Conquistador

by Buddy Levy

  Cuauhtémoc would certainly have been organizing his elite forces, his jaguar and eagle knights, proud and revered warriors among the highest military orders attainable in the Aztec army. They attained their high rank either through noble birth or by taking live prisoners in battle, and they served in battle as officers, in charge of divisions or smaller units. They were distinguished by their dress and helmets: a jaguar knight wore a jaguar pelt and an elaborate helmet, his face staring from inside the animal’s growling mouth; an eagle knight wore a feathered helmet with a great cawing beak. With these elites Cuauhtémoc would have discussed tactics and strategy, planning as much as possible given what he already knew from watching Cortés’s military work over the last months. But he could never have predicted how these strange and ominous water-houses would shape the course of battle on the lake.5

  Lore records that as a last symbolic action, Cuauhtémoc gathered up the remnants of Montezuma’s treasure and had it taken by canoe to a mysterious and fabled part of the lake, the whirlpool of Pantitlán, and tossed into a massive, roiling whirlpool where Cortés could never get to it. In retribution for his people’s predicament, Cuauhtémoc perhaps also wished to dishonor the fallen ruler.6

  Across the water in Texcoco, Cortés made preparations of his own. He was impressed by the work of Martín López and especially by the hardworking relay teams of Tlaxcalans who had been digging constantly in shifts. He wrote with pride, “More than eight thousand natives…worked for fifty days on this task because the canal was more than twelve feet deep and as many wide. It was well lined with stakes, so that it would fill with water from the lake, and thus the brigantines might be transported without danger or effort; it was certainly a magnificent achievement and a notable sight.”7 The brigantines themselves looked impressive, fitted out with their sails and rigging and their newly fashioned oars. Cortés decided on a big official launch in about a week, complete with rousing fanfare and ceremony intended to inspire his troops and send a message to Cuauhtémoc.

  In the meantime he sent out a call to all neighboring towns that he needed eight thousand copper arrowheads fashioned to a specific Spanish pattern, as well as an equal number of arrows, straight and of durable hard wood. He was delighted when, just a week later, the regional military craftsmen brought in more than fifty thousand arrowheads and as many arrows. They were divided among the crossbowmen, and overseen by Pedro Barba, the arrows were feathered, oiled, and polished with great care. The clang of metal on metal rang through the town as blacksmiths fashioned new shoes for the horses, and other metalworkers carefully honed the tips and blades of swords and lances. Dry gunpowder was packed and secured in containers, cannons and artillery cleaned and well oiled, the fittings and firing mechanisms gone over. Once the horses were newly shod, riders were instructed to take their mounts on daily training rides, running the warhorses at hard gallops, halting and wheeling them in simulated battle exercises.8

  Cortés put out a call for more allied support, for he knew he would need strong bodies to take and retake the causeway bridges. He had witnessed the usefulness of auxiliaries in the recent near-disaster at Xochimilco, and he understood that a continuous ability to repair bridges destroyed by the enemy would be crucial if he was to successfully infiltrate and ultimately take the city. Cortés sent letters via messengers to the Tlaxcalan leaders Xicotenga the Elder and the always contentious Xicotenga the Younger alerting them to the time frame of his attack and his need for men to work and to prepare food. Cortés expected to have this assistance within ten days, if that would be possible. He specifically asked these leaders for as many as twenty thousand men.

  He organized a ceremonial launching of twelve of the brigantines on Sunday, April 28. Despite the recent rains the canal had failed to fill sufficiently, but the clever naval engineer Martín López had designed and overseen the construction of twelve dams—running all the way from the lake to the shipyard—and these ingenious devices allowed the ships to be floated the length of the canal to the mouth of the open water on the east bank of Lake Texcoco. Here Father Olmedo performed mass as thousands of citizens, warriors, and Spaniards lined the banks of the canal to witness the send-off of these ingeniously designed boats that, at nearly fifty feet, held twenty-five to thirty men. Cortés’s personal flagship brigantine, La Capitana, was slightly larger and bore a heavy iron cannon.9

