Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs

by Buddy Levy

  Cuauhtémoc possessed much military training, but he also understood, now more than ever, the importance of allies and of diplomacy. He assessed the city’s defenses, noting that before his death Cuitláhuac had done a decent job of shoring up ramparts, but there was more to be done. Cuauhtémoc set about buttressing the high walls to divert cavalry, digging caves for hiding, and fabricating armaments, including retrofitting the confiscated long Spanish lances that were adapted to impale oncoming horses and dismount their riders.5 Cuauhtémoc, employing what few remaining lords of power he had at his disposal, sent ambassadors to all the city-states around the lake and across the valley urging them to join him and their Aztec brothers in the fight against the Spaniards, who were surely coming back. These appeals came with generous gifts, and some city-states were lured by the promise of abated tribute-paying. Other lords agreed in principle, though their support remained tenuous, even flimsy. Some, having learned through runners and messengers about the annihilations and enslavements in Tepeaca, Zautla, and Jalacingo, deeply feared Cortés. Still others harbored long-held animosity toward the Aztecs, making alliances difficult for Cuauhtémoc.

  OVER the mountains in Tlaxcala, on December 28, 1520, Hernán Cortés reviewed his troops and readied for the descent into the Valley of Mexico. The troops looked fine, though he worried about his scant powder supplies and hoped for reinforcements from the coast, and soon. He possessed nine efficient field guns. Of the 550 foot soldiers mustered, eighty were skilled harquebusiers and crossbowmen. Forty ready cavalrymen trotted and wheeled their mounts. Cortés assembled the ranks; the cavalry was split into four squadrons of ten, the foot soldiers into nine units of sixty each. Cortés’s Spanish army, well convalesced, had remained active and trained over these last few months, and they appeared ready.6

  Their allied support was now strong, and the recently baptized Xicotenga the Elder (now called by the Spaniards Don Lorenzo de Vargas) offered as many as eighty thousand Tlaxcalan warriors. Cortés knew that feeding such a massive army on the move would be nearly impossible, so he took about ten thousand, leaving the rest in Tlaxcala, to be called upon later if required.7 Chichimecatecle would command the Tlaxcalan contingents.

  Before departing, Cortés assembled the entire allied force—the Spaniards in clanking and shimmering armor, the Indian warriors in feathers—at the central square of Tlaxcala. By now more than proficient in rousing oratory, Cortés spoke to his men (translated to the Tlaxcalans through Malinche and a few pages who had learned Nahuatl) reminding them of (and cleverly providing legal precedent for) the task ahead. They embarked on a “just” cause, he said, simultaneously appealing to honor, faith, and greed. “The principal reason for us coming to these parts,” he bellowed across the plaza, “is to glorify and preach the Faith of Jesus Christ, even though at the same time it brings us honor and profit, which infrequently come in the same package.”8

  Cortés went on, attempting to justify, both to the crown and in accordance with Spanish law, his proposed military actions by suggesting that the Aztecs were not a liberated nation but rather were vassals of Spain in rebellion, murderers of Spanish citizens who therefore required “a great whipping and punishment.”*42 9 While the argument was weak and rather dubious, it achieved the desired effect: the army rallied with whoops and cheers. Cortés closed this portion of his speech with a salient reminder of the Aztecs’ vile practices of human sacrifice, cannibalism, and even sodomy (this last an appeal against a taboo, seemingly for punctuation). Then he called upon a crier to shout out a list of seventeen rules of engagement, recently scribed by his new war secretary. The irony of some of them is so egregious, given Spanish brutality and duplicitous behavior, that in reading them, one does not know whether to laugh or to cry.10

  The highlights of this list, which Cortés called “ordinances for good government and other matters concerning war,”11 include the following. The purpose of the war was to impart to the local inhabitants of Mexico a “knowledge of our holy faith” and to “subjugate them, under imperial and royal yoke and dominion of His Majesty, to whom, legally, the lordship of these parts now belongs.”12 The terms “subjugate,” “dominion,” and “belongs” betray Cortés’s true intention: to bring this land to its knees and possess it.

