THE

© 1992, The CONCORD

Concord REVIEW
Review, Inc. (all rights reserved) 91

END OF AN EMPIRE:
THE SPANISH CONQUEST OF MEXICO

Ben Hulse

W ith the quincentennial of Columbus’s “discovery” of

America upon us, it now is, perhaps more than ever, an appropri-
ate time to reevaluate the actions of the European explorers who
subjugated the Native American peoples and their civilizations.
Undoubtedly the most glorified and heroically portrayed of these
figures of the European conquest of the New World were the
conquistadores, the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru in
the 16th century. These men, under leaders such as Hernan
Cortes and Francisco Pizarro, nearly eliminated the Aztec and
Inca peoples. Surely many of these soldiers were extremely cruel
and intolerant of the native populations. But it is important to
consider, with the push of both sides toward territorial expansion,
how these groups (European and American) could remain iso-
lated from each other. Furthermore, with the meeting of these two
imperialist cultures, it must be considered whether it would be
possible for the two to peacefully coexist.

Ben Hulse is at Harvard College. He wrote this paper for Mr. Mark
Vance’s World History Honors course at Oak Park and River Forest High
School in Oak Park, Illinois, during his Freshman Year, 1991/1992.
92 Ben Hulse

This paper focuses specifically on the expansionist policies

of both the Aztec and Spanish empires and on Cortes’s expedi-
tion, which brought the two powerful cultures together in a final
confrontation.

The Aztecs

According to their first records, the Aztecs, or Mexica,

originally lived to the north of the Valley of Mexico, partially under
the control of the Toltec empire.1 Driven to leave by the pressure
of their Toltec oppressors, who demanded huge tributes from the
farming Aztecs, the Aztecs fled from their home city of Aztlan.
After settling in and being evicted from various different areas, the
Aztecs settled in Tizapan at the relative center of present-day
Mexico. These lands were then under the yoke of the Culhuacan,
and the Aztecs were allowed to stay on the land only if they became
tributaries, the equivalent of European vassals.
Shortly after, war broke out between the Aztecs and
Culhuacan, and the Aztecs were routed. Fleeing once again, they
eventually settled in the land of the Tepanec and became King
Tezozomoc’s vassals. The land on which they were allowed to settle
was a group of islands in the center of Lake Texcoco. On one of
these islands the Aztecs founded the sacred city of Tenochtitlan
and immediately built an altar to their patron god, Huitzilopochtli,
God of War. As the city grew, a splinter group broke off and settled
on a neighboring island, founding the city of Tlatelolco. The two
cities eventually merged with Tlatelolco becoming the trading
center and Tenochtitlan becoming the political and religious
capital.
The Mexican nation steadily rose in power but remained
under the yoke of the Tepanec until the king Itzcoatl (reigned
1427-1440) formed a military alliance with nearby Texcoco and
other neighboring groups and forced the Tepanec out. Under the
rule of Itzcoatl, and for eighty years afterwards, the Aztecs pro-
 THE CONCORD REVIEW 93

ceeded to subjugate the remainder of the Valley of Mexico and

then further beyond—from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the
Gulf coast in the east and from central Mexico in the north to
present-day Guatemala in the south. The military victories of the
expanding empire were celebrated by ritual human sacrifices. At
times after a great military success, thousands of enemy soldiers
were marched up the steps of the great pyramid of Huitzilopochtli
and sacrificed to the god. The flesh of the victims was often eaten
as a form of communion with the Aztec deities who had blessed
their campaigns.2
Moctezuma II, the last Aztec emperor (also known as
Montezuma or Motecuhzoma), became king in 1502 at the apex
of Aztec power. In the words of Ignacio Bernal, Director of the
National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico:
When Moctezuma was chosen emperor in 1502, he had the
reputation of a valiant captain who had ably led his armies; but he
was especially recognized as a profound expert in religious mat-
ters, a kind of simple and humble mystic. This situation rapidly
changed as he became a despot at the center of highly intricate
court ceremonies. No one was permitted to look upon him. One
had to come before him with eyes lowered. No one could touch
him. The few who had the right to visit him had to enter barefoot,
performing a series of genuflections and calling him Lord, “My
Lord, My Great Lord.”3
Throughout the first seventeen years of Moctezuma’s
reign, the empire was plagued with constant uprisings of peoples
who had been harshly subjugated by the Aztecs and wished to
escape the tributes required of them. Moctezuma left the consoli-
dation of his empire up to his generals while he devoted his time
to worldly pleasures and religious duties in Tenochtitlan.

