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

by Buddy Levy

  All that remained now was to subdue and incorporate any holdout Aztec allies, and to pray that his brigantine scheme would work. The enormous undertaking of conveying the dismantled boats over the mountains had yet to be done. There was no telling how long it might take, if it worked at all. Even now the Aztecs might be massing for an attack. The whole plot was a long shot, a toss of the Aztec patolli dice, but Cortés remembered beating Montezuma at that game, and now the gambler from Medellín was ready to wager everything once more.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Wooden Serpent

  THE WINTER AND SPRING OF 1521 saw a series of moves and countermoves in the Valley of Mexico, as Cortés maneuvered to consolidate his allies while Cuauhtémoc sought to undermine them and bolster his own. Cuauhtémoc quickly learned that a number of the Texcocan tributaries had allied with Cortés, and he sent emissaries to try to subvert those recent agreements, but his plan backfired when his messengers were captured and brought before Cortés. The captain-general used these messengers as an opportunity to glean information about current conditions in Tenochtitlán and to establish a direct line of communication with the new emperor, with whom he hoped he might be able to negotiate, perhaps even convincing him bloodlessly to sue for peace. Cortés dismissed the prisoners, sending them back by canoe to the capital with an appeal for peace that included an implicit warning: agree to revert to Spanish vassalage, or your cities will be besieged and destroyed.

  When no response came after a week, Cortés organized a reconnaissance mission targeting Iztapalapa, an important Aztec bastion some twenty miles to the south, an easy two days’ march. He divided his army, leaving 3,000 or 4,000 Tlaxcalans and about 350 Spaniards in Texcoco under Sandoval. Cortés would personally lead a reconnaissance force of 200 Spaniards and as many as 7,000 Indian warriors and bearers, both Tlaxcalan and Texcocan allies.1 Cortés took along captains Andrés de Tapia and Cristóbal de Olid, as well as twenty able chiefs of Texcoco, leaders suggested by Ixtlilxochitl, who had become a crucial and trusted ally. The captain-general rode out with a small cavalry of fifteen to twenty horses and modest but skilled firepower—ten harquebusiers and thirty crossbowmen—and headed south to the jutting isthmus of land that separated the great lakes Texcoco and Chalco into two distinct bodies, one salt water and the other fresh. It was here, in this large and beautiful waterborne city of Iztapalapa (nearly two-thirds of the houses were built on stilts over water) that Cortés and his men had spent their last night before their original historic entrance into Tenochtitlán via the long Iztapalapa causeway, the southernmost land route into the capital.2

  As Cortés marched south, he noticed plumes of smoke rising in the distance; the inhabitants of the outlying villages signaled his movements. When he neared the outskirts of the city, he saw Aztec warriors congregating in the farm fields, and many war canoes lining the lakeshore. The Aztecs attacked in small bands of skirmishers, and Cortés fought minor combats for nearly five miles into the city proper. Most of the Aztecs then retreated, and as Cortés investigated the empty city, a startling thing occurred: the ground at his feet began to fill with water. In an ingenious ploy, the Aztecs had intentionally opened the dike of Nezhualcoyotl, sending salt water pouring into the low-lying ground. Their intention was to drown the Spaniards and their allies as the Aztecs retreated to higher ground. Apparently this was Emperor Cuauhtémoc’s response to Cortés’s recent communiqué.

  The plan nearly worked. The Aztecs had hoped that Cortés would camp in the city, and be drowned that night. Instead, on the advice of the Texcocan chiefs who understood what was happening, Cortés moved quickly, fighting his way toward higher ground and killing rogue warriors as he went. “We drove them back into the water, some up to their chests and swimming,” Cortés remembered.3 The Tlaxcalans, inflamed with a lust for revenge, lingered in the city, killing citizens with impunity. Cortés ordered his men to set many of the houses ablaze, and in the smoldering dusk he realized that by now much of the city was under water, and he was forced to retreat. “When I reached the water,” Cortés said, “it was so deep and it flowed with such force that we had to leap across it; some of our Indian allies were drowned, and we lost the spoil we had taken in the city.”4 Cortés and all but one of his Spanish force made it to the shoreline just in time; only an hour or two more, and they all would have drowned. Most of their gunpowder became wet and had to be abandoned. Many Tlaxcalans lost their lives.

