Aztec Rage (23 page)

Allende understood the meeting could have cataclysmic consequences, for himself and the colony's 6 million people. Aldama was less prescient but followed where Allende led.

Both men were the caballeros of fine families, of inestimable breeding and considerable means. Full-blooded Spanish criollos by birth, Allende hailed from San Miguel, where his father, Don Domingo Narciso de Allende, a merchant and owner of a hacienda, died during Allende's youth. Bequeathing his family a substantial inheritance, a privileged upper-class existence seemed, for Allende, inevitable.

Handsome and charismatic, Allende was renowned for his courage and caballero horsemanship. His strength was legendary: It was said he could hold back a bull by the horns. His reputation for prowess with women rivaled
that of his bullfighting, and his drive to succeed seemed irrepressibly relentless. Even when danger loomed. Stepping into a bullring, he once awed a crowd by openly exposing himself to the charging bull, deliberately leaning into its passing horns, leaning so far in that he was knocked down and left the ring with a broken nose.

He married María Agustina de las Fuentes in 1802, and though their union was childless, three other women bore him children.

Drawn to the military, he had served in the Queen's Dragoons for over twenty years, from age seventeen. He was devoted to its military traditions and camaraderie. Blunt-spoken, aggressive, more competent than many officers above him, he nonetheless failed to rise above captain.

When a Dragoon colonel told him outright that his criollo birth would end all further promotions, adding that people born in the colony were inherently unfit for high command, Allende seethed.

Allende knew of course that if one criollo proved competent in high command, a flood tide of criollos would agitate for promotion. Criollo competence would detonate the myth of gachupine superiority and weaken the gachupines' hold over New Spain, perhaps wounding it fatally.

Eventually, Allende discussed the situation with other criollos: offhanded talks at first, in taverns, at balls, on a paseo, on horseback. Formal meetings inevitably ensued, till they eventually organized, meeting openly as a “literary society.” Sometimes meeting in Allende's brother's house in San Miguel, other times in Querétaro, these group get-togethers, sociopolitical in nature, employed the ruse of a “literary society” as a cover.

Of late, at the meetings these dissatisfied criollos increasingly vented their frustration over gachupine dominance. Allende lived his life by the bullfighter's creed. To the matador, bullfighting was not a sport but a test of wills in which the matador courted death, deeming it an honorable price for failure. The bulls used in the corridas de toros were not common cattle but were bred in Spain for savage aggression. Called
Bos tauros ibericus
, violently impulsive, these bulls were instinctively hostile, charging without provocation in tenacious headlong attacks.

To Allende, bullfighting was less a contest between man and bull than a conflict
within
a man. The bull charged out of bloodlust and aggression, but the bullfighter's motives were more complex. Did he enter the ring . . . to kill a bull? To prove something to himself? To impress a señorita? To prove something to the crowd?

If he opted for the last, if he battled a beast solely for the crowd, the fighter's motives were intrinsically impure. Many in the crowd came to see the bullfighter humbled, gored, even killed. Occasionally they were able to shout with glee as a matador disgraced himself by panicking or showing fear or simply by backing away from the bull's charge.

Entering the ring, a man had to ask himself how far he was willing to
go to please the crowd, to earn their adulation, to win the gasp of a beautiful señorita. Would he let the passing horns graze his gut or kiss his cojones? Would he die for the adulation of the crowd, for its praise, money, fame? Would he court bloody death with bravura indifference?

More than anything else, Allende's experience as an amateur bullfighter had prepared him for New Spain's moment of truth when he would challenge its people to rise up.

Like most young caballeros, Ignacio Allende had spurned both scholarly and commercial worlds, declining to run his family's hacienda or its merchant business. His interests ran toward the military, with its weapons, its uniforms, its sense of honor, and its devotion to combat, command, and camaraderie. But unlike many of his friends, his male pride was not diluted by mindless machismo. He observed, analyzed, and prepared, then acted upon carefully reasoned judgments rather than lash out in irrational rage.

He understood at last his ambition to rise in rank and lead an army against Spain's fiercest foes, such as Napoleon's France, would be forever thwarted. He now knew this dream of command would only come when he raised his own army.

“What do you know of this priest in Dolores?” Aldama asked.

“I've met him several times. He attended literary club meetings in Querétaro when you were away.”

“He has brought the wrath of the viceroy upon him.”

Allende shrugged. Over the years, as he observed the corrupt and inefficient viceroyal system, he had grown less concerned about the viceroy's wrath.

“The padre is a man of courage and honesty. Those are traits not often found in men, whether they be kings, popes, or peons. And he transcends those traits when he is rash. He challenged the crown's prohibitions against colonial enterprises, and at the same time he set out to prove the worth of the indio.”

Aldama shook his head. “He rubs salt in the viceroy's wounds. The gachupines went to the viceroy and told him to stop this rabble-rouser before the indios overthrew their gachupine masters.”

Allende said, “The padre has proven that with proper training the indio is capable of more than tilling the ground and digging in mines.”

“Does he expect to train them in defiance of the viceroy? If he does, he'll find himself in the archbishop's prison, if the Inquisition does not break him on the rack.”

“I don't know what his plans are. He has asked that the members of the literary club meet and discuss the situation. His message said he's being watched by a familiar, so he asked that the club meet in private.”

As they rode, their talk moved from the padre's problems to their own frustrations.

“What of your conversation with Colonel Hernández?” Aldama asked. “Whenever I ask you about it, you look like a dog gnaws your cojones.”