The Spanish

Across the Atlantic Ocean, another great empire had

recently accomplished a consolidation of its own. Spain had
94 Ben Hulse

successfully completed the Reconquista. Finding a solid Muslim

wall to the south in Northern Africa and the powerful French
kingdom to the north, the only direction that the Spanish saw in
which to expand was to the west. The popes had intentionally
given sovereignty over any new lands discovered to the Portu-
guese; but with the advent of Columbus’s discovery, the Spanish
wished to end this legacy of Portuguese favoritism in the Vatican.
Papal bulls of the 1450s had declared that the Portuguese had
rights to any lands “as far as the Indies,”4 which actually gave
Portugal the rights to the discovery of America.
In 1493, after Columbus’s first voyage, Spain sent envoys to
the pope demanding that he give Spain the rights to Columbus’s
discoveries, as the past popes had given the Portuguese the rights
to Africa and lands to the east. The new pope, Alexander VI (pope
from 1492 to 1503), being a Spanish Borgia himself, acknow-
ledged these previous “injustices” and issued a series of four bulls
that established the papacy as an adamantly pro-Spanish power.
The first two gave the Spanish title to Columbus’s discoveries and
any other non-Christian western lands discovered as long as the
native populations were converted to Christianity. The third
limited this “western” area to all the lands beginning one hundred
leagues west of the Cape Verde and Azores islands. This bull
actually gave the Spanish rights to the far East by western circum-
navigation. The fourth bull, the Dudum Siguidem, which was issued
later on August 26, 1493, nullified any previous papal orders that
had favored the Portuguese.
With Spanish control of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico
assured, Spain proceeded to colonize the islands in the area
(Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Cuba), converting the
islanders as they went and often massacring whole populations
purposely or accidentally killing them by transmitting European
diseases. The main goals in the expansion were to Christianize the
Indians (as dictated by the pope), to gain trading power, and of
course, to “acquire” the great mineral wealth of the Americas. This
mineral wealth included vast amounts of gold and silver ore. The
reports of opulent Mexican empires brought back by explorers on
 THE CONCORD REVIEW 95

Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba’s and Juan de Grijalba’s coastal

journeys caused the Spanish government to look inland.

Cortes

Hernan (also Hernando or Fernando) Cortes was born in

Medellin, Estramadura, in Spain in 1485 to a family of minor
nobility. Cortes was sent to study law at the University of Salamanca
in 1499. After intermittent studying for two years, he left school to
fight in a military expedition in Italy but became ill and was forced
to stay behind. In 1504 he left to seek his fortune in the West Indies,
arriving in Hispaniola and fighting in various battles against the
Arawak. Cortes later participated in the conquest of Cuba with
Diego Velazquez, the future governor, and gained the latter’s
respect.
After the reports from the coastal expeditions of Cordoba
and Grijalba reached Velazquez in 1517 and 1518, the governor
became determined to make full contact with the mainland
empire and gain riches for Spain, converts for the Church, and
fame for himself. The man he chose for the mission was his old ally,
Cortes.
According to William H. Prescott’s history of the conquest,
Velazquez chose Cortes because “[he] came of an ancient, respect-
able family; his courage and prowess won him favor with Velazquez
as much as his good humor, cordial manners, and wit made him
a favorite with the soldier.”5 This pleased Cortes as well because he
had been waiting for a time to prove himself in an independent
adventure.
Cortes quickly contributed all his cash resources to the
project and mortgaged all of his estates in Cuba. Velazquez agreed
to contribute one-third of the funds needed. Cortes purchased six
vessels and commissioned 110 mariners and 553 soldiers (includ-
ing thirty-two crossbowmen and thirteen arquebusiers). He brought
along 200 Cuban soldiers and also a few Cuban women for cooking
and other menial jobs. Anticipating the terror that they could
96 Ben Hulse

