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

by Buddy Levy

  Despite this setback, the three-pronged assault into the interior of the city appeared to be yielding dividends for the Spaniards, as each invasion brought the three divisions closer to their desired confluence at Tlatelolco. But the length and difficulty of the siege was wearing on the captains as well as the soldiers. Seasonal rains kept the men drenched to their core, and they slept uncomfortably in their armor, dank and putrid within. Though the three divisions all had sufficient food supplies, Alvarado’s division, now encamped within the city at the very battle front, was surviving almost solely on maize cakes, cherries, and herbs. In his own camp Cortés received pressure from certain captains (among them newcomer Alderete, the king’s treasurer, who longed to get his hands on some of the gold he saw dangling from his compatriots’ necks) to make an all-out assault on the marketplace. Other captains, including Olid and Tapia, also supported the idea of a concerted offensive, rather than the redundant daily surges and withdrawals that had come to characterize the siege.27

  Contributing to this general edginess, the three Spanish divisions had a competitiveness, a point of Spanish pride, each wanting to be the first to take the marketplace. Cortés remarked, “For this reason, Pedro de Alvarado was much importuned,…for they held it a point of honor to take it [the marketplace] first.”28 Cortés listened intently to the urgings (even demands) of his captains, but he hesitated to act, clearly understanding the disadvantages of such a rash undertaking. The houses in Tlatelolco remained intact, providing rooftops from which the Aztecs could position and fire stones, darts, and spears. Even worse, in Cortés’s mind, deep inside the city the Spaniards would no longer have the benefit of brigantine support, which time and again had proved lifesaving. He held a meeting of the primary captains. Many were of the mind that if the Spaniards could take the marketplace, Cuauhtémoc would be so devastated that he would have no option but to surrender. They had grown exhausted, both physically and mentally, from filling every single channel and gap, only to see their day’s labor undone by the Aztecs during the night. This frustrating seesaw had begun to seriously wear on the men. Also, there appeared to be allied support for an all-out attack, instigated by Ixtlilxochitl.29

  After hearing all the different arguments for and against an assault, Cortés (probably against his own intuition and better judgment) agreed to a major offensive. He drafted letters to both Alvarado and Sandoval, apprising them of his operation plan and their responsibilities within it. From the north Sandoval was to leave a small part of his troops and cavalry at their encampment on the Tepeyac causeway; the bulk were to join up with Alvarado and his men. (The plan here was to make it appear that he was breaking camp and, when the Aztecs pursued him, to have the straggler division ambush from the rear.) Supported by a half dozen brigantines (for as long as the boats could navigate the lakeshore, narrow channels, and remain within firing cover range) and three thousand allied war canoes, Sandoval and Alvarado were instructed to take a large number of their Indian laborers and hurry to the dangerous breach where Alvarado’s men had suffered such a defeat, take it if contested and fill it in with haste, then continue their advance toward the market area, where Cortés planned to meet them.30

  Cortés intended to move up the southern causeway en masse, his customary approach. Then, once deep enough in the city, his force would splinter into three separate divisions and take the three primary roads leading into the marketplace, each of which required fording a significant watercourse that separated Tenochtitlán from Tlatelolco. The captain-general would lead one hundred infantry, eight cavalry, and a throng of allies up a very narrow road heading to the market. Andrés de Tapia would captain a separate division, comprising eighty Spaniards and perhaps ten thousand Indian allies, along a wide road heading toward the Tacuba causeway. The treasurer Alderete commanded his own column, by far the largest, having seventy Spaniards and an impressive twenty thousand allied warriors, bearers, and porters, guarded at the rear by eight able cavalry.31

  At sunrise on Sunday, June 30, just after hearing mass, Cortés ordered the assault. The brigantines led out, followed by the allied canoes, and after taking two near bridges and a couple of heavily fortified ramparts, the defending Aztecs were driven back as usual. Cortés had been confident at the beginning, saying of the skirmishes with the Aztecs: “Our allies who attacked them on the roof tops and other places were so numerous it seemed that nothing could resist us.”32 This estimate turned out to be overly optimistic. Cortés’s progress was soon hindered by the narrow, unfamiliar streets and the long distance he had to travel, coupled with concerted ambushes orchestrated by elite Aztec divisions who had been in hiding behind houses and public buildings.