  To the alarum of blaring trumpets and synchronized cannon fire, the sails on the warships were unfurled and Spanish banners waved atop the high mastheads. Great cheers went up along the banks as the flat-bottomed, low-draft ships, powered by both sails and paddles, made their way through the canal and onto the lake. As the vessels cruised out onto the open water for final test sailing and preparations, Hernán Cortés and Martín López had much to be proud of. In just over seven months they had conceived of and manufactured a full-scale navy capable of amphibious assault on the two-hundred-year-old city of Tenochtitlán. It was a stupendous spectacle and something of a military miracle.10

  Fitting out the crews for the armada, however, had been no simple matter. Cortés originally called for volunteers, assuming that men would fly to the posts, but that had been optimistic—very few were forthcoming. He needed some three hundred men. For each ship he required twenty-five men: twelve would be needed to paddle (six on a side) if the winds were light; otherwise these men could set the sail and fight from their gunwale posts. Then each boat required another dozen harquebusiers and crossbowmen to fire on Aztec canoes or on foot warriors along the causeways. Each ship also required a couple of skilled artillerymen to operate the bronze bow-mounted cannons, a sentry or lookout, and of course a competent captain.

  Cortés was less than impressed with the response to his call for volunteers. Apparently many thought paddling, and naval orders at all for that matter, to be lowly duty, unbefitting their rank and station. They may have also believed that infantry detail promised better access to the plunder. In the end, frustrated by his men’s reluctance, Cortés personally staffed the ships from muster rolls, ordering any men who had previously sailed, or served on sailing ships, to come forward. Lacking enough numbers, he ultimately drew on any Spaniards hailing from port towns, figuring they must know something of naval matters.

  Cortés hand-selected the captains based on their previous naval experience as well as his trust and confidence in them. Notable brigantine skippers included newcomers such as Miguel Díaz de Aux, who had only recently arrived with one of the Garay expeditions, and veterans who had originally accompanied Cortés to Mexico, including Juan Jaramillo. Newer arrival Pedro Barba, most recently associated with the crossbowmen, had apparently won Cortés’s favor as a strong leader, for he too earned the captaincy of a brigantine, where he would again distinguish himself. For the next three weeks these sea captains and the others would perform test missions and training shakedowns on the eastern waters, identifying and repairing any leaks or mechanical problems while Cortés made final preparations with his ground troops.

  Continuing the pomp and ceremony of the brigantine launching, Cortés held a formal parade and review of troops in the plazas and streets of Texcoco. The recently arrived reinforcements certainly helped matters. Cortés now inspected 86 fine horsemen, 118 harquebusiers and crossbowmen, and 700 foot soldiers armed with swords and shields. His artillery included three heavy iron guns, fifteen lighter field pieces, and ten hundredweight of gunpowder.11

  He organized his Spanish force into four divisions—one aquatic, which he would personally command, and three land commands. The land divisions would be captained by experienced and trusted men: Alvarado, Olid, and Sandoval. Each one would have for troops approximately 150 infantrymen, about thirty cavalry, and fifteen crossbowmen and harquebusiers. They would also orchestrate large numbers of allied divisions, a combined total probably on the order of 200,000.*50 The major forces of allies—those from Texcoco and Tlaxcala—would operate under native commanders, Ixtlilxochitl and Chichimecatecle respectively, men who had already p
roved instrumental in the buildup to the siege.12

  The allied divisions were so numerous that they had to assemble a short distance from the city of Texcoco where there would be room for them all. Bernal Díaz remembered the great pride and pageantry of the warriors as they arrived from the provinces prepared to fight:

  They approached in fine order, all very brilliant with great devices, each regiment by itself with its banners unfurled, and the white bird, like an eagle with its wings outstretched, which is their badge. The ensigns waved their banners and standards and all carried bows and arrows, two-handed swords, javelins and spear throwers; some carried mancanas and great lances and others small lances. Adorned with their feather head-dresses, and moving in good order and uttering shouts, cries, and whistles, calling out: “Long live the Emperor our master!” and “Castile, Castile, Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala!”13

  The train of troops was so long that it was said to stream into the city for three consecutive hours. The men were housed and fed at many lodgings within the city. They were well trained, well rested, and for the most part battle-tested. Now it was only a matter of time before the siege of and battle for Tenochtitlán began.

