SOURCE: "Ariadne's Thread: Auto-Biography, History, and Cortés' Secunda Carta-Relacion," in Dispositio, Vol. XI, Nos. 28-29, 1986, pp. 57-83.

The following excerpt examines the importance of the intended audience in relation to the construction of the narrative "I" in Cortés's Second Letter.

In his mandate to Cortés to undertake the exploration of Tierra Firme, Governor of Cuba Diego Velázquez encharged his former secretary to submit a "muy complida e entera relación" of all that he saw, discovered and learned. This relación was to be relayed to Velazquez so that he, in turn, could "facer entera y verdadera relación al Rey nuestro Señor, y se lo envie para que su Alteza lo vea." Cortés, for his part, pinpoints his Original sin' against Velázquez—from which ultimately would issue the loss of the Mexican empire—as the fact that he sent the...