  Alderete’s division moved quickly, and soon it was closing in on the marketplace, and the troops could even hear the cannon and musket fire near the market. Spurred on by the opportunity to converge with them, they hurried forward, coming to a water gap some eight feet deep and a dozen paces across. In his haste to get over to the other side, Alderete ordered an impromptu filling of the breach, and men hurriedly threw in reed grasses and wooden pieces until the makeshift bridge could support one soldier at a time, and in this way they dashed quickly over it. However, when most of Alderete’s Spaniards reached the other side, a furious ambush awaited them.

  The surprise attack was so quick and so concerted that it drove many of the Spaniards instantly back into the deep water; the Aztecs, quite comfortable with water, charged right in after them. Cortés, having heard there was a problem, rode hard to see for himself and arrived to find “the water full of Indians and Spaniards as though not a straw had been thrown into it. The enemy attacked so fiercely that in attempting to kill the Spaniards they leapt into the water after them. Then some canoes came up the canals and took some of the Spaniards away alive.”33 The place was in chaos, the cries of the Spaniards drowned out by the shouting, shrieking, and whistling of the Aztec squadrons enveloping them in waves. Cortés leaped from his horse and fought his way down the embankment, determined, as he put it, to “make a stand and die fighting.”34 The rout was so bad that Cortés was reduced to pulling his dead, dying, and drowning countrymen from the bog and hoisting them onto the shore, where they lay covered with mud and blood. He could only watch helplessly as Aztec warriors dragged his soldiers away on the other side.

  At that moment he felt a tug on his arms and realized he had been surrounded. Despite his struggle he was overwhelmed, seized, and carried away. Under the circumstances they could certainly have killed the captain-general, but the Aztecs wanted him alive. Then, with remarkable similarity to the scene that had taken place at Xochimilco back in February, captain and personal bodyguard Cristóbal de Olea swooped in, sword in hand, and slashed with all his might to free Cortés from the enemy clutches. Olea is said to have hacked the arms off of several Aztecs in order to free his commander; his efforts allowed other Spanish soldiers, including Antonio de Quiñones, to aid in the rescue. Only through the efforts of the brave Olea, who had now saved Cortés’s life twice, Quiñones managed to pull Cortés momentarily to safety. But this time cost Olea his own life. Overwhelmed by sheer numbers, he was slain on the spot—but not before taking four Aztecs down with him.35

  Back up on the level causeway, Cortés and a dozen of his men fought a difficult retreat. Holding their shields before them, they swung swords and bucklers as hard as they could, and soldiers tried desperately to get a horse to Cortés, for his own had either been killed or galloped off in the frenzied fighting. Cortés turned and attempted to continue fighting at the breach, but Captain Quiñones, who had now taken over the responsibility of personal bodyguard, warned him against it. “Let us go and at least save your own person,” he hollered over the din of battle, “for you know that if you are killed, we are all lost.”36 Cortés knew this to be true and reluctantly agreed. One of his attendants arrived with a horse, but that man was impaled through the throat before he ever reached his captain-general. Another rider, a steward of Cortés’s named Cris
tóbal de Gúzman, attempted to convey a horse but was captured and hauled away to Cuauhtémoc.

  At last the remaining Spaniards did manage to get a horse close enough for Cortés to swing onto and ride, and deeply wounded in the leg, he clung for his life, as they galloped back toward their camp to assess the damage inflicted. The losses turned out to be monumental, not only in life, but in morale. Just a few dozen Spaniards (and a multitude of allies) had died in the fighting, but sixty-five to seventy Spaniards were taken alive and herded toward the pyramid, where already copal incense rose from the towers signaling an Aztec war victory.37

