Blessed Bartolomé Olmedo
The Conquistador
Join me today to meet a blessed who rode with Hernan Cortés in the conquest of Mexico.
Name: Bartolomé Olmedo
Life: c. 1485 - 1524
Status: Blessed
Feast: February 11
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Montezuma II, high king of the sprawling Aztec Empire, was dead.
Montezuma’s death came as a shock to Hernan Cortés, the leader of the Spanish expedition there in Tenochtitlan, modern Mexico City in central Mexico. Upon entering the city, Cortés had dreamed up an audacious, mad plan: he would take the high king captive in his own capital city. For a while, the plan had even worked. But things began to change, as the Christians set up an altar and celebrated Mass in public. Soon the Aztecs had appointed a new leader, and angry crowds were surrounding the building where the Spanish were staying.
Hoping to deescalate the situation, Cortés had asked Montezuma to stand on a balcony and address his people. Montezuma had agreed. But the crowd was not in a listening mood. Someone had started throwing rocks, and Montezuma was hit several times. He staggered back inside.
Even though Montezuma was a prisoner, not to mention the leader of a pagan religion, a strange friendship had emerged between him and the thoughtful Mercedarian friar who was Cortés’ chaplain, Bartolomé Olmedo. As soon as he heard about the rock throwing, Olmedo had checked in on Montezuma, but the king did not seem to be badly hurt. Olmedo had left the king to his rest. Olmedo thought that he still had time, for like Cortés, he too had a plan.
Father Olmedo’s plan was for the souls of the people here in Tenochtitlan and in the broader Aztec empire. When he and Cortés began to encounter the Aztecs, they were disgusted to discover that the Aztecs sacrificed human beings. The Western revulsion for human sacrifice ran deep, indeed it preceded Christianity, and was part of the Roman justification for the destruction of the child-sacrificing Carthaginians and the human-sacrificing druids. Early in their visit, here in Tenochtitlan, Cortés and Olmedo had watched helplessly as Montezuma personally used a stone knife to rip the hearts out of several men and boys. But where Cortés simply wanted to smash the idols, Olmedo saw an opportunity to convince rather than force. The real mission field, he thought, was in the minds of the people. Christians of the past had persuaded kings to follow Christ and turn their people in a new direction. Olmedo hoped that, by careful conversation and witness, the high king Montezuma might be persuaded to lead his people away from the idols that they worshipped.
But then, to everyone’s surprise, the rocks thrown by the angry crowd had done fatal damage, and Montezuma had died. The Spanish gave the great king’s body to the Aztecs outside, and started considering what to do next. They were surrounded, massively outnumbered, and their last bargaining chip was gone. Things were not looking good, and Father Olmedo began hearing confessions.
Hernan Cortés and Father Bartolomé Olmedo were the children of crusaders. Both men were born in what is modern Spain, probably both in the same year 1485. This meant that Cortés and Olmedo were just old enough to remember the great year of triumph that was 1492. Spain had been invaded by the armies of the Umayyad Caliphate in 711, and within a few years, the Spanish had begun an attempt to regain their territories. It was a crusade that they would call the Reconquista, and it would last for centuries. The world would change, the middle ages would come and go as the Spanish fought on, led by men like the warrior king, Saint Ferdinand and the priest commander, Saint Raymond of Fitero. Now, 774 years after the war had begun, it was over. The Christians had won. The last Islamic stronghold had fallen, the enemies of Spain were expelled, and Spain entered into a golden age.
In that same year of triumph, 1492, an Italian named Christopher Columbus reported a strange discovery. He had planned to sail West and approach India. The plan had failed when he stumbled upon the continents of North and South America instead. Soon, it became clear that a new world had been discovered. The Spanish had set up bases on the island of Hispaniola, modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and they had their eyes set on Cuba.
And so it was that Hernan Cortés, a somewhat aimless noble and failed law student, travelled to Hispaniola in 1504 in time to join in the conquest of Cuba. Bartolomé Olmedo would remain in Spain a little longer. He joined the Mercedarian Order, studying philosophy and theology to become a priest.