  Then followed a series of unintentionally amusing “No one mights” (resonating the biblical “Thou shalt nots”), rendered concisely by Cortés’s secretary Francisco López de Gómara: “No one might blaspheme the Holy Name of God; no Spaniard might quarrel with another; no one might wager his arms or horse; no one might force a woman; no one might insult friendly Indian warriors, or use the tamemes [bearers] as gifts; no one might take the Indians’ clothing, do violence to them, or sack their towns, without Cortés’s permission and the consent of the council.” The last provision, “without Cortés’s permission,” is the most darkly conspicuous order, suggesting as it does that Cortés could ultimately do whatever he wanted, as shown recently in Tepeaca. The “no gambling” rule also made a curious provision for cards, “under certain limitations,”13 which included Cortés’s own private quarters.

  Many of the rules were targeted at maintaining strict military order and discipline, and disobedience—including desertion during battle, abandoning one’s post, and sleeping while on guard—was punishable by death. Certainly Alvarado’s assault at the Festival of Toxcatl partly inspired one that prohibited any captain from attacking the enemy without orders. Cortés had seen only too clearly the devastating result of such an action. The last ordinance, also punishable by hanging, “prohibits any man, officer or private, from securing to his own use any of the booty taken from the enemy, whether it be gold, silver, feather-work…slaves, or other commodity.”14 Clearly Cortés had his own, and the king’s, fifths in mind when he wrote this provision.

  When all had heard these proclamations, Cortés took Malinche aside and directed her to give special instructions to the Tlaxcalan leaders, warriors, and workers whom he would be leaving behind. He told them that he would depart the following day to confront the enemy, adding that “the city of [Tenochtitlán] could not be won without those brigantines which were being built.” He asked that the Tlaxcalan people “give the carpenters and all the other Spaniards…all they might require,”15 in order that these vessels be completed as soon as possible. When the time was right, many bearers would be called upon to carry the planking, crossbeams, and rigging over the mountains. These bearers had best be ready.

  After a last consultation with Martín López to finalize the brigantine plan, Cortés led his Spaniards and his long line of ten thousand west, toward the pass at the origin of the River Atoyac (modern River Frio). At nightfall they reached Texmelucan, a safe pueblo under Tlaxcalan control. Cortés chose this pass (north of their original route, now called The Pass of Cortés, but south of the path they had used in their escape-retreat) because it was more remote and severe than the others and thus less likely to be contested. The next day they climbed the steepening ground toward the pass, the ridgeline of the mountains ahead looming ragged and shadowy, the air thinning. Miles to the north they could see the snow-domed summit of the volcano Iztaccíhuatl dominating the skyscape.

  The boulder-strewn trail narrowed and swept sharply upward. Bearers heaved the heavy artillery along. The mountainside was scabrous with thornbrush and dwarf pine, wind-gnarled tree branches choking the trail. They encamped that night near the top of the pass at over twelve thousand feet, huddled together around fires. Sentries and scouts stomped their feet and swung their arms so as not to freeze. “Although it was very cold,” Cortés remembered, “we managed to warm ourselves with the great quantity of firewood we found there.”16

  At dawn the troops heard mass amid freezing spindrift, then moved again, cresting the talus ridge of the sierra and nosing down into a desperately declining ravine. As it narrowed and plunged, Cortés sent four cavalry ahead to survey the trail, followed closely by harquebusiers and crossbowmen, armed and ready. They were now in Azte
c territory. Cortés grew concerned at what they discovered: “They found the road blocked with trees and branches; very large and thick pine and cypress trees, which seemed to have been cut very recently, had been felled across it.”17 The conditions appeared perfect for an ambush. Cortés and his men continued forth cautiously, scouring the hillsides for signs of enemy movement, conjuring screaming warriors in their imaginations.

