Note 6 — PART I SOUTH AMERICAN FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS (continued 4)

I am not ignorant that it has been asserted that Montezuma received the rite of baptism at the hands of his Christian captors. See Bustamante's notes on Chimalpain's Translation of Gomara (Historia de las Conquistas de Hernando Cortes. Carlos Maria de Bustamante. Mexico, 1826, p. 287). But the objection raised by Torquemada—the silence of some of the best authorities, such as Oviedo, Ixlilxochitl, Histoire des Chichimeques, and of Cortes himself; and, on the other hand, the distinctly opposing testimony of Bernal Diaz (see cap. 127), and the statement of Herrera, who asserts that Montezuma, at the hour of his death, refused to quit the religion of his fathers. ("No se queria apartar de la Religion de sus Padres." Hist. de las Indias, dec. II. lib. x, cap. 10), convinces me that no such baptism took place.