Early in 1517, a man named Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba had come to see Governor Velasquez at Cuba. A group of adventurers had elected him captain of an expedition to go slave hunting in the Gulf of Honduras, and Cordoba sought authorization from the governor. This sort of enterprise was entirely illegal; despite the fact that only very few native people remained in the islands, and that mainland expeditions had become necessary if anyone hoped to catch any slaves at all, the Spanish Crown still clung to the illusion that America’s natives were being treated well and were even being converted to Christianity. Yet Governor Velasquez not only gave his permission, but announced that this would be a voyage of discovery and even added a ship of his own to the enterprise.
Within a few weeks, Cordoba’s expedition arrived at the northwest coast of the Yucatan peninsula, and here for the first time the Spaniards saw some signs of a civilization. Strange pyramid-shaped towers greeted them along the coast, and the people who came out to watch their ships were not the usual naked Indians, but were all dressed in colorful cotton clothes. But as anxious as they were to inspect these towns of stone buildings, the Spaniards did not dare to land in the face of the large crowds of openly hostile Maya, who seemed to be only too familiar with the white men. It would indeed have been more surprising if the past 25 years of ruthless slaughter in the Caribbean had gone unnoticed in nearby Central America. At any rate, when the Spaniards finally did try a landing at Cape Catoche, they were immediately attacked by a large native force, though the Maya warriors were quickly repelled when faced with the terrifying firearms of the Spanish soldiers.
But the Spaniards themselves were little interested in other battles, and they continued westward and around the bulge of the Yucatan. At Campeche the Indians appeared to be less hostile, and even invited the Spaniards into their town. With growing uneasiness, Cordoba and his men observed a huge fortress and stone temples with enormous sculptured serpents and altars dripping with blood. By the time the priests in these temples made it clear that they wanted the white men to leave their country, most of the Spaniards were only too happy to oblige.
But near the site of Champoton the expedition was once again forced to go ashore for drinking water, and there they were attacked by Indians in overwhelming numbers. Nearly half the Spaniards were killed and almost all the others were wounded, with Cordoba himself being hit by a dozen arrows. The survivors had seen enough; within a few days the terrified members of the expedition were back in Havana, where Cordoba died soon after of his wounds.
But the stories they brought back to Cuba – stories of stone temples, of massive golden objects, of the apparent wealth of the Yucatan – so excited Governor Velasquez that he decided to send out an expedition of his own to that coast. The following April, 250 soldiers left Santiago in four ships; they reached the Yucatan coast at Champoton, where they immediately set out to defeat a native force in retaliation for Cordoba’s disaster. As it turned out later, this was a most fateful victory; word of this battle was carried throughout the land by couriers, telling of the arrival of more white men, powerful and apparently invincible fighters. Soon these stories reached the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, where the Emperor Montezuma was thrown into a state of apprehension. Unable to get any sort of reassurance from his astrologers or his priests, Montezuma decided to play it safe. He sent word out to all his people, ordering them to deal peaceably with the strangers, to appease them with food, and to offer them small quantities of gold. Meanwhile, the priests were instructed to use their powers to make these white strangers go away.
The Spaniards, unaware of their newfound reputation, had meanwhile continued leisurely and unmolested along the Yucatan coast. By the middle of June they entered a small bay on whose shores stood a native village; the Indians again proved friendly and hospitable, but the horrified Spaniards soon discovered another side of the native personality. In their village they found hideously grinning stone idols, their jaws dripping with blood; nearby they discovered several hundred disemboweled human bodies, and human heads raised high on poles. They had arrived at an island in Vera Cruz Bay still known today as Isla Sacrificios, one of the many places used by the Aztecs for their human sacrifices.
After this experience, even the most hard-nosed of the Spanish soldiers had little enthusiasm left for further explorations. They stopped only briefly at one more island in the bay, and then returned to Cuba as quickly as they could. The Aztec coast was once again free of the white intruders, and back at Tenochtitlan, Montezuma congratulated his priests on the power of their spells. Only a year later, however, the Spaniards would return once again, and this time no mortal power or Aztec gods would be able to drive them off.