  No attack came. With great difficulty men cleared away the tangles of timber, hacking passage for the horses, and for a few frightening hours the train streamed slowly and exposed down the mountainside beneath the shadows of hovering prey birds. At length the trail widened and spread onto an alluvial plain far below. Cortés halted his horsemen and sent word back to the rear for the train to hurry along. The great Valley of Mexico once more unfurled before him, the whitewashed cities rising up out of the water, the cultivated maize and maguey plantations rimming the lakes. But this pastoral vision was disrupted by something else: “the enemy, who had already observed us, now suddenly began to send up great smoke signals all over the land,”18 and he warned his men that they should remain organized in tight formation on the trail. He entreated his men that they should “not turn back until they had taken Mexico or died in the attempt.”19

  The trail sloughed away below them and narrowed again at a rocky, vine-cluttered path, where a dilapidated timber footbridge spanned a deep ravine and a rumbling waterfall. Beyond, lying in wait, was a “large squadron of Mexican and Texcocan warriors.”20 Concerned but undaunted, Cortés dispatched fifteen horsemen, who galloped forward with their lances lowered, spearing and dispersing the warriors and scattering them to the hills. The way cleared, Cortés marched his units in formation down the mountain. Local inhabitants of the farms, many perched atop the ravine walls, shouted jeers and obscenities. Despite Cortés’s recently drawn up “ordinances,” a few enraged Tlaxcalans broke ranks to pillage farms, absconding with fowls and maize. When officers reprimanded them, they pointed out that the jeers and cries were hostile and justified a response.

  They rode into the valley, camping that night at Coatepec, a tributary village of Texcoco, which they found abandoned. Worried about a nighttime attack, Cortés took ten horsemen and led the first watch, reminding all his men to sleep fully armored, their arms clutched to their chests. That night, instead of an attack, Cortés received a welcome visitation from Ixtlilxochitl, the brother of Cacama (whom Cortés had ordered slain) and of Coanacochtzin, current king of Texcoco. He secreted to Cortés a gold peace chain and a solemn promise to fight with the Spaniards against the Aztecs, even agreeing to march next to Cortés at the vanguard as a symbol of his allegiance. He would fight against his own brother, his rival, whose ascent to Texcoco’s throne had been controversial. Cortés gladly accepted both his golden token and his support, delighted by the unexpected windfall, for it paved the way for his unencumbered entry into Texcoco, the city most crucial to his grand military plan.21

  On the last day of 1520 they rose and marched in strict order for six miles. Cortés and his captains surveyed the landscape and discussed their approach to the city of Texcoco, which they prayed would be peaceful, though, given their recent reception, they fully expected hostilities. Soon some of Cortés’s scout riders returned at a gallop, reporting that they had met peaceful chieftains ahead, men who wished to speak with the captain-general of the Spaniards. Though initially suspicious of subterfuge, Cortés was encouraged to see that he knew one of the chiefs, who approached with a half dozen others, one hoisting a heavy golden peace flag. The leader of the delegation apologized for the rude reception Cortés had received, and the skirmishes up in the gorges, but he assured the captain-general that those attacks had been ordered by Cuauhtémoc, who remained hostile. The flag-bearers came, they said, on behalf of their own leader Coanacochtzin, who desired only peace and friendship and was at this moment waiting to receive Cortés as an ally in Texcoco; he would provide quarters for them in the palace of the late king Nezahuapilli and whatever food he could spare.22

  Cortés, through Malinche and Aguilar, responded that he accepted their peace offering but pointed out that not long ago, very near here, many of his men had been killed and most of his treasure, given to him by Montezuma, had been stolen. He said that though the dead could not be returned to life, his treasure could be returned, and if they did so, he would spare their lives. The delegation murmured among one another, then responded that any confiscated treasure had been the work of the Aztecs of Tenochtitlán. They were themselves quite innocent, they said, but if Cortés would come to the quarters prepared for him, they would speak with the chief of Texcoco and do whatever they could to regain the missing treasure.

  Cortés reached the center of Texcoco around noon on December 31, 1520. It was, at the time, the second most populated city in the Triple Alliance, sustaining 25,000 to 30,000 people, but during their march through the suburbs Cortés noted that the streets were uncharacteristically quiet: “We had not seen a tenth of the people who are normally to be found in the city, nor any women and or children, which was a rather alarming sign.”23 The men they did see appeared frightened, well bundled, and skittish, darting sheepishly behind doors at the Spaniards’ coming. Cortés sent some of his captains and soldiers, including Pedro de Alvarado, Cristóbal de Olid, and Bernal Díaz, to the top of the city’s great pyramid (which was actually slightly higher than that of the Great Temple in Tenochtitlán) to scan the area and report their findings.