  During Cortés’s devastating defeat, Alvarado and Sandoval had been battling in Tlatelolco, near the market, in close proximity to each other. Alvarado’s men had fared well, progressing close to the market center, when they were confronted with a macabre and disheartening sight. A large contingent of Aztec warriors came forward, bedecked in ornate headgear with sprawling quetzal plumes and carrying magnificent standards. Clearly driven by bloodlust, the Aztecs in the vanguard screamed and taunted the Spaniards, hurling the severed heads of five Spaniards at their feet, heads just taken from Cortés’s troops. The heads had been tied together by their hair and beards. As Alvarado and Bernal Díaz looked to see if they recognized any of the men, the Aztecs yelled, “We will kill you, too, as we have Cortés and Sandoval, and all the men they brought with them. These are their heads, and by them you may know them well.”38 Thinking the worst but needing to confirm it for himself, Alvarado ordered a retreat. He and his men could hear the loud drumming from the temples as they rode to their camp.

  Sandoval as well was forced back toward the Tepeyac causeway, berated similarly as he went, and more decapitated heads were hurled at him. Near the end of the day all three units were tending their considerable wounds back at their camps (Sandoval had been struck in the face with a large stone); the brigantines and their captains returned to offer what token security they could provide. All the Spaniards could see the ritual proceedings taking place at the great pyramid of Tlatelolco. Drums pounded all across Tenochtitlán, and warriors blew long on conch shells. Others played flutes and pipes, whistles and trumpetlike horns, some jangling instruments resembling tambourines. Bernal Díaz, who straggled back with Alvarado, described what they all witnessed as his comrades, stripped naked, were led up to the sacrifice stone:

  When they got to a small square in front of the oratory, where their accursed idols are kept, we saw them place plumes on the heads of many of them and with things like fans in their hands they forced them to dance before Huitzilopochtli, and after they had danced they immediately placed them on their backs…and with stone knives they sawed open their chests and drew out their palpitating hearts and offered them to the idols that were there, and they kicked the bodies down the steps, and the Indian butchers who were waiting below cut off the arms and feet and flayed the skin off the faces, and prepared it afterwards like glove leather with the beards on, and kept those for the festivals…and the flesh they ate in chilmole… and the bodies, that is their entrails and feet, they threw to the tigers and lions which they kept in the house of the carnivores.*54 39

  All night long the Spaniards watched the temples, illuminated by eerie torchlight coupled with the burning ceremonial copal incense. They listened to the chants, to the drums, and to the horrific screams of their compatriots as they succumbed to the sharp obsidian blades. Cortés could only say with deep regret and resignation, “And although we greatly desired to put a stop to this we were unable to do so.”40

  Cuauhtémoc, flush with victorious pride, immediately dispatched messengers to the chiefs of his former vassals Cuernavaca, Xochimilco, and Chalco, bearing the news of a great conquest. More than half of the Spaniards, these despicable teules, had been slain. As evidence, the messengers carried with them the flayed heads of slain Spaniards, as well as some amputated feet and hands and a few flayed horse heads. As word of these trophies went around the lake, support for Cortés began to shift, and within only a couple of days nearly all of Cortés’s Indian allies disappeared. Fickle, having seen that Cortés could be defeated, and superstitious of prophecies presaging their doom, they broke camp and vanished beyond the lakeshores.

  With the situation now firmly in his favor, Cuauhtémoc issued a bold and definitive proclamation, one he ordered spread far and wide: he had consulted his gods, and they had spoken. Within eight days not a single Spaniard would be left alive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Last Stand of the Aztecs

  FOR THE NEXT EIGHT DAYS THE SPANIARDS hung on, the wounded men (almost everyone) resting and recuperating as best they could, while the fittest continued the work of daily breach-filling. The nights were difficult to endure. Each evening the Aztecs continued their elaborate rituals, and the Spaniards watched the flickering lights of bonfires licking the horizon, heard the ominous and eerie horns and flutes and conch shells and the thumping of drums, then the screams of their comrades as the sacrifices continued night after night.1 Cortés learned that Cuauhtémoc’s messages to the provinces had been successful: the skinned heads and torsos of Spaniards and horses had encouraged the ancient tribes at Malinalco, near Cuernavaca, and in Otomi territory, at Matalcingo, to wage war on their neighbors who had aligned with the Spaniards, and to assist the Aztecs in Tenochtitlán, for the end was near.2

