You said that Khan and McGivers were both wrong about Cortez, can you expound upon that?
Khan's account was that Cortés burned his ships to quell a mutiny among his men and to motivate them to fight against all odds, since there was no way back.
McGivers’ version was that Cortés left one ship intact so that he would have a way back if the mission failed.
The truth was that there was no mutiny among Cortés’s troops; the actual mutiny was the one committed by Cortés; in 1518, after Governor Velazquez of Cuba revoked the charter for Cortés’s inland military expedition, Cortés went anyway.
A year later, in 1519, Cortés took control of the city of Veracruz, and his men elected him “Chief Justice,” enabling him to bypass the authority of Governor Velacruz and placing himself under the direct authority of King Charles V of Spain. It was at that time that Cortés scuttled his ships — not burning, but sinking by sabotage or by running them aground — to prevent desertions and retreat.
He also pretended to leave one vessel intact, on the pretense that he would allow those who still remained loyal to Velazquez to depart. But it was a ruse. All who accepted the offer were hanged, and then that last vessel was scuttled, as well.
So, in essence, both Khan and McGivers were wrong, and both were right. Khan was correct that Cortés destroyed his ships and left no other way back than conquest. But he was wrong about them burning, and about Cortés’s motive. McGivers was half right about the lone ship being left as a coward’s way out, but not for Cortés, but rather his enemies, who ended up executed. Both were engaged to a degree in revisionist history, twisting facts to serve their point of view in the argument.
reactormag.com
