The aboriginal form of marriage, while it satisfied the natives, rested lightly on the Spaniards. Indeed, with them it was no marriage at all; and so it has been throughout the New World; in their marital relations with foreigners the natives have felt themselves bound, while the Europeans have not. To the ceremony in this instance no objection was offered.
At this happy consummation, though the rite is not yet performed, serious meditation takes possession of the mind of Cortés, who bethinks himself that he is doing little of late for his God, who is doing so much for him.
Success everywhere attends his strategies. And these female slaves and princesses! While trying to quiet his conscience for accepting this princess, he was exceedingly careful in regard to taking unto himself real wives, as we have seen in Cuba. But here marriage after the New World fashion would surely advance his purposes.
And so they are compelled to submit to the stronger, who by the right of might proceeds to rob them of their gold and to desolate their homes; and now assumes the higher prerogative of requiring them to relinquish the faith of their fathers and embrace the religion of their enemies.
It would please God to have these Cempoala people worship him; Cortés can make them do so. True, they love their gods as much as Cortés loves his. Their gods likewise help them to good things, among others to the Spaniards themselves, who in return now determine their overthrow. And shall they consent! Alas, they are weak, and their gods are weak!
Heathenism, with its idolatry, and bloody sacrifices, and cannibalism, is horrible, I grant you.
“For daily they sacrificed three or five Indians,” says Bernal Diaz, “offering the heart to idols, smearing the blood upon the walls, and cutting off the limbs to be eaten. I even believe they sold the flesh in the market.”13