strike in the Mexicans, Cortes brought fourteen cannons (four

light falconets and ten heavy guns) and sixteen horses.
Shortly before Cortes’s expedition was to leave, Velazquez
turned on the Captain General and tried to stop the mission.
Bernal Diaz proposes that there was some plot among Velazquez’s
relatives against Cortes and they convinced the governor that
Cortes would betray him or become too powerful.6 Disobeying the
governor’s orders and dissociating himself from Velazquez’s spon-
sorship, Cortes and his fleet departed for the coast of the Yucatan
on February 18, 1519.

Cozumel and the Yucatan

Shortly after the fleet embarked, hurricane winds forced them far
to the south of their intended destination, to the island of Cozumel.
Cortes’s ship was the last to arrive and he found upon landing that
one of his commanders, Pedro de Alvarado, had rashly removed
the ornaments from the local temples and forced the Cozumelans
to flee to the center of the small island. Cortes publicly repri-
manded Alvarado and spoke with two of the Cozumelans regard-
ing the peaceful nature of his visit. Trading relations were estab-
lished between the two sides, and the Spanish exchanged a few
trinkets for gold ornaments.
Missionaries from Cortes’s contingent attempted to peace-
fully convert the Cozumelans, but when this failed, Cortes, who
was particularly militant in converting the Native Americans, had
the temple’s idols taken down and constructed an altar with the
image of the Virgin and Child above it. They reluctantly agreed to
convert.
A canoe from the mainland approached the fleet and one
of the passengers, Jeronimo de Aguilar, explained that he was a
Spaniard who had been marooned on the island for eight years
and asked to join the mission. Aguilar’s knowledge of the Mayan
dialect caused the Captain-General to realize how important the
addition of an interpreter would be in further dealings with the
Mesoamericans.
 THE CONCORD REVIEW 97

Next, the fleet moved towards the mainland, eager to

make contact, but were threatened by Mayan soldiers on the shore
brandishing spears. After a few brief conflicts, the Spaniards
managed to land at Tabasco and prepared for a Tabascan assault.
From best accounts, the Tabascans numbered 40,000.7 After the
cannon failed to deter the attackers, who ignored their losses and
came on in repeated waves, the Spanish cavalry, led by Cortes,
charged at the back of the Tabascan army. In the words of Bernal
Diaz del Castillo, a participant in the voyage:
Just at this moment we caught sight of our horsemen. But the great
host of Indians was so crazed by their attack that they did not at
once see them approaching behind their backs. As the plain was
bare and the horsemen were good riders, and some of the horses
were very swift and nimble, they came quickly upon them and
speared them as they chose. As soon as we saw the horsemen we fell
on the enemy so vigorously that, caught between the horsemen
and ourselves, they soon turned tail. The Indians thought at the
time that the horse and rider were one creature, for they had never
seen a horse before.8
The idea that the Native Americans thought horse and
rider were one was frequently used throughout Spanish literature
concerning the conquest, but this may very well be a rumor among
the soldiers turned into “fact.”
Cortes released two captured chiefs with a message urging
the Tabascans to surrender and saying he would “overlook the
past.”9
The Tabascans agreed and traded with the Spaniards,
giving them twenty slave girls along with food, cotton, and gold.
The Spanish then forced conversion upon the Tabascans with
little resistance and departed for Mexico on Palm Sunday.
One of the slave girls given to Cortes was actually a Mexican
but had been sold into slavery in the Yucatan; thus she was able to
speak both Nahuatl (Aztec) and Mayan. She quickly learned
Castillian and became Cortes’s official interpreter (and mistress).
She was called “Marina” among the Spanish and is known as “La
98 Ben Hulse

Malinche” in Mexico today. With the help of Marina, Cortes first

learned of the powerful and affluent Aztec king, Moctezuma, from
a group of Mexicans the Spaniards made contact with at San Juan
de Ulua.

