When Montezuma Met Cortes

by Matthew Restall

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  As long as the battleground is Cortés—not just his Hero or Antihero status, but Cortés in any historical or posthumous form—the conflict is unlikely to result in a better understanding of the war that made him (in)famous. How, therefore, can we view that war without Cortés getting in the way? If we eschew the Cortesian traditional narrative, who is left as our guide through the events of the 1520s? What optical strategies might we use to see around the five-hundred-year-old gorilla in the room?

  To start with, we can cut the temporal cake in a different place. The traditional narrative makes the fall of Tenochtitlan in August 1521 the climax of the tale. Most accounts either end there or treat subsequent events (the death of Cuauhtemoc, Cortés’s remaining years, New Spain’s three centuries) as an epilogue. This phenomenon is rooted in part in the royal system of patronage, which gave conquistadors motive to make premature claims of success in discovery and conquest; such claims underpinned the rewards of being adelantado (official invader) and captain-general, and then provincial governor and more. Early success, however imaginary, also reclassified resistance as “the rebellion that took place in this recently conquered province,” thereby legalizing the enslavement of local populations. Columbus made grandiose assertions of success as early as 1493, and Spanish conquistadors continued to do so into the seventeenth century (I have elsewhere called this “the myth of completion”).46

  Although the cutting of the narrative cake in 1521 has sixteenth-century roots and rationale, it actually became more prevalent in recent centuries; Prescott did it, for example, as do the most-read modern editions of Díaz’s True History (although the original manuscript continues to 1568). At the same time, the canon of traditional narrative sources—and the histories based on them—tend to give detailed attention to what Cortés and his company were doing early in the invasion (1518–20); Gómara and Prescott are typical in devoting almost half their accounts to that period. The Hispanocentric story begins with Cortés leaving Cuba and climaxes with him capturing Tenochtitlan. (Perhaps I follow suit myself in dating the Spanish-Aztec War as 1519–21.)47

  So, what alternative criteria might we use for determining where to cut? I suggest a closely related set of determinants: When did the conflict became an open war, with both sides deploying full force unsparing of noncombatants? When did that end? And when did indigenous (or quasi-indigenous) accounts mark the start and end of the war?

  The starting point of open war was clearly May 1520, when the Aztecs began for the first time an unambiguous campaign to destroy the invaders, and the Aztecs in turn became the target of elimination. Open war in and against Tenochtitlan ended in August the following year, with the city’s fall—and as the Aztecs thereby ceased to be a functioning political entity, the Spanish-Aztec War ended then. But warfare within the former Aztec Empire and outside its boundaries continued, against Nahuas, Tarascans, Mayas, and other Mesoamericans—from the regions northwest of central Mexico that Spaniards named New Galicia, to the Maya regions that they called Yucatan and Guatemala—through the 1540s. Throughout these three decades, most combatants were indigenous Mesoamericans, invaders and defenders. Indeed, thousands of ex-Aztec warriors—Mexica, Tetzcoca, Xochimilca, Quauhquecholteca, and others—as well as Tlaxcalteca forces, marched far north and south to fight and settle new imperial provinces. But the empire was increasingly a Spanish one, and this therefore can be dubbed the Spanish-Mesoamerican War of 1517–50.48

  Quasi-indigenous accounts more or less support such cutting points. The origin, genre, and authorship of such sources are complex, making this an inexact science, but a rough pattern can be detected in accounts from the Aztec heartland (Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Tetzcoco): minimal attention is given to the period before the outbreak of open war in May 1520; the majority of pages are devoted to the war from then through the summer of 1521; but considerable space is given to ongoing violence and invasion-related developments into the late 1520s (and sometimes beyond). This first narrative strategy therefore is to adopt a less Hispanocentric chronological focus, turning a 1519–21 story into a 1520s one.49

  Another narrative strategy we can adopt is simply to remove Cortés from the center of the stage (as other conquistadors tried to do in their unpublished and largely unread reports to the crown). He was nominally the senior captain of the company waging war in Mexico, and then governor-general of the province of New Spain; we cannot remove him from those posts. But the events of the 1520s come into clearer focus if we place other Spanish captains, as well as indigenous leaders, at the center of the events they guided and influenced. There is a lesson to be learned from how the Toxcatl Massacre has tended to be blamed on Pedro de Alvarado; I suspect that if Cortés had been present in the city at that moment, a different spin would have been invented, a pro-Cortesian one such as the tale of the foiled ambush used to justify the Cholollan Massacre. The Toxcatl Massacre is not the exception that proves the rule of Cortesian control; it is a glimpse into the real world of conquistador decision making, in which men like Alvarado, Olid, Ordaz, Sandoval, and Vásquez de Tapia acted and reacted in semiautonomous cohorts of captains and their followers.50