“Not a dog but a wolf. The colonel told me what we all have known. The upper ranks are prohibited to criollos.” Allende's face reddened. “But this time he gloated, saying the climate of New Spain debilitates our brains, thus disqualifying us from command positions.”

Like Allende, Aldama's sole ambition was for a military career. His father managed a factory for others, but Aldama wanted a horse between his legs and a sword in his hand. And, like Allende, Aldama was a captain in the militia and knew how to swear. His blood-curdling oaths ran the gamut of gutter words.

“What did you say to the colonel?” Aldama asked when he had run out of obscenities.

Allende grimaced. “Had anyone but my commanding officer insulted me thus, I would have offered him his choice of weapons and seconds. But what could I say? That he was a fool and a fraud? That the gachupines have commandeered the high command and enslaved New Spain out of hubris, avarice, and depraved ambition? Could I tell him they do these things because they fear not only us but the peons?

“Someday—”

“No!” Allende snapped. “The gachupine will oppose all attempts at reform. If we are to run our own affairs—we must take action.”

“What kind of action are you proposing, amigo?”

Allende looked over at his friend. He knew Aldama admired him. In some ways, Aldama looked up to him as an older brother.

“I don't know. It is something to talk to the padre about. But I do know that when two men face each other and only one has a musket, the musket will command indisputable respect.”

Allende shared some qualities with the priest of Dolores: Both were restless spirits. Both men began projects, even achieved success, but then moved on to another project before the project achieved its full potential.

One difference between them was the type of knowledge each possessed. Allende knew men and arms; Padre Hidalgo knew the human heart.

Allende said, “You wonder why I encouraged Father Hidalgo to join our efforts for change in the colony. We must recognize what has happened in the past. Forty years ago, when our fathers were young men, the Aztecs rose up, tens of thousands of them, especially in San Luís Potosí, where the inspector general, José de Galvez—”

“Chopped off the heads of nearly a hundred of them and posted them on pikes for all to see and remember.”

“Yes, they had no leadership, and the uprising was put down, but imagine what they might have done if they had had leaders guiding them. The
indios also remember how ruthlessly the riots were put down. Hidalgo says they remember, and they thirst for revenge for the cruelties.”

“I have no confidence in an Aztec army.”

“Not even one led by us?”

“How would we raise such a force?”

“That is where the padre is needed. He is famous throughout the Bajío as a friend of the indios. Given the opportunity, I believe they would flock to his banner. Supported by a few thousand well-trained militia, a large host of Aztecs could serve as a military vanguard.”

Aldama shook his head. “You speak of insurrection, revolution.”

“I speak of change, which will only come by force of arms. Do you want to serve like a peon under the spurs of the gachupines and pass on that heritage of enslavement to your children?”

“No, of course not.”

“The winds of change are blowing in the colony. Men speak openly of rebellion. I hear it from other officers throughout the Bajío.”

“This has to be thought out carefully. Even loose talk can bring the viceroy down upon us.” Aldama was a brave man, but he lacked Allende's willingness to surge ahead despite all dangers.

“We're trained soldiers,” Allende said, “as good as any the gachupines can field. If we declare for change and prove we can win, our people will join us. Honor demands that we stand up to the gachupines, that we fight, and if necessary that we die. My blood is as pure as that of any gachupine and I will not be enslaved by them.”

Allende grinned at his friend. “Remember, amigo, to the victors go the spoils. If we are the ones to drive the gachupines from New Spain, we will enjoy the fruits of victory—high rank and honors.”

THIRTY-TWO

R
AQUEL MONTEZ SAT
quietly on a coach seat and looked at the woman sitting across from her. Doña Josefa Domínguez was the wife of Don Miguel Domínguez, the corregidor of Querétaro. As corregidor, Doña Josefa's husband was the chief judicial officer for the town and surrounding area. While Raquel had been visiting the señora, a message came from the curate of Dolores, Father Hidalgo, asking to meet privately with members of the Querétaro literary club. Like Doña Josefa, Raquel had attended meetings of the social club to lament the injustices of the colony's political and economic systems.

Raquel and the older woman had spent the night in San Miguel at a friend's home and then set out in the morning for the clandestine meeting.
She enjoyed the company of Doña Josefa, a woman of great intellect and moral quality. Raquel also admired Josefa's husband, Miguel Domínguez. Born in Guanajuato, Don Miguel had risen to a high rank for a criollo. He reminded her somewhat of her father because both men had an intense interest in literature and ideas.

While Don Miguel tacitly supported social change, his strong-willed wife—“La Corregidora,” as she was called—actively joined in the literary society's secret meetings. Doña Josefa had lamented the colony's struggles and Spain's troubles in Europe for some time. “Napoleon is a madman driven by insatiable ambition, and no one in Madrid can stop him. He is devouring Europe, advancing to the east now, but he already has a death grip on the peninsula. And that court jester Godoy cannot even slow him down.”

“I agree,” Raquel said.

Raquel was as knowledgeable and as disgusted with Spain's feckless foreign policy as her godmother, who had inspired her political awareness. While attending school in Querétaro, Raquel had lived with the doña and her family, and Doña Josefa had given her a free run of their library. More important, she engaged her continually in provocative discussions of art, philosophy, history, literature, and the political struggles of their day.

While Raquel's father had encouraged her to study and inquire, Doña Josefa viewed politics and letters as a fiery commitment, and the doña's personal example ignited Raquel's passion for learning as much as the doña's lavish trove of titles, a literary passion that Juan de Zavala had found so singularly unattractive in women.