Moctezuma, Lord of Tenochtitlán

Once inside the walls of Tenochtitlán, the Aztecs’ Venicelike island-city, the Spaniards were dazzled by gardens of animals, gold, and palaces, and a great pyramid-enclosed square where tens of thousands of people bartered goods gathered from all over the empire. Tenochtitlán, with perhaps a quarter of a million people, was the grand capital of an empire more than equal to any in Europe at the time.

However, Moctezuma, the lord of that empire, was frozen by fear and foreboding, unsure if these figures truly represented the return of Quetzalcoatl. He quickly found himself hostage to Cortés, and then died a few months later, during a riot against Spanish greed and brutality. On July 1, 1520, on what came to be called noche triste (the sad night), the besieged Cortés and his men broke out, fleeing for their lives along a lake causeway from Tenochtitlán, carrying Moctezuma’s treasure. Many of them drowned beneath their burdens of gold booty, while the survivors hacked a bloody retreat through thousands of screaming Aztec warriors to safety on the lakeshore.

A year later, reinforced by a small fleet of armed sailboats and 100,000 Indian allies, Cortés retook Tenochtitlán. The stubborn defenders, led by Cuauhtémoc, Moctezuma’s nephew, fell by the tens of thousands beneath a smoking hail of Spanish grapeshot. The Aztecs refused to surrender, forcing Cortés to destroy the city to take it.

The triumphant conquistador soon rebuilt Tenochtitlán in the Spanish image; Cortés’s cathedral and main public buildings—the present zócalo or central square of Mexico City—still rest upon the foundations of Moctezuma’s pyramids.

© Bruce Whipperman from Moon Puerto Vallarta, 7th edition