  What they saw from this impressive promontory explained the empty streets, for most of the populace was fleeing the city in canoes; some eight or ten thousand coursing furiously across Lake Texcoco, westward toward the capital. The streets and roads leaving the city to the north and west were clogged with people, including thousands of women and children, carrying their belongings on their backs, scattering toward the lake and woods and mountains. The mass departure was widespread.

  Unable to arrest the exodus, Cortés called for the arrest of Coanacochtzin, but he was among the first to have fled, ahead of his people. He was clearly aligned with Cuauhtémoc. Cortés fumed, and to vent his rage he sanctioned some carnage, ordering the idols on temples shattered, random buildings set afire, and a roundup of the remaining citizens, including women and children. These people were branded, enslaved, and sold among his men as before.24 Cortés soon learned that all the lords who had met him on the plain and given him the golden staff had now bolted for the capital, so while he had not been attacked, he had been deceived, and—worse—he had fallen for their ploy. A master of deception himself, he might have been at least a little impressed.

  Cortés established himself in the commodious palace rooms that had been prepared for him and contemplated his situation, which presented both problems and opportunities. On the one hand, a vacated city was not ideal, for though he had entered unopposed and lost no men, he now had only the bare shell of a citizenry and infrastructure for food, provisioning, and daily living. Additionally, the departure of the city’s lords meant that this new emperor, Cuauhtémoc, had at least some local support; Cortés would need to test the attitudes around the lake—south to Chalco and Iztapalapa, and west as far as Tacuba—to see how far the emperor’s influence reached. On the positive side, the evacuations left him in control, essentially, of Texcoco, which had been his plan and desire all along. But these city-states functioned only with visible (whether actual or symbolic) rulers, and now the rule of Texcoco sat vacant, creating civic tension and doubt.

  The industrious Cortés, having recent experience in such placements, figured he could remedy this problem in his favor. Ostensibly with the support of the few remaining Texcocan dignitaries, he suggested a puppet-ruler, a boy named Tecocol. Curiously, Tecocol would die after only two months (perhaps as a result of smallpox, though the epidemic seems to have subsided by this time), and the position was then filled by Ixtlilxochitl, Cortés’s convenient new ally.25

  For a few days Texcoco remained a ghost village. Cortés
and his men pillaged the palace and nearby homes for food to feed themselves and the ten thousand Tlaxcalans, finding some but not enough. The people had taken much of their stores with them when they left. As they foraged about the city, Cortés and his men encountered a magnificence that nearly rivaled that of neighboring Tenochtitlán, with remarkable botanical gardens, an outdoor theater for public performances, a music hall, a ball court, a zoo, and a great market (which was closed). The nobles’ houses were immaculate timbered buildings built on high wooden pylons, with terraces overlooking the lake.26 Though the city and environs impressed Cortés, after a few days he grew discouraged, for without the commerce and trade of a vital, working city, he could not hold out for long and would have to reconsider his plans.

  On the third day, lords of three nearby Texcocan tribute towns—Tenango, Huexotla, and Coatlinchan—paid Cortés a visit. They admitted to having participated in the evacuation of Texcoco and their own villages. Weeping, they asked Cortés for forgiveness, saying that they had reconsidered and now wished to submit to Spanish authority. Cortés agreed to pardon them provided they returned to their cities and brought their children and women back to their homes.27 These leaders complied, and within a few days people began returning to the surrounding cites. When word spread that Texcoco had a new ruler, other people started coming back as well, partly out of curiosity to see the new boy-king, but also because they preferred the comforts of their homes to life in the woods and on hillsides. Soon the city was functioning normally again.

  This was a significant political coup for Cortés, who now had a military base in the imperial palaces of Texcoco, with vantage points from the terraces and temples overlooking the lake and the entire valley. Not only did he now possess the perfect staging area for his planned attack on Tenochtitlán, but his new allies strengthened his growing political stranglehold on the lake district, and his occupation of Texcoco’s palace provided him with both a symbolic and an actual position of authority. He controlled an utterly unimpeded supply line from Vera Cruz, through Tlaxcala, all the way to the shore of Lake Texcoco. At the same time he was depriving Tenochtitlán of crucial coastal goods like saltwater fish and tropical fruits, essentially creating an embargo of this trade lifeline.