  A good example is that of the confrontation with Narváez and his company at the end of May 1520, usually credited as another “brilliant victory” by Cortés. It was nothing of the sort. Luck played a role (receiving an arrow in the face at the start of hostilities motivated Narváez to come quickly to terms), as did the presence on the Cortesian side of thousands of indigenous warriors. But above all, it was Sandoval who successfully used the tactic that was supposedly Cortés’s forte—the combination of diplomatic persuasion and threatened violence—and he was aided by dozens of conversations that took place between men of the two camps during the weeks of May. In those conversations, the new arrivals all heard of the splendor of Tenochtitlan, the wealth of the Aztecs, the peaceful entry of Cortés’s company into the city, and the supposed surrender of Montezuma. The key persuaders were men like Bartolomé de Usagre. A gunner with the Cortés company, his brother Diego was also a gunner and had crossed from Cuba with Narváez. Bartolomé walked into the Narváez camp (with, according to Díaz, some gold nuggets) and soon talked Diego—and his cohort—into joining him. The promise of spoils and slaves, made by kin and comrade, was far more powerful than any captain. (Bartolomé died in the siege; Diego went on to fight Mayas in Guatemala under the Alvarado brothers.)51

  One further example is the simple and apparent fact of who led which groups of conquistadors and warriors in the campaign of January to August 1521. The traditional narrative relies on the fiction that Cortés commanded everybody, masterminding the encircling and besieging of the Mexica, fighting everywhere or coming to last-minute rescues. In fact, Cortés seems to have done very little, if anything, on his own. Rather, he remained in a captains’ cohort with Olid, Andrés de Tapia, and Pedro de Alvarado. Sandoval operated separately, working with captains like Pedro de Ircio, Luís Marín, and Juan Rodríguez de Villafuerte—and coordinating with Ixtlilxochitl. Sandoval’s military and diplomatic successes in the crucial region extending from Ixtlapalapan to Chalco, following failed efforts by Cortés’s group, owe much to his ability to work better with the Tlaxcalteca and Tetzcoca leadership. The logistical challenge of getting the disassembled brigantines from Tlaxcallan to Tetzcoco—requiring cooperation from both sets of Nahua leaders—was managed not by Cortés but by Sandoval and Rodríguez de Villafuerte. It is surely telling that in the final assault, while Olid, Alvarado, Sandoval, and others fought along with Tlaxcalteca, Tetzcoca, and other indigenous allies up the causeways into the city, Cortés remained in the relative safety of a brigantine on the lake—pretending to lead, like the fictional Duke of Plaza-Toro, from behind (or, as Alva Ixtlilxochitl put it, Cortés proved “what they say about all cruel men being cowards”).52

  The January–August campaign took as long as it did because captains like Sandoval and Olid were not simply taking orders from Cortés, and were only
loosely working together; it took as short as it did because ultimate control of the campaign lay in the hands of the leaders who knew the language, the terrain, and the enemy, and who commanded the loyalty of 99 percent of the fighting men. Indigenous initiatives were decisive throughout the war. Leaders in Tlaxcallan, Tetzcoco, Tenochtitlan, and elsewhere must therefore also be given credit as actors (not just re-actors)—from rulers such as Montezuma, Cacama, Ixtlilxochitl, and Xicotencatl, to lesser-known Nahuas whose roles we can only begin to discern, such as Quauhpopocatl and don Juan Axayacatl.

  THIS LEADS US TO yet another narrative strategy that we might adopt to see around the obstacle of Cortesian legend: we can take specific altepetl-based indigenous perspectives. There is no such thing as the indigenous or native or “Indian” viewpoint, but we can glean new insights by trying to see events the way the dynastic elite did in Tetzcoco, for example. Two crucial facts set the scene for this portion of our story and this angle on Mexico’s tumultuous 1520s: Tetzcoco was the second-ranking power in the unequal Triple Alliance that was the Aztec Empire; when its tlahtoani, or king, Nezahualpilli, died in 1515, among his hundred-plus children were half a dozen sons with royal mothers from Tenochtitlan and thus with claims to the Tetzcoco throne.