  In the last weeks before the official commencement of operations, Cortés had yet one more political problem to contend with. As he had hoped, his call for men and arms had been well responded to, especially from Tlaxcala. Xicotenga the Younger had arrived, as requested, at the head of a few thousand of his best men. But on the eve of the initial assault Xicotenga the Younger abandoned his post during the night and left for his home in Tlaxcala. Cortés inquired about the matter, suspecting that, because Xicotenga the Elder was infirm with age and because most of the rival nobles of power were assisting in the Spanish conquest effort, Xicotenga the Younger—who had been hostile toward Cortés from the beginning—realized that the opportunity was ripe for him to take over the rulership of Tlaxcala. This same young and impetuous upstart had been restrained, then physically removed, during political meetings between the Spaniards and Tlaxcalans just months before.

  Cortés now viewed young Xicotenga’s actions as mutinous. He sent Tlaxcalan nobles with armed guards and two Spanish captains to pursue and overtake him, which they did. The delegation asked him to return, to captain a squadron, but he refused. Then, as ordered, the Tlaxcalan delegation brought their countryman, bound as a prisoner, before Cortés. Though Pedro de Alvarado intervened and attempted to persuade Cortés against taking the harshest actions, the haughty Cortés could not be swayed. Desertion, Cortés reasoned, was to the Spaniards a crime punishable by death. At this stage of their expedition, on the eve of battle, given all that had been risked and lost and all they stood to gain, Cortés would not tolerate such insubordination, such treason. He ordered Xicotenga the Younger hanged in the open, in broad daylight in the center of Texcoco for all the allies to witness, to serve as an example.14

  Flags flapped on the masts of the brigantines down on the water. Late spring breezes were freshening. All was ready. The military plan Cortés had conjured was as ingenious as it was simple, but like most plans of warfare, enacting it successfully would prove much more difficult than drafting it on paper.

  THE battle plan was in every respect organized as an extended siege, involving perfectly timed land assaults on the causeways at crucial points, coupled with synchronized naval support from the brigantines. Cortés also intended to cut off the city’s supply of fresh water and, if possible, cripple trade of any kind with the outside world. Each ground division captain (Alvarado, Olid, and Sandoval) had a strict mission to adhere to, and the success of the overall siege plan required the success of each independent but connected mission. Alvarado and Olid were charged to march northward from Texcoco, over the top of the lake, and swing down to Tacuba, where Alvarado was ordered to secure the all-important causeway there. Olid would continue south to Coyoacán, whose short connector causeway was linked to the long Iztapalapa causeway. Once Olid and Alvarado were positioned, Sandoval would depart Texcoco and march on the eastern lakeshore to Iztapalapa, where he would take that causeway. Once all the ground divisions were in place and had commenced their offensives, Cortés would direct the brigantines to those positions and offer cannon, harquebus, and crossbow support and flank protection. Clearly Cortés understood that any entrance into the heart of the empire depended on gaining command over the causeways.

  On May 22, after hearing mass in the main plaza of Texcoco, Cortés addressed his troops once more. A crier bellowed out the rules of warfare, and Cortés spoke to his men of the ideals of honor, of their duty to fight for God and country. With that, Captains Olid and Alvarado marched north to begin their mission, and the siege of the Aztec empire was officially under way.