Path To Conquest

Just as Cortes learned of Moctezuma, Moctezuma learned

of the coming of the Europeans. According to later Aztec ac-
counts, eight omens appeared to the people of Tenochtitlan
foretelling the coming of the Spaniards: 1) A great column of fire
burned in the night over Tenochtitlan. 2) The temple of
Huitzilopochtli burned down mysteriously. 3) The temple of
Xiuhtecuhtli was hit by lightning. 4) Fire, in three parts, streamed
through the sky during the day. 5) Lake Texcoco boiled and
flooded, destroying residences around the water. 6) A weeping
woman was heard during the night, crying for the Aztecs to flee
from the city. 7) A strange ashen crane appeared. Through a
mirror in its head Moctezuma saw the stars, and when he looked
again, he saw a land where men rode on the backs of animals and
fought against each other. 8) Large, deformed men with two heads
ran through the streets, but disappeared when they were brought
to Moctezuma.10
These stories, while maybe not factual, show the Aztecs’
strong belief in omens and warnings from the gods. So when
reports of the Spanish first reached Moctezuma in 1519, the king,
who based quite a few of his decisions on his interpretations of
“omens,” believed that they might possibly be Quetzalcoatl and
other deities returning to Mexico as ancient Mexican prophecies
had foretold.
Cortes’s fleet landed at what is now Vera Cruz on April 21,
1519. The native inhabitants, vassals of the Aztecs, were cordial
and brought gifts. When the local cacique (chief) arrived, the
Spanish performed Easter Mass, the two leaders exchanged gifts,
and Cortes sent presents (including the first glass in the Ameri-
cas).
 THE CONCORD REVIEW 99

Moctezuma, still unsure whether the visitors were divine or

mortal, sent magnificent gifts of gold and silver back to the
Captain-General but at the same time forbade the Spaniards from
approaching Tenochtitlan. There was dissension among the troops
between those loyal to Cortes and those loyal to Velazquez. Some
wanted to strike the center of the empire immediately and take
possession of the land for themselves. Others thought it would be
more prudent to return to Cuba and report their findings to the
governor.
In the meantime, messengers from the Totonac nation,
who had been recently conquered by the Aztecs, urged Cortes to
ally with them against the Aztecs. Realizing the importance of
dissension within the empire, Cortes ordered his fleet to sail north
to the Totonac capital at Cempoalla. The cacique of Cempoalla
offered to provide Totonac troups to assist the Spanish in defeat-
ing Moctezuma and explained that many of the subjugated peoples
under the Aztecs would most likely also wish to ally with Cortes.
Before Cortes left, he established the first Spanish colony (Villa
Rica) on the mainland at Cempoalla to be used as a launching
point for future expeditions.
Cortes’s army continued on to Chiahuitztla where the
cacique provided them with four hundred bearers to carry sup-
plies. The army continued on to another town where they encoun-
tered five of Moctezuma’s tribute collectors. Cortes ordered the
Totonacs to imprison the Aztecs, and then, after harassing them,
released two with a message of respect toward the king. This insult
to the Aztecs further encouraged other nearby communities to
join the Spaniards.
Hearing of a plot by some soldiers to take a ship and sail
back to Cuba, Cortes had all but one of the vessels sunk and gave
a dramatic speech to his soldiers by which he won back most of
their support. The army left the Totonac capital on August 16,
1519, with 400 soldiers, fifteen horses, seven artillery pieces, 1,300
Totonac warriors, and 1,000 porters.
After marching through the Cordilleras and into the
Mexican plateau, the army reached the Tlascalan republic, which
100 Ben Hulse