  Tetzcoco was the dominant altepetl or city-state on the eastern shore of the eponymous lake. Its heartland was the highly fertile and well-populated territory that stretched from the lake east to the mountains, but the city also exercised power and collected tribute from as far eastward as the Gulf coast. Thus by the end of the fifteenth century, there was “a veritable Tetzcoca empire.” It could not extend westward, because there lay the great lake, with Tenochtitlan set bright and jewellike in its center. A century before the Spanish invasion, a Tetzcoca nobleman named Nezahualcoyotl had allied with the Mexica lords of the island-city to destroy the regional dominance of an altepetl on the far western lakeshore. Having humiliated that town (Azcapotzalco), the victors effectively turned their military alliance into a permanent power-sharing arrangement (Tlacopan, an altepetl just south of Azcapotzalco, took control of the western territories, completing the tripartite alliance). Nezahualcoyotl became tlahtoani of Tetzcoco, ruling half a century until his death in 1472 (the poet-prince is famous as a folk hero and cultural icon in Mexico today).53

  Tetzcoco and Tlacopan were thus important imperial partners, acting as breadbaskets for Tenochtitlan (that is, providing corn and other foods) and as buffer zones between the imperial capital and outlying enemies (the Tlaxcalteca Triple Alliance to the east and the Tarascan Empire to the west). But Tenochtitlan was unambiguously the dominant partner. It took the first and largest cut of spoils and of subsequent tribute payments from all joint conquests. Only its ruler was the huey tlahtoani (the Great Speaker, the emperor). Nezahualpilli (ruled 1472–1515) sought wives as closely related as possible to Tenochtitlan’s huey tlahtoque—Axayacatl (ruled 1469–81), Tizoc (ruled 1481–86), Ahuitzotl (ruled 1486–1502), and Montezuma (ruled 1502–20).

  And therein lies the first twist in the tale. Sources differ greatly as to the identity, fate, and offspring of Nezahualpilli’s wives, with some claiming he fathered up to 145 children. But the consensus is that the most important wives were Mexica royalty, producing six or seven sons with reasonable claims to the Tetzcoca throne in 1515. The chance timing of the resulting succession dispute and the arrival of the Spaniards meant that eight (and possibly nine or ten) of those sons would end up serving as tlahtoani over the next thirty years—right through the “Conquest” period (see the Dynastic Vine in the Appendix).

  The three sons with the strongest claims in 1515 were Cacama, whose uncle was Montezuma, and his half brothers Coanacoch and Ixtlilxochitl (who shared the same mother, by whom the huey tlahtoani Tizoc was their great-uncle). Not surprisingly, Cacama had the support of Montezuma and was declared his father’s successor. Sources disagree as to how heavy-handed Montezuma needed to be in influencing or imposing his choice, but all agree that one brother, Ixtlilxochitl, refused to accept it. He fled Tetzcoco, gathered supporters, and established loose control over the northern portion of Tetzcoca territory. Neither brother apparently felt confident or strong enough to crush the other, and so a deal was made: Ixtlilxochitl would govern the north, Cacama the center and the city of Tetzcoco itself, with Coanacoch given an area in the south (presumably to discourage him from joining either of his two ruling brothers). This tripartite sharing of power among unequal partners had obvious parallel and precedent in the Aztec world. It also benefited Montezuma, who surely had a hand in it: a divided but peaceful and productive Tetzcoco helped the huey tlahtoani maintain Tenochtitlan’s dominant position in the empire’s ruling alliance.54

  The arrangement might have lasted many years more, but the arrival of the conquistadors destabilized it. We know that Cacama met the Spaniards as they descended into the Valley of Mexico and led them to the Meeting. But what happened next is unclear. According to the traditional narrative, Cacama objected to Montezuma’s surrender, and Cortés thus imprisoned him and placed another brother, Cuicuizcatl, on the Tetzcoca throne. The notion of Cortés as kingmaker within weeks of arriving in Tenochtitlan is one of the many absurdities stemming from the lie of his seizure of emperor and empire. Even Cortés effectively admitted that he had no control over Tetzcoco, stating that the Tetzcoca rejected Cuicuizcatl (who had to remain in Tenochtitlan) and instead chose Coanacoch (who had Cuicuizcatl killed when he fled home during the Noche Triste). In fact, Cacama probably remained as tlahtoani until he was murdered by the retreating Spaniards, along with Montezuma, in that June of 1520. In the meantime, during the months of the Phoney Captivity, there was clearly intense political jostling between Cacama, his brothers, and Montezuma. The Spanish captains, failing to grasp what was really happening, imagined causes and outcomes, and periodically lashed out; a story told by Alva Ixtlilxochitl (Ixtlilxochitl’s great-great-grandson) rings true, whereby Cacama sent an escort with twenty conquistadors to Tetzcoco to fetch a gift of gold objects, and the paranoid Spaniards killed the leader of the escort (yet another brother of Cacama’s).55

