daily more than sixty thousand souls buying and selling"; the abundance of food and articles of advanced comfort and luxury, "the cherries and plums like those of Spain"; "the skeins of different kinds of spun silk in all colours, that might be from one of the markets of Granada"; "the porters such as in Castile do carry burdens"; the great temple, of which "no human tongue is able to describe the greatness and beauty ... the principal tower of which is higher than the great tower of Seville Cathedral"—all reminded Cortes of his native Spain. "I will only say of this city," he concludes, "that in the service and manners of its people their fashion of living is almost the same as in Spain, with just as much harmony and order; and considering that these people were barbarous, so cut off from the knowledge of God and of other civilised people, it is marvellous to see to what they have attained in every respect." Thus New Spain was marked out of all the dominions of Spanish Indies as that which was in closest relationship with the mother country.