was the one nation in central Mexica that had managed to resist
Aztec control. After a brief skirmish with the Tlascalans, Cortes was
assured of passage through the republic. Ten miles into Tlascalan
land though, Cortes’s army encountered a hostile force of around
30,000 Tlascalans. Despite the tremendous size of the army, the
Spanish managed to fend them off. On September 5, Cortes’s
army faced an even larger Tlascalan host which they again man-
aged to fend off. The Tlascalan council then decided on a night
attack against the Spaniards and their allies, but they found to
their surprise that Cortes’s troups were ready for them and
reversed the ambush. Without energy left to fight once again, the
Tlascalans agreed to let Cortes’s army pass through their lands and
furnish any necessary provisions. The army marched on to the
Tlascalan capital where they erected a cross and performed mass
and were given 500 porters and 1,000 soldiers. This change from
hostility to neutrality to alliance was brought on by Cortes’s claims
that he was opposed only to the Aztec empire and that there would
be a place for Tlascala in Spanish-dominated Mexico.
From there Cortes decided to march through Cholula
despite the urging of the Tlascalans who warned that the Cholulans
were pawns of Moctezuma. As the army approached the Cholulan
capital, they were greeted by the caciques and Cortes was allowed
to select 6,000 soldiers from the ranks of the Cholulan army. The
chiefs also agreed to supply the Captain-General with porters.
Here Diaz’s account and the Aztec account totally diverge. Diaz’s
account tells of a Cholulan conspiracy sponsored by Moctezuma
to ambush and slaughter the Spaniards.11 Cortes apparently learned
of this plan from Marina and intended to ambush the Cholula
first. According to the Aztec account, it was the Spaniards who
were treacherous and who planned a show of strength by massa-
cring the Cholulans.12 Whatever the reason, when the caciques
brought the porters to Cortes, the Spanish and their allies set upon
the Cholulans and completely massacred them. Then the Cholulan
army assembled and counter-attacked the Spanish. After two
hours of fighting, the two sides agreed to end the fighting and the
Cholulans returned to their homes and Cortes’s army marched on
but not before erecting a cross.
 THE CONCORD REVIEW 101

Cortes’s army then descended into the Valley of Mexico,

for the first time witnessing in the distance the splendor of
Tenochtitlan. On the road to the capital, the army passed through
hamlets where they were offered generous bribes from
Moctezuma’s emissaries to turn back. When Cortes failed to
accept the bribes, Moctezuma sent his nephew to welcome the
Spaniards and their entourage of 7,000 Mexican soldiers to
Tenochtitlan.

Tenochtitlan

The army reached the Aztec capital on November 8,1519,

and were greeted by several hundred emissaries from the king.
The Spaniards were overwhelmed by the wealth and architectural
precision of the city and likened it to cities in their homeland. In
Cortes’s second letter to his sovereign, he described the great
capital:
This great city of Temixtitan is built on the salt lake, and no matter
by what road you travel there are two leagues from the main body
of the city to the mainland. There are four artificial causeways
leading to it, and each is as wide as two cavalry lances. The city is
as big as Seville or Cordoba. The main streets are very straight.
Some of these are on the land, but the smaller ones are half on
land, half canals where they paddle their canoes. All the streets
have openings in places so that the water may pass from one canal
to another. Over all these openings, and some of them are very
wide, there are bridges made of long and wide beams joined
together very firmly and so well made that on some of them ten
horsemen may ride abreast.13
Moctezuma arrived at the gates and welcomed Cortes. He
gave the army the palaces of his father, Axayacatl, to be used as a
barracks. To prevent the Aztecs from attacking the Spaniards in a
less than advantageous position, Cortes took the king prisoner and
brought Moctezuma to the barracks. He persuaded the king to
dispatch messengers to the surrounding communities and collect
102 Ben Hulse