  Cortés and his men shivered the night away, soaked to the bone and weak with hunger. They awoke to find that hordes of Aztecs lined the lakeshore in their canoes, poised to attack. Shrieking, they leaped from their boats to fight, and Cortés ordered defensive maneuvers, fighting a retreat all the way back to Texcoco. Though the raid had not gone as planned, it could have been disastrous, and Cortés felt lucky to have escaped. The Aztecs considered themselves victorious, though a good portion of this vital city now lay swamped and burned, its inhabitants reeling in fear and confusion.

  Word of Iztapalapa’s destruction spread quickly around the valley and even beyond, as far as Otumba, and while Cortés remained in Texcoco planning north-lake forays, chiefs from all over began to arrive to negotiate allegiances. The chiefs from Otumba apologized for their involvement in that famous battle (in which Cortés had had his skull fractured), blaming the Aztecs for forcing them to participate. Cortés agreed to pardon them provided that from now on the Otomis would capture and imprison any Aztec messengers or soldiers in their land and bring them directly to him. The most important and intriguing correspondents came secretly from nearby Chalco, a reluctant Aztec stronghold on the far eastern shore of Lake Chalco. The messengers revealed that, though they wished to make peace with Cortés, their situation was precarious and compromising. Cuauhtémoc had established a military post within the city, essentially forcing their support. The messengers intimated that if Cortés could extricate the Aztecs from their city, they would oblige him with their support.5

  Cortés called on Sandoval to lead a substantial force to Chalco at once to drive out the Aztecs. During the march Aztec warriors in small squadrons pestered the rearguard but caused little damage, and Sandoval arrived successfully at the outskirts of Chalco. A formidable force of Aztecs met the advance on a level expanse of cultivated maize and maguey. They had learned from previous experience and adapted some of their weapons—they used long lances fashioned with spear tips. But engaging the Spanish cavalry on the open, level plain proved a serious tactical blunder.6 Sandoval and his horsemen galloped upon the Aztec foot soldiers, dispersing their ranks and riding them down, killing a great number with few Spanish casualties. Ixtlilxochitl of Texcoco commanded an organized allied thrust, helping Sandoval fight his way into the city, where he took control of the central plaza and drove the Aztecs from their garrisons.7

  Leaving a force of Tlaxcalans to guard and maintain control of Chalco, Sandoval returned triumphant to Texcoco, bringing with him live war spoils in the form of the two sons of Chalco’s recently deceased emperor, who had been claimed by smallpox. According to Bernal Díaz, the late emperor believed that “their lands would be ruled by bearded men who came from the direction of the sunrise, and his own eyes told him we were those men.”8 Cortés was delighted by the successes in Chalco and quite happy to perform the ceremonial inaugurations of the two sons, making one his puppet ruler of Chalco, the other of two nearby cities. The region, and Cortés’s web of vassal alignment, was falling into place. In the last cold days of January, as winter gales whipped the lakes into white-capped chop, Cortés once more called upon Sandoval, this time to head back over the mountains to Tlaxcala to check on the progress of the brigantines.

  Sandoval took a light and fast force via Zultepec, where he was instructed to inflict punitive measures on any holdout Aztecs. The year before, forty-five Spaniards had been killed there, and Cortés saw Sandoval’s expedition as an opportunity to exact revenge, since it was en route to Tlaxcala. Sandoval did his bidding, driving a few insurgent Aztec warr
iors from the town and securing it. Some of the local inhabitants then took Sandoval and his captains to a nearby village and led them to an abandoned temple. Here during the previous year the contingent of forty-five Narváez men, trekking to meet up with Cortés, had instead met a gruesome fate in an ambush as they led their horses through a narrow ravine. The blood of the Spaniards had been spattered across the walls, and one of the party’s members had carved a message onto the wall with a knife: “Here was imprisoned the unfortunate Juan Yuste, and many others of his company.”9