  Whatever the truth of those months, by the summer of 1520, Cuitlahua was huey tlahtoani in Tenochtitlan and Coanacoch was tlahtoani in Tetzcoco. The empire’s center was relatively secure and stable—for now. During the second half of that year, the war’s initiative was again in the hands of the Tlaxcalteca (despite the traditional narrative’s ubiquitous claim that Cortés was in charge and control); with the conquistadors at first diminished and battle-scarred, then increasingly fortified by recovery and resupply, the Tlaxcalteca were able to expand their territorial control at the expense of the easternmost Tetzcoca regions of the Aztec Empire. With the onset of the local war season in December, the Tlaxcalteca campaign began in earnest and with sufficient confidence to move into the Tetzcoca heartland. With the restoration of the Tlaxcalteca Triple Alliance, the invasion force of Caxtilteca and Tlaxcalteca was reinforced with warriors from Huexotzinco and Cholollan (those left after the previous year’s massacre). On December 29, the combined company descended the mountain pass into the Valley of Mexico.

  On the last day of 1520, the city of Tetzcoco was occupied. There was no resistance. Alvarado and Olid climbed the great temple-pyramid, from which they could see that the city, spread out over a larger area than Tenochtitlan, was almost empty; its population, roughly as numerous as that of the imperial capital (some sixty thousand), was in flight, their canoes peppering the lake as they rowed with their king, Coanacoch, to the safety of Tenochtitlan. The Spaniards, Tlaxcalteca, and other invaders sacked the city; any men left behind were slaughtered, women raped and enslaved along with their children.56

  With Coanacoch gone, and Tetzcoco triumphantly in Spanish-Tlaxcalteca hands, one of the absent king’s many brothers, Tecocol, was installed as ruler—baptized as don Fernando Cortés Tecocoltzin. Or was he? By the end of January, Tecocol was dead, cause unknown. Hassig has argued that in the wake of the city’s sacking, there was in
sufficient time or stability for such a decision, and that “his kingship was a convenient fiction.” Alva Ixtlilxochitl downplayed Tecocol’s supposed brief rule thus:

  Everyone agreed to make Tecocoltzin their lord, even though he was King Nezahualpilli’s illegitimate son, because they did not dare nominate the legitimate ones until they saw how things would turn out.57

  To make sense of this, we need to back up to the night of December 29, when the Caxtilteca-Tlaxcalteca force was camped out in the Tetzcoca town of Coatepec, having descended that day from the mountains. In the night, the captains received a visitor: Ixtlilxochitl. Cacama’s rebellious brother had held on to his domain in northern Tetzcoca territory throughout the fourteen months since Spaniards had first entered the valley; he had stayed sufficiently clear of Tetzcoco and Tenochtitlan to survive, waiting to make his move. That night Ixtlilxochitl seized his opportunity not only to become tlahtoani of his father’s entire territory, but to expand it at the expense of the Mexica—whose rulers had supported both his brothers, Cacama and then Coanacoch. With the help of the Tlaxcalteca and their foreign allies, he could shift the balance of power in the valley and turn his Tetzcoco into the imperial capital. If that meant surrendering tributary towns east of the mountains to the Tlaxcalteca Triple Alliance, it was a price worth paying to control the great valley.

  Ixtlilxochitl’s role in the events of 1521 has, I believe, been overly ignored or downplayed. This is not surprising. The traditional narrative slavishly submits to Cortés’s claim that he, as kingmaker, appointed and controlled “Indian” lords like Ixtlilxochitl; the taking of Tetzcoco and its use as a base for the siege of Tenochtitlan has for five centuries been credited to Cortesian genius, without room to recognize indigenous initiative. Where credit has been given to the role played by “Indian allies,” it is the Tlaxcalteca who traditionally win star billing—praised by Díaz and Prescott and most chroniclers and historians between and since. Tlaxcallan’s own officials and mestizo historians maintained an extraordinarily successful campaign throughout the colonial period to promote the Tlaxcalteca as the Christian converts and crucial allies who made the “Conquest of Mexico” possible. As for the pair of accounts by Ixtlilxochitl’s great-great-grandson, they are not well known outside scholarly circles, typically ignored or dismissed as overly biased.58