gold and silver, part of which was sent to the Spanish monarch in
the name of Moctezuma and part of which was divided among
Cortes’s troops.
At this time tensions increased between the two sides, and
they escalated further when Cortes left to return to Vera Cruz with
266 of the Spaniards. The governor of Cuba had sent soldiers
under Panfilo de Narvaez to arrest the Captain-General for insub-
ordination. Cortes left his troops under the command of Captain
Pedro de Alvarado (who had shown his tendencies toward foolish
behavior before in Cozumel), and this proved to be a costly error.
Cortes and his small army defeated Narvaez in battle, a
stunning victory, for Narvaez’s troops numbered three times
greater than the Captain-General’s. After their defeat, most of
Narvaez’s troops joined Cortes who promised them a share of the
spoils when Tenochtitlan was brought under Spanish control.
The army returned to the Aztec capital to find the city in
arms. Alvarado had massacred 600 Aztecs during the Feast of
Huitzilopochtli and seized all the gold in the city. Fighting quickly
broke out in full force the day after Cortes returned, and the sheer
numbers of the Aztec army overwhelmed the Captain-General’s
army, which numbered only 1,250 Spaniards and 8,000 Mexican
warriors. His army was forced to retreat back into the barracks but
set hundreds of homes on fire before doing so. They manned the
walls of the palace during the night, but the Aztecs did not attack.
The next day Cortes brought out Moctezuma to speak to
his people, urging them to end the fighting; but the Aztecs taunted
him for his weakness. In the midst of this Moctezuma was killed,
and the accounts of his death vary. He may have died from sling
wounds inflicted by his own people or may have been assassinated
by the Spaniards.14 Despite the seeming contempt for the king, the
body was delivered to the people of Tenochtitlan and mourned
over. That night the fighting commenced once again, and the
Spaniards managed to destroy the temple of Huitzilopochtli and
around 300 homes during a brief period in which they held the
advantage. But this did not hurt the morale of the Aztecs, and they
forced the Spaniards and their allies back into the barracks.
 THE CONCORD REVIEW 103

Realizing the hopelessness of their situation, Cortes at-

tempted to retreat on the night of July 1, 1520 (commonly referred
to in Mexico today as the “Night of Sorrows”). While he was
crossing the bridge leaving the city, the Aztecs fell upon the army
and inflicted heavy damage. In the disorder, Spanish soldiers who
had been too greedy and filled their pockets with gold were
pushed into Lake Texcoco and drowned. The army managed to
attain a place of relative safety on a hill past the nearby town of
Tlacopan but not without losing about 450 Spanish and 2,000
Mexican soldiers from their ranks.

Return To Tenochtitlan

Plagued by hunger, disease, and the pursuing Aztecs,

Cortes’s army fled to Tlascala to obtain reinforcements. On the
8th of July, the army came upon a legion of nearly 200,000 Aztecs
sent by Cuitlahuac, Moctezuma’s brother and successor. There, at
the battle of Otumba, the Spanish managed a smashing victory
that dissuaded the Aztecs from pursuing the Spaniards and their
allies any farther. In Tlascala, Cortes gained great power over the
council and began to form a huge new army to attack Tenochtitlan
once again. Reinforcements arrived from Vera Cruz to assist in the
campaign. With his army of 600 Spanish soldiers and between
110,000 and 150,000 Mexican warriors, Cortes intended to occupy
the city of Texcoco and blockade Tenochtitlan from there. With
the city sufficiently weakened, his army would cross the lake on
thirteen brigantines constructed for this purpose by the Span-
iards.
The Captain-General’s army left Tlascala in late December
of 1520 on its march to the Aztec capital. The occupation of
Texcoco was done without conflict, and from there the army
destroyed the town of Iztapalapan and massacred its residents,
which sent shockwaves throughout the surrounding area. Many of
the formerly opposed caciques joined their forces with Cortes’s
army.
104 Ben Hulse

