Isabel Bueno: ‘Hernán Cortés was a puppet in Indigenous hands, he had no choice but to trust them’

Within the walls of what was once the Our Lady of the Assumption convent in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala, built by Franciscan priests with an Indigenous workforce between 1537 and 1540, there is a copy of the text known as the Lienzo de Tlaxcala. The codex, created by the Spanish court, tells of the role played by the city of Tlaxcala and its inhabitants in “la Conquista.” Originally, there were three copies, but none survived the ravages of time. The text in the convent, a building that is now a museum, is an 18th-century facsimile that has served as proof of a myth. “It’s a work of art and diplomacy. A visual memory that insists on legitimacy, alliances and rights. Where there is no lack of manipulation, manipulation that can only be carried out by the victors,” explains Spanish anthropologist Isabel Bueno.

Bueno (Madrid, 63 years old) is in Tlaxcala to propose a different reading of history than that which has branded this community with the stigma of betrayal, to such an extent that it is regarded to this day with contempt, and the cruel saying abounds that “Tlaxcala does not exist.” For centuries, the Tlaxcalans have been seen as traitors, a defeated people, submissive and servile under the orders of Hernán Cortés. According to Bueno, they were actually a complex population with well-defined sociopolitical structures and sophisticated art forms, who had been subjugated by the Aztec empire and the powerful Tenochtitlán. Bueno, who has a PhD in anthropology from Madrid’s Complutense University and has spent decades studying the conquest of Mexico and the role the Tlaxcalans played in the historic event, explains that the group, fed up with suffocating abuse, accepted a military alliance with the Spanish to guarantee their own survival.

The anthropologist says that this year’s 500th anniversary of the founding of the modern-day city of Tlaxcala is an excellent moment to open space not just for commemoration, but also for reflection. “Pre-Hispanic history is very poorly known inside and outside of Mexico. The worst part is that Mexicans themselves are unaware of their impressive legacy and largely fall into repeating tired stereotypes that have no historic merit, full of prejudice and political bias,” says Bueno.

Question. What role did the Tlaxcalans play in the story of the Conquista?

Answer. The role of the Tlaxcalans in the fall of Tenochtitlán was that of conscious actors of the time in which they lived, and they had the luck to encounter politicians who were up to the task of such a difficult decision. They exercised their freedom, that of thinking about the present they were living in, and were able to visualize a future in which they were free of the Aztec yoke, and that of the triple alliance that, in the moment of the Spaniards’ arrival, was suffocating them with a blockade that prevented the entry of basic necessities like cotton and salt, and that kept them from utilizing their productive trade routes. That’s why, when the chief Cempoala proposed to Cortés that he form an alliance with them in exchange for their great army of warriors, laborers, and guides, the Tlaxcalans emerged as major players in the conquest of Tenochtitlán, unbeknownst to them.

Q. What did this alliance consist of?

A. The Tlaxcalans see this enormous army of Indigenous enemies arrive, and they attack it. Within that group were the Spanish, but as ever, they were very diluted in number compared with the Indigenous troops from this group and the other. Records show that Cortés asked for peace up to three times, while the Tlaxcalan authorities discussed the situation. Finally, during the last attack, the Spanish-Indigenous army was badly battered. Even Cortés had to fight while tied to his horse, because he did not have the strength to stay on top of it, due to the extreme weakness caused by the severe diarrhea the Spanish had been suffering from. At that moment, the Tlaxcalans could have finished them off, but they received the order to lower their weapons and let the foreigners enter, to hear what they had to say.

Q. What was the result of that truce?

A. It was how the second alliance to attack Moctezuma II between the Indigenous peoples and the Spanish was established. They were not defeated, the very term “alliance” encapsulates a degree of equality that does not exist between victors and vanquished. It was an alliance between two desperate groups that joined forces and strategies faced with a common enemy. The Tlaxcalans were at a critical point, facing a real trade blockade, and the Spanish had become a group of outlaws by disobeying the orders of the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez, to rescue and not settle.

Q. Why were they accused of being traitors for so long?

A. The betrayal thing had been repeated like a mantra. Why were they traitors to their country and people? In Mesoamerica, there was no concept of nation or identity outside of own’s community. Mexico did not exist, nor did the Tlaxcalans have anything to do with the Aztecs. So who and what did they betray? What about the other Indigenous peoples who joined in the goal of defeating Moctezuma? What must be considered during this anniversary is that the Tlaxcalans were crucial to the Aztec’s independence in 1428 due to their military support for the attack on Azcapotzalco as part of Nezahualcóyotl’s squadron. That they created a confederation and power structures as powerful as those of the triple alliance, which was never able to defeat them. That they had the vision of political change by allying themselves with a group of Indigenous people more similar to them and another smaller group with customs foreign to their tradition. That when Cuauhtémoc fled across the lake on August 13, 1521, while the embers of Tenochtitlán-Tlalteloco cooled, the Tlaxcalans decided to side with the Spanish, this time for good, to begin the conquest of Mesoamerica and beyond (they fought in Peru, the Phillippines, and Japan).

Q. What was their relationship with Cortés?

A. In my opinion, based on the facts that I have studied, Cortés, at least until his second attack on Tenochtitlán, after the “sad and victorious night,” was a puppet in Indigenous hands. I don’t say that in a denigrative way, but rather in the sense that he had no choice but to trust them, as he had arrived in a land completely unknown to him. That’s why Cortés, who was many things, but not stupid, must have needed time to learn all this. The numerical relationship didn’t favor him, either. So prudence seemed the most sensible path. But independently of all those factors, the Spanish and the Indigenous peoples shared unimaginable circumstances in which they were experiencing fear, need, and epidemics.

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