  The beginning of the coordinated blockade, siege, and assault was marred by internal strife, and by the end of the first day Cortés must have wondered how his plan could possibly work if his own men could not get along. As the troops of Alvarado and Olid arrived that first evening at Acolman, a Texcocan subject city where they had been instructed to pause on their way to Tacuba, a dispute arose over which division (Alvarado’s or Olid’s) should take up the best lodgings in the town; Olid’s men had ridden ahead and secured most of the good dwellings. Bitter arguing ensued between the factions, and swords were actually drawn on both sides. The tension was severe enough that someone dispatched a fleet horseman to gallop to Cortés and report the conflict to him.15

  Certainly miffed by this petty disagreement but realizing its import, Cortés immediately sent the rider back to Acolman with Father Melgarejo to mediate the situation. He had begun to trust Father Melgarejo, which made sense for he, along with Alderete, was influential in Spain.*51 The priest arrived at Acolman bearing stern letters of reproach from Cortés, which he directed to the captains, suggesting they quiet their men and remain focused on the mission at hand. By the next day the matter had been smoothed over, but from that moment onward the relationship between Alvarado and Olid remained contentious.

  The next day, their troops poorly rested, Alvarado and Olid marched on to Tacuba as instructed, noticing that nearly all the towns they passed through and stopped in had been abandoned. Tacuba was deserted as well, and the Spaniards took lodgings in the royal palace where Cortés had stayed just a few weeks before. A quick reconnaissance of the entrance to the causeway revealed that it would not be taken without a fight, for already large numbers of Aztecs swarmed about in their canoes, and a force of foot soldiers stood ready to guard it. Minor skirmishing ensued, but it was near nightfall, and though the Aztecs taunted and provoked the Spaniards through dusk and all through the night, the Spaniards showed discipline and were not drawn into an attack but kept to Cortés’s strict battle plan.

  During his lengthy stay in Tenochtitlán, initially as a welcome guest and later as an unwelcome one, Cortés had come to know the design and layout of the great lake city extremely well. In fact, he had sent his own hand-drawn maps of the city back to Spain in his first letters. One feature that had caught his attention was the impressive Chapultepec aqueduct, a two-mile-long conduit engineered to carry fresh springwater from the hillside town of Chapultepec across the western waters of Lake Texcoco and into the center of Tenochtitlán. (The aqueduct met the city at the terminus of the Tacuba causeway.) It was a remarkably vulnerable lifeline, for though there were a few freshwater springs and wells within the major island city, they were certainly not enough to provide a population of a few hundred thousand with potable water. The aqueduct served that purpose, and Cortés knew it. He planned to sever this crucial conduit early in the siege.

  The Aztecs, of course, understood the vulnerability too, having relied on this aqueduct since its construction during the reign of Itzcóatl (1426–40), fourth king of the Aztecs.*52 As a result, when Alvarado and Olid rode the few miles south from Tacuba to Chapultepec with orders to demolish the aqueduct, they arrived to find hordes of Aztec warriors already there, waiting for them. The fighting was fierce: the Aztecs att
acked with spears and javelins and hurled stones from slings, wounding a handful of Spaniards in the initial assault. Although the broken ground was not ideal for the horses, still the Spaniards managed to drive the frontal squadrons to flight and eventually took possession of the spring. “As soon as these squadrons had been put to flight,” remembered Bernal Díaz, “we broke the conduits through which the water flowed to the city, and from that time onwards it never flowed into Mexico so long as the war lasted.”16 For the next seventy-five days, the residents of Tenochtitlán would defend themselves without this vital liquid lifeline, and Cortés would proudly describe the tactic as a “cunning stratagem.”17

  He had struck a major offensive blow in the earliest moments of the siege. Olid now continued five miles south as directed, where he found Coyoacán deserted and undefended; he was able to take up his position without a fight. Cortés took the cue to release Sandoval and his forces from Texcoco and deploy them at Iztapalapa, near the entrance to the main and longest causeway. On May 31 Sandoval marched the twenty-five miles without incident, but they were attacked once they finally arrived at the abandoned city. Sandoval’s sheer numbers easily thwarted the small Aztec squadron. As Sandoval and his men appropriated the best houses there, smoke signals began to puff and rise from shrines around the lake, which the Spaniards assumed was a battle cry among the Aztec forces.