Beginning in the spring of the next year, and for the next
few weeks afterwards, the army systematically conquered most of
the Aztec-inhabited towns around the river, all the while receiving
more reinforcements from both the Mexican side and from Villa
Rica. At the time of the assault on Tenochtitlan, Cortes had gained
an additional 200 Spanish soldiers and 50,000 Tlascalans.
At the same time in the Aztec capital, a smallpox epidemic
began that killed Cuitlahuac and immobilized much of the popu-
lation. To replace the king, the caciques of Tenochtitlan chose
Cuahtemoc, a nephew of Moctezuma and a brilliant military
leader who fiercely believed that his Aztec army, with the help of
Huitzilopochtli, could defeat the invaders.

The Assault On The City

In preparation for the attack, the Captain-General de-

stroyed the aqueducts that supplied water to the capital with only
ineffectual Aztec resistance. Two of the three divisions of the army
attempted to attack the city across the causeway but met strong
Aztec forces and were forced back. The third division, under
Cortes, boarded the brigantines and patrolled the water, com-
pletely overwhelming the Aztecs’ canoes and temporarily gaining
control of Lake Texcoco.
The fighting raged back and forth as the Spaniards and
their allies (now joined by 50,000 Texcocoans and later 150,000 of
the Aztecs themselves) attempted to break the Aztec defense from
both land and sea. They did so a few times but were steadily pushed
back by the now starving inhabitants of Tenochtitlan. Cortes was
increasingly distressed at his army’s inability to break the Aztec
spirit.
After nearly three months of such fighting, the Captain-
General ordered a full-scale assault on Tenochtitlan. All three
divisions crossed the causeway backed up by the brigantines and
a fleet of Mexican canoes. Each division marched down one of the
principal boulevards that all converged in Tlatelolco Square. They
 THE CONCORD REVIEW 105

steadily pushed the Aztecs backwards; and when the Aztec king
sounded the retreat, the captains pushed on towards their fleeing
prey. When Cuahtemoc’s horn sounded again, the Aztecs turned
around and fell on the Spaniards, capturing sixty-two of them and
sacrificing them in front of the Spaniards in an attempt to destroy
their morale. Cortes ordered the retreat.
Five days passed, and famine and disease had devastated
the Aztecs. Cortes knew this and appealed to Cuahtemoc to
surrender, but the king felt that dying for one’s country would be
better than being enslaved by the Spaniards. He answered in the
form of an attack on the entrenched army. The Aztecs charged
from the walls of the city to meet their enemy, but were quickly
forced into a retreat by the firing of artillery and musketry. Cortes’s
army charged after the Aztecs, forcing them back, until the
Spaniards and their allies controlled around three-quarters of the
city. Everywhere they went they left a trail of destruction—burned
or pulled-down homes and temples—regardless of whether or not
there were wounded men, women, or children inside.
Still, the Aztec king refused to surrender. Cortes proposed
a banquet at which the two sides could meet to negotiate, but the
king sent his nobles and didn’t come himself.
The next morning, Cuahtemoc agreed to meet the Cap-
tain-General at the marketplace; but when Cortes and his entou-
rage arrived, they found the Aztec soldiers waiting for them. An
enormous battle ensued; and both sides took heavy losses, the total
number of deaths in that individual battle numbering more than
40,000.15

The Last Battle

The next morning, August 13, 1521, Cortes’s army once again
marched into the city. Another battle began, similar in scale to the
one the day before, but Cortes ordered a cease-fire as three canoes
were sighted fleeing across the lake. Cuahtemoc, who was riding
106 Ben Hulse