The conquest of Cuba was successful. It had now been twelve years since Cortés sailed West. Cuba was part of the lands owned by Spain, and Cortés was comfortably set up there, even serving as mayor of his area several times. But Cortés, as it would turn out, was a man of vast ambition. Cortés looked West, to the mainland, a basically unexplored area where legend said great kings ruled vast, wealthy empires. Around the time that Cortés’ mind was turning over how to make those ambitions a reality, the Mercedarian Order sent Father Olmedo West, to the island of Cuba.
Cortés got his chance when the Spanish official in charge of Cuba sent him to lead an expedition to the mainland, the East coast of modern Mexico. The assignment was to do a little bit of trading and then come home. Cortés began recruiting men, and it soon became clear that he had big plans for his expedition. Cortés recruited crossbowmen, gunners, cavalrymen, and blacksmiths. He had a banner custom made, offering an insight into what he was planning to do:
Amici, sequamur crucem, et si nos fidem habemus, vere in hoc signo vincemus. Friends, let us follow the cross, and if we have faith, truly we will conquer beneath this sign.
Of course, every expedition needed a chaplain. Cortés recruited two of them, Father Olmedo and another priest. Soon Cortés sailed from Cuba at the head of a large force.
Hernan Cortés’ not-so-concealed ambition was to carve out a Christian kingdom, or at least a Christian province of Spain, in this new world. Now since his actual job was to do some light trading on the coast, he rightly suspected there would be backlash from Cuba. But Cortés had thought about how to deal with that.
In the long term, Cortés realized, if he could claim large areas of land within modern Mexico for Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who ruled Spain, would be likely to overlook the shady legal status of his actions. And as for the short term, Cortés’ time as a law student had given him an idea.
On Good Friday in the year 1519, Cortés landed his men on the coast of what is now Central Mexico and founded a city. Because it was Good Friday, he called the city Veracruz, “True Cross”. And in case the Emperor in Spain got wind of it, he tacked on a qualifier, so that the city’s full name was Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, “The Rich City of the True Cross”. As it happened, the city needed a leader, and who could lead it but Cortés? This meant his expedition was now the military branch, not of Cuba, but of the Rich City of Veracruz. While Cuba might not want him to go into the interior of Mexico, it was the considered opinion of the leadership of the Rich City of Veracruz, which happened to consist of Cortés himself, that Cortés had a great plan and he should go ahead with it.
It was a pretty weak argument, and when Cortés looked around at his men who had suddenly become the citizen soldiers of the Rich City of Veracruz he could see many of them were not convinced. When he learned that some of them were planning to take a ship and sneak back to Cuba, Cortés reacted decisively. He ordered his men to burn their own ships. Now they were stuck in Mexico. The only way to survive was to push inland.
Cortés’ first encounter was with the Tlaxcalan people, and after an initial conflict in which the Tlaxcalans fared poorly, they decided they would rather have Cortés as an ally than as an enemy. They told Cortés more about the rumours that he had heard. There was indeed a great king further inland, in the interior of modern Mexico, a cruel king who was the traditional enemy of the Tlaxcalan people, and he ruled from his island capital of Tenochtitlan. His name was Montezuma.
Montezuma’s own spies told him about the Spanish landing. Montezuma was not certain how to react. The situation was eerily similar to an Aztec prophecy. Montezuma’s people believed that their gods required the energy of mortals, and that this energy could only be given through regular sacrifices in which the heart of a living person was cut out and offered to the gods. But the Aztecs also taught that there had been another god, one who hated human sacrifice, and who sometimes manifested as a powerful man with white skin and a dark beard. One day, they taught, the exiled god would return to claim his kingdom. Now here was Cortés, with white skin and a big black beard. And no one loathed human sacrifice quite as much as Hernan Cortés.
As the Spanish fought and negotiated their way into Mexico, it seemed obvious to Cortés how to deal with the idols he found: smash them and throw them out of local temples, then replace them with a cross and an image of Our Lady.
Father Olmedo had to keep pointing out to Cortés that things were not so simple. Father Olmedo was fielding questions like “Why do you Spaniards bow down to a stick?” Like Cortés, Father Olmedo despised the bloody idols they encountered, but he recognized that evangelization would take more than brutality. Someone needed to explain what Christians believed.