  The uprising in the provinces was confirmed two days later when representatives from Cuernavaca (who had formally acknowledged allegiance with Spain) arrived at Cortés’s camp to say that their city was being attacked vigorously, under orders of Cuauhtémoc, by highland barbarians from Malinalco and Huitzuco. The delegation from Cuernavaca complained that these tribes were laying waste to their crops and fruit orchards and that Spanish support would be necessary to quell the raids. Cortés clearly had enough problems with the desertion of so many allies and his own troops devastated by injury. Spreading thin his already exhausted (and recently drubbed) force concerned him. “And although our defeat was so recent and we needed help more than we could give it,” Cortés explained later, “I determined to go to their aid because they entreated me with such insistence: so, in the face of opposition from some who claimed that I would destroy us all by reducing our number in the camp, I sent back with those messengers eighty foot solders and ten horsemen under the command of captain Andrés de Tapia.”3 He gave Tapia ten days to quell the uprisings in the south.

  Cortés then dispatched Sandoval, accompanied by eighteen horsemen and one hundred infantry, to deal with a similar situation near the Tlaxcalan boundary. False bravado or not, Cortés intended to send the message to the outlying provinces—and especially those now contemplating coming to Cuauhtémoc’s assistance—that the Spaniards were far from finished and could mount expeditions at will.

  Tapia rode south and joined the Cuernavacan warriors, and using the advantage of the cavalry on the open plain, he routed the highlanders and chased them all the way to their perched strongholds, where they fled to shelter. Tapia returned victorious in the allotted time, having squelched the opposition and reestablished strong ties (and manpower support) with Cuernavaca.4

  Sandoval’s expedition to the Otomi territory was similar in that his horsemen benefited greatly from level topography. After two days of riding he came upon the enemy crossing a river, and the Spaniards pursued and quickly gained ground. The hostile tribesmen, running for their lives before the charging Spanish horses, began discarding heavy bundles, spoils and plunder from an Otomi town they had recently sacked. Sandoval and his men stopped to inspect the bundles of booty, which included bales of maize and stacks of fine clothing. Among the garments were also the remnants of roasted babies, the sight of which spurred the Spaniards to pursue the fleeing warriors for over five miles to an elevated and walled fortress, where the survivors (some two thousand were slain) sought refuge.5 They wailed, beat drums, and blew horns into the night, then slunk away under cover of darkness. By sunrise there was no sign of them, and Sandov
al was able to return to Tenochtitlán with more than seventy thousand new Otomi allies, having secured the region and shored up his political alliances.6

  Behind the crumbling and tenuous walls of Tenochtitlán, the eighth day of Cuauhtémoc’s proclamation came and went, and still the Spaniards lived. Still the brigantines sliced ceaselessly across the lake waters, making a constant patrol. These facts undermined the emperor’s credibility, and soon large numbers of superstitious and fickle allies returned from the hills to once again support Cortés.

  Just at that time a Spanish messenger from the eastern coast brought highly agreeable news. A Spanish supply ship had recently arrived at Vera Cruz, one belonging to Juan Ponce de León. Ponce de León had recently been defeated by natives off the coast of Florida, Cortés learned, while trying to land (near what is now the Charlotte Harbor Estuary), in his second attempt to discover the mythical Fountain of Youth. One ship, carrying a mortally wounded Ponce de León, returned to Cuba; the other continued around the gulf and made land at Villa Rica. That was a great windfall for Cortés, since the ship contained large quantities of gunpowder and crossbows, as well as a number of Spanish fighting men and some horses.*55 7

  The gunpowder was crucial. Stores were extremely low, to the point that Cortés had recently dispatched an emergency team under Francisco de Montano (one of the Narváez conscripts) to the summit of Popocatépetl to obtain sulfur for fabricating gunpowder. Five bold Spaniards ascended the great volcano, and after casting lots for the “privilege,” Montano was lowered by rope chain multiple times some four hundred feet into the mouth of the smoldering caldera, until he had harvested enough sulfur to make gunpowder for the crossbows and artillery, an amount that lasted until the end of the siege.8