  The eerie message hardly prepared Sandoval for what he next witnessed. Splayed out, stretched, and tanned before the idols were the full skins of five horses; the hair was preserved in perfect condition, while the hooves and shoes were displayed in offering. More grisly still, the weapons and clothing of the Narváez men hung lifelike, and the flayed faceskins of two Spaniards had been placed before the Aztec idols, the beards clotted with blood. Disgusted, Sandoval and his men could only imagine the morbid cries of his countrymen as they met their fate on the sacrifice stone.*43 10

  Sandoval found these remains so repugnant that he took some of the villagers as slaves even though they blamed the Aztecs for the sacrifices. He pardoned the chiefs of Zultepec and the surrounding villages, on the condition that they bow to Spanish authority, to which they agreed. Then Sandoval mounted, quirted his horse, and rode toward Tlaxcala.

  He had not gone far, just to the border of Texcoco and Tlaxcala, when he spied on the horizon Spanish banners waving at the head of a convoy shrouded in a thick cloud of dust. Sandoval’s small group of thirty rode up and greeted Martín López and Tlaxcalan commander Chichimecatecle. Sandoval was amazed: behind López and Chichimecatecle strung a line of Tlaxcalan bearers so long that Sandoval could not see its end. He pulled up and conferred with López, who explained that the shipbuilding had been completed. As planned, he had dammed the Zahuapan River near Tlaxcala and carefully assembled each of the thirteen brigantines there and floated them, checking their seaworthiness (though at this point, he skipped the final process of caulking). As it passed muster, each ship was dismantled, organized, and stacked. Now here they were, the timbers borne by some ten thousand Tlaxcalans, with an equal number of warriors in support, protecting the precious cargo. It was an awesome spectacle.11

  Sandoval escorted the immense train to Texcoco, leading an organized march of the caravan that was heavily guarded at the front, rear, and along all sides. Cortés had more than once impressed upon him the crucial importance of this weapon—he had said it was the key to the entire campaign. The vanguard included eight cavalry, one hundred Spanish foot soldiers, and ten thousand ready Tlaxcalan warriors. Next slogged those bearing the skeletal brigantines and their entrails: eight thousand tamanes trudged along beneath the excruciating weight of the long-ribbed hull timbers and planking, as well as iron anchors, tackle, cordage, chains, nails, sails, and everything else required by the vessels. Another two thousand tamanes carried and prepared food, as this miraculous convoy strung itself over the difficult passes of the mountains. Another one hundred Spanish foot soldiers, seven cavalry, and ten thousand more Tlaxcalan warriors guarded the rear and the flanks.12

  Once the caravan was set in motion, it lurched and spiraled continuously for four days; Sandoval drove the remarkable serpentine train all through each day, resting only at night. From head to tail the “Wooden Serpent”13 stretched over five miles long, and Cortés attested that it took a full six hours for the great column of perhaps fifty thousand to pass a single point. The sprawling caravan kicked up a dust plume visible for miles. Each day Sandoval feared an Aztec attack, but none came. Finally, on the fourth day of constant movement, the vanguard saw the outline of Texcoco’s buildings and temples in the distance. The Tlaxcalans at the front donned their finest cloaks, and headdresses with feather plumes, announcing their arrival with an exultant thump of drums and the cry of horns and conch shells, whistling and singing out, “Viva, viva for the emperor our Lord!” and “Castile! Castile! Tlaxcala! Tlaxcala!”14

  The populace of Texcoco (as well as many excited Spaniards) ran out to the edges of the suburbs to witness their grand entry; the unbroken procession took half the day to march into the city center. Watching the parade, Cortés must have understood that he had orchestrated a task of nearly inconceivable scope, for the thirteen ships and tackle had been carried overland for fifty miles. In the day’s final light a long skein of dust-haze hung over the valley, and the boats were safely laid and stacked along the banks of the channel project at the shipyard. The overland portage that they had just completed ranks among the most astounding achievements in military history: ingenious, audacious, unprecedented, and unequaled.*44