By now, Father Olmedo had taken the lead among the two priests. Both the Spanish and their allies were drawn to Father Olmedo’s personality. He had a presence, with a powerful singing voice that brought people in as he celebrated the first Christian Masses in this new world. Olmedo also had a quick mind and a deep grasp of theology, and this allowed him to frame things in ways that would be clear to the Tlaxcalans and other allies.
Cortés was not a man who enjoyed being defied, but when the men did something that Father Olmedo considered inappropriate, or when he judged the Spanish to be in the wrong, he did not hesitate to correct his commander. And like many powerful men, Cortés could find respect for people who were willing to stand up to him. He began to defer to Father Olmedo, who was one of the few men Cortés was willing to call señor: Señor Padré.
The Spanish had made their way toward the centre of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlan, modern Mexico City. It was a city built on an island in a huge saltwater lake, with causeways running over the lake to connect the city to the land. Montezuma, still unsure whether Cortés was the god of prophecy, invited the Spanish in. And so it was that the Spanish found themselves unwilling witnesses to the horror of human sacrifice.
In the coming years, when the people of Spain were trying to form an opinion on whether Cortés’ excesive violence could be justified, one of his men tried to explain what it had been like. They climbed the hundred and fourteen steps up one of the pyramid temples there in the company of Montezuma, the high king being helped by his attendants while Cortés shrugged off their offer of help. It was a temple to a death god.
this Tezcatepuca was the god of the inferno, who had charge of the souls of the Mexicans; his body was encircled with some figures like small devils with tails like snakes, and on the walls so many crusts of blood and the floor all bathed in it that in the slaughterhouses of Castile there was not such a stench. They had offered it five hearts from the sacrifices of that day, and in the highest part of the cu [the pyramid like temple] was another recess, the wood very richly worked, and another figure like a half man, half lizard, all covered with rich stones and half-cloaked. They said that the body of this figure was full of all the seeds to be found in the whole world, and they said he was the god of sowing and fruit; I do not remember his name, and everything was covered with blood, walls as well as altar, and there was such a stench that we could hardly wait to get outside. (Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey translation)
The Spanish told Montezuma, bluntly, that he and his people were demon worshippers. The king was offended and drew back. And so Father Olmedo began, slowly and carefully, to make his case. After Cortés came up with the plan of taking Montezuma prisoner, it was even easier to work on the king. What Father Olmedo needed was time, but this, as it turned out, was in short supply.
In 1520, Cortés and Father Olmedo had to leave the delicate situation in Tenochtitlan to fend off an army that had come from Cuba. Father Olmedo was sent as an ambassador, and proved so effective in making the case for what he and Cortés were doing that many of the soldiers who had come to stop Cortés began to think of joining him. Eventually, Cortés moved in with a surprise attack. In the attack, the other general was shot in the eye, and unwisely shouted that he was shot in the eye and that it had killed him. Cortés’ men were only too happy to take up the shout that the enemy general was dead, and soon they had captured much of the demoralized Cuban force who were only too happy to join Cortés. Afterward, the defeated general, who was not in fact dead, morosely offered his congratulations to Cortés, telling him that it had been a great victory, and one of Cortés’ men records what Cortés said in reply.
Cortés replied to him that he gave great thanks to God for giving him the victory and for his courageous gentlemen and companions who had part in it, but taking him prisoner … was one of the least important things he had done in New Spain.
The real contest, as Cortés knew, would be decided in Tenochtitlan. He and Father Olmedo hurried back, and Father Olmedo continued to work on Montezuma. And that was when things began to spiral out of control. The Spanish were surrounded, and then Montezuma was accidentally killed by his own people.
The situation of the Spanish had changed. Even with the reinforcements Cortés had won, they had nowhere near enough men to fight the Aztec army that was now in the city. The Aztecs knew that the Spanish were considering retreating, and had no intention of allowing them to do so. They destroyed sections of the causeways. Now the Spanish would be unable to cross the lake to escape Tenochtitlan.
Inside his fortification, Cortés began to plan. They would leave at night and try to make it over the causeway before dawn. He built a portable bridge, which his men would drop over the gap that had been cut in the causeway, allowing them to pass over. Cortés packed up their treasure, their all-important guns and gunpowder, and the volumes of notes made by the expedition. On the night of the 30th of June, 1520, the Spanish began making their exit.