in one of the canoes, was apprehended and brought to the

Captain-General. Upon meeting his enemy, he said, “Lord
Malinche, I have assuredly done my duty in the defense of my city
and my vassals, and I can do no more. I am brought by force as a
prisoner into your presence and beneath your power. Take the
dagger that you have in your belt, and strike me dead immedi-
ately.”16 Cortes, admiring the king’s valor and dignity, pardoned
Cuahtemoc. What he did not realize was that Cuahtemoc was, as
a prisoner of war, demanding to be sacrificed as the Aztec custom
demanded (and Cuahtemoc lived on afterwards in shame for this
insult).
This lack of understanding for each other’s culture is one
sign that there would have been no way for the two empires to have
an equal existence. The Spaniards’ disgust with the “barbaric”
rites of the Aztecs gave them an excuse to force the Aztecs (and
later the rest of the Mexicans) down into the lowest echelons of the
new Hispanic society. But it should be considered that while
human sacrifice is surely barbaric, enslaving peoples is hardly a
sign of being civilized.
The conquerors banished the Aztecs from their city and
began to clear the city. According to Prescott, between 120,000
and 240,000 may have lain dead in the streets. The Aztec homes,
now in shambles, were torn down and new homes for the conquis-
tadors were built by reluctant Mexican laborers. It is ironic that
very little gold was found in the city as compared to what was
expected.
Over the next four years, Hernan Cortes was appointed
Governor, Captain-General, and Chief Justice of the province of
New Spain. He passed his time presiding over the reconstruction
of Tenochtitlan, which he renamed Mexico (later Mexico City in
the present-day country of Mexico), and bringing colonists from
Spain to make their homes there.
The key to the Spanish conquest of Mexico was the dissen-
sion among the different peoples of the Aztecs’ empire. The
Indian overlords made no attempts to assimilate the other cultures
 THE CONCORD REVIEW 107

to their own and thus provided the basis for a full scale revolt
against them which Cortes incited. While the Aztecs were really
unable to unify their empire, the Spanish managed to succeed
where their predecessors in the area had failed. With diligent work
by missionaries and Cortes himself, the Spaniards tried to bring
together the people of present-day Mexico and the southwestern
United States by converting them to Christianity. The resulting
extension of the Spanish empire, New Spain, was the most strongly
united of the American empires for years to come.
108 Ben Hulse

Flowers and Songs of Sorrows

(Written by a post-Conquest Aztec poet)

Nothing but flowers and songs of sorrow are left in Mexico and
Tlatelolco, where once we saw warriors and wise men.

We know it is true that we must perish, for we are mortal men. You,
the Giver of Life, you have ordained it.

We wander here and there in our desolate poverty. We are mortal

men. We have seen bloodshed and pain where once we saw beauty
and valor.

We are crushed to the ground; we lie in ruins. There is nothing but

grief and suffering in Mexico and Tlatelolco, where once we saw
beauty and valor.

Have you grown weary of your servants? Are you angry with your
servants, O Giver of Life?17
 THE CONCORD REVIEW 109

1
Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, The Aztecs (New York:
Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1989) p. 31
2
Ibid., p. 31
3
Ignacio Bernal, Mexico Before Cortez: Art, History, and
Legend (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company,
Inc., 1963) pp. 122-123
4
Charles Gibson, Spain in America (New York: Harper &
Row, Publishers, 1966) p. 15
5
William H. Prescott, The Conquest of Mexico Beatrice
Berler, ed. (San Antonio, Texas: Corona Publishing Company,
1988) p. 13
6
Bernal Diaz, The Conquest of New Spain (Baltimore,
Maryland: Penguin Books, Inc., 1963) p. 51
7
Prescott, p. 17
8
Diaz, p. 76
9
Prescott, p. 17
10
Miguel Leon-Portilla, ed. The Broken Spears: The Aztec
Account of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston, Massachusetts:
Beacon Press, 1962) pp. 3-6
11
Diaz, pp. 193-199
12
Leon-Portilla, pp. 40-41
13
Hernan Cortes, Letters from Mexico (New York:
Grossman Publishers, 1971) pp. 102-103
14
Moctezuma, p. 18
15
Prescott, p. 127
16
Diaz, p. 403
17
Leon-Portilla, p. 149