  Though elated by the arrival of the brigantines, Cortés understood that one more herculean endeavor remained if the ships were to prove the difference in his battle plan. After heartily congratulating Martín López, Cortés set him to the task of reconstructing the boats and, even more important, bade him to oversee the massive engineering feat of trenching the canal through which the boats would be launched onto Lake Texcoco. It was now mid-February, and for the next months all available Tlaxcalan hands (unless employed with Cortés on lake reconnaissance) participated in digging the channel. The proud Texcocan warrior and chieftain Ixtlilxochitl commanded a work crew of forty thousand Texcocans. For nearly two months, toiling ceaselessly in shifts of eight thousand men at a time, they simultaneously dug and removed dirt from the canal and buttressed its banks with timbers to keep it from caving in. The launch channel would be over a mile long, twelve feet deep, and twelve feet wide, a staggering work project. The Aztecs in the vicinity could certainly see the daily commotion and progress, and desperate smoke signals rose over the valley all the late winter and early spring of 1521.15

  With Texcoco a bustling hive of activity, Cortés decided to reconnoiter the north lake communities on a mission of subjugation, for a number of these cities remained loyal to the Aztecs and had thus far snubbed Cortés’s overtures of peace. Cuauhtémoc seems to have had more success in maintaining alliances in the north, where the Aztecs knew that Cortés’s entreaties for peace really were demands that they surrender to him. The first city Cortés set his sights on was Xaltocán, a small waterborne city about fifteen miles to the north that, like Tenochtitlán, was linked to the mainland by causeways. Though Xaltocán did not represent any major military threat (or its capture, any major coup), Cortés had tactical and operational reasons to engage his allied troops there. Because of its layout and design, and since it was surrounded by water, Xaltocán presented a microcosm of the battle that Cortés was planning to fight at Tenochtitlán, including channels filled with water that impeded his cavalry’s progress. Cortés may well have wished to use it as a training mission, not only to see how his Spanish-trained Tlaxcalans fought but to test out causeway battle tactics once more—a kind of fighting of which he did not have fond memories.16

  Riding at the head of his cavalry as usual, Cortés made good progress up one of the causeways but soon came to a point where Cuauhtémoc had ordered it breached, making it impassable for either horse or man afoot. The lake swarmed with canoes, and the “enemy yelled at us loudly and attacked us with darts and arrows.”17 Cortés and his men reined up and returned fire, scattering the canoes, which appeared to have been reinforced with light wooden bulwarks for protection against crossbow and musket fire: the Aztecs had adapted their warfare to try to defend against the superior Spanish firepower.18 At an impasse on the causeway, Cortés began a retreat, when two of the Indian allies he had brought along told him that the causeway had only been flooded over rather than actually breached, and that it was shallow enough for them to ford. Cortés asked the two allies to guide the foot soldiers across while he and the cavalry covered them from the rear, guarding against an Aztec foot assault. According to Bernal Díaz, “little by little and not altogether, sometimes skipping along and sometimes wading waist deep, all our soldiers crossed over, wi
th many of our allies following.”19 The Aztecs resumed their water attack, but the Spanish firepower and allied numerical power prevailed. Cortés moved in and sacked Xaltocán, burning much of the city and absconding with some booty, including cloth and gold.

  Seeing Cortés and his imposing force of Tlaxcalans coming, most of the inhabitants fled in canoes, as did the Aztec warriors, but Cortés felt uneasy and chose not to camp on the island city, certainly remembering the feeling of being trapped in Tenochtitlán. After plundering for most of the day, they moved out again to cross the causeway and camp on the mainland, in open ground that they could guard from all sides and where the horses could be most effective if called upon. Cortés marched around the northern headland of Lake Xaltocán for the next few days, finding abandoned cities as he progressed, the inhabitants having dispersed at his advance. Spent signal fires smoldered as the Spaniards rode through the deserted streets.

  Most residents of these towns sought refuge in Tacuba (formerly called Tlacopan). Cortés was bent on taking Tacuba as well, perhaps drawn to it for revenge from La Noche Triste, perhaps because of its importance politically and logistically. As he had already discovered, the Tacuba causeway was the shortest of all the major causeways into Tenochtitlán. But more than that, as the third city in the Triple Alliance, Tacuba possessed important influence and reach, its territories stretching to the Tarascan borderlands (in present-day Mexico, northwest to the boundary of the states of Mexico and Michoacán). Tacuba was the third most powerful of the triumvirate, which made it potentially vulnerable.