The cavalry went first, taking noncombatants, perhaps including Father Olmedo. But by the time the vanguard had dropped the makeshift bridge and gotten onto the causeway, the alarm was already being raised. The Spanish heard shouts and whistles as the Aztec army mobilized. Isolated attacks began. In the confusion and the darkness, everything was moving too slowly.
The Spaniards in the middle of their group were now hurrying along the narrow causeway. In the rear of their group, they were being attacked from the land. Soon Aztec warriors were approaching the Spaniards who were already on the causeway in canoes, attacking with long spears. The sun rose long before the Spanish retreat was complete. And then, of course, it began to rain. The causeway got slippery. The improvised log bridge was too slippery to use, and soon the Aztec warriors had pulled it out of position anyway. It was hard to see water for all the canoes pressing in.
The Spanish fought back desperately. Even the lone Spanish woman in the expedition picked up a sword and buckler and fought for her life. Everyone understood that being captured would mean being penned up and then sacrificed. Spanish wagons containing gunpowder, gold and records plunged into the lake. When it became clear that the rear of the forces were bogged down in fighting, some of the cavalry rode back. They found what was left: one rider who had lost his horse, four footsoldiers and eight Tlaxcalans, all wounded and fighting. The riders brought them to safety, and Cortés’ army limped off while the Aztecs stopped to plunder the corpses that now lined the causeway.
It was a catastrophe. Cortés had lost two thirds of his men, and more than a thousand Tlaxcalan allies. The dead were the lucky ones, for the captives were indeed destined for sacrifice. The gunpowder and all the guns were lost. All of the careful records of the expedition were gone. Much of the treasure they had gathered was gone as well. The expedition only had 23 horses and 11 crossbowmen remaining. They began a fighting retreat away from Tenochtitlan, dividing their riders into tiny units of five as they fought off the pursuing Aztecs.
But help would come from an unexpected direction. Cortés had brought hope to many of the peoples in the Aztec empire. They had long resented the bloody rule of the Aztecs who took their sons and fathers for their sacrifices. For the first time in a long time, someone had stood up to the Aztecs, and many peoples wanted to join them. Cortés found allies were coming to him.
Strengthened by these allies, Cortés dug in, in a city on the far side of the lake that surrounded Tenochtitlan. The city was happy to rebel against their Aztec overlords. After the disaster on the causeway, Cortés had come up with a way to use the water for his own benefit. In time, the Spanish would build European warships on the lake, stocking them with guns that came in precious supply shipments. Within two years, Cortés had built up his strength again, and began a combined land and water assault on Tenochtitlan. This time, the ships plowed through the Aztec canoes and blasted the city with light guns. The last king of the Aztecs tried to flee in a canoe, but was caught. And so it was that the age of the Aztecs came to an end.
Hernan Cortés’ gamble, that the Spanish Emperor would forgive the irregularities of his conquest if he was successful, would pay off. He would be elevated to Governor of the area he would call New Spain. But this would not be the end for the restless conquistador. He would gain his title, then lose it, and carry on his private war in contemporary California and on the African Coast.
Father Olmedo, however, would not follow Cortés on his resteless path. There was now a Christian province in central Mexico, and it had only two priests. For these first, difficult years, Father Olmedo led the Church in this new world. Father Olmedo has already built up goodwill and gained a reputation as a fair man, a fearless defender of justice even when that put him in opposition to his own people. Now he began to promote the devotion to Our Lady that would play such a role in the emerging culture of what would become Mexico.
In 1524, a group of Franciscans arrived to help. They found Father Olmedo exhausted. He had built churches throughout Tenochtitlan, Mexico, as it was now being called, the broken pieces of idols prominently displayed in their foundations. He preached and explained Christianity. He built a hospital. It was reckoned that he had performed 2500 baptisms. The Franciscans had not been there long when Father Olmedo died. Mexico city mourned. He was probably 39.
Before he died, Father Olmedo had done one last thing for the men with whom he had struggled in the conquest of Mexico. Already, there were questions about what had happened. Everyone agreed that the Spanish had not always behaved well. Was it worth it? In a carefully reasoned letter to Rome, Father Olmedo argued that this was a kind of war that had value, a war for souls. It was the kind of war that the Spanish had been fighting as long as anyone could remember. It had been, he argued, a crusade.
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