by Buddy Levy
Cuauhtémoc (“Descending Eagle,” died 1525) Son of Ahuitzotl, last (eleventh) Aztec king, ruled 1520–21. A symbol of pride and resistance in modern Mexico and a national hero, he was hanged by Cortés in 1525 for alleged conspiracy against the captain-general.
Cuitláhuac (“Excrement,” died 1520) Tenth Aztec king, son of Axayacatl and brother of Montezuma II. He succeeded Montezuma II after his death and ruled for a mere eighty days before dying from smallpox in 1520.
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal (1495–1583) Conquistador and chronicler, he was a member of all three Mexico expeditions (Córdoba 1517, Grijalva 1518, Cortés 1519) and claims to have participated in 119 battles. He began his True History of the Conquest of New Spain in 1568 at age seventy-three.
Escalante, Juan de A participant in the Cortés expedition of 1519, he was in charge of the garrison at Villa Rica during the initial march inland to the Valley of Mexico by Cortés and his force.
Grijalva, Juan de (1489?–1527) Nephew of Diego Velázquez, he participated in the conquest of Cuba in 1511 and later led the second (1518) expedition to Mexico.
Ixtlilxochitl A vocal political enemy of Cacama, he became a significant ally of Cortés and ascended to the throne of Texcoco. He led the Texcocan allied army alongside Cortés in the siege and battle of Tenochtitlán, 1521.
Malinche (baptized and called Doña Marina by the Spaniards) A bilingual (Nahuatl and Maya) slave girl given to Cortés by Tabascans at Pontonchan, she became Cortés’s chief interpreter, later his mistress, and eventually the mother of his son Martín Cortés. At Cortés’s side throughout the conquest, Malinche translated and interpreted all major diplomatic and political negotiations, including the famous historical first conversations between Cortés and Montezuma.
Montezuma Xocoyotl (Montezuma the Younger, 1468?–1520) Son of Axayacatl and ninth Aztec king, ruled 1502–20, at the height of the Aztec empire. He was held captive by Cortés for many months during 1519–20 and ultimately died (either from wounds sustained by own people, or slain by Spanish captains) in 1520.
Narváez, Pánfilo de (1480?–1528) Captained the ill-fated expedition sent by Diego Velázquez, governor of Cuba, charged with capturing Cortés and bringing him back to Cuba. He arrived on the east coast of Mexico in April 1520, with a large force of men, horses, and arms. Cortés vacated Tenochtitlán in May, marched to the coast, and defeated Narváez quickly in a one-sided battle on May 28. During the rout Narváez was blinded in one eye. Narváez later led a disastrous expedition to Florida in 1528, in which he and nearly four hundred Spaniards died. That fatal journey was later chronicled by Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, one of only four survivors.
Olid, Cristóbal de Conquistador and captain under Cortés during the third expedition to Mexico, 1519–21. He captained one of the three primary armies during the siege and battle of Tenochtitlán, 1521. He participated in the expedition to Honduras in 1524 and was executed as a rebel in 1525.
Sandoval, Gonzalo de Conquistador and trusted captain under Cortés during the conquest of Mexico, 1519–21. He captained one of the three primary armies in the siege and battle of Tenochtitlán, 1521. After the conquest Sandoval founded towns, squelched rebellions, and remained a constant confidant to Cortés.
Velázquez de Cuéllar, Diego (1465–1524) Initial patron and eventual nemesis of Hernán Cortés. He sailed with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World, 1493. First governor of Cuba, which he conquered (with Cortés then under him) in 1511. He sanctioned and helped finance the first three Mexico expeditions (Córdoba 1517, Grijalva 1518, Cortés 1519), as well as the disastrous Narváez expedition of 1520, with which he hoped to capture and arrest Cortés.
APPENDIX B
A Brief Chronology of the Conquest
1300 The Mexica (or Aztecs) settle in Anahuac, the Valley of Mexico.
1325 Tenochtitlán, the civic, religious, and tributary capital of the Aztec empire, is founded.
1492 Christopher Columbus makes landfall in the New World, the West Indies.
1493 Pope Alexander VI issues first papal bull (charter), granting Spain dominion over all lands, undiscovered or discovered, in the New World.
1502 Montezuma II becomes tlatoani (“he who speaks”), ninth Aztec king and supreme ruler of Tenochtitlán and the vast Aztec empire.
1511–14 Spaniards conquer Cuba. Diego Velázquez becomes first governor of Cuba and begins expansion plans, including Spanish-backed expeditions to the west, using Cuba as launching point.
1517 Cordóba mounts expedition to Mexico. He lands at Yucatán, is attacked at Campeche, is wounded, and returns to Cuba to die.
1518 Grijalva mounts expedition to Mexico. He lands at Cozumel, then on small islands off the coast of Vera Cruz, where he discovers pyramids and evidence of human sacrifice. He names this place the Isle of Sacrifices.
1519 Cortés mounts expedition to Mexico.
APRIL 21 Spaniards land at San Juan de Ulúa
JUNE 3—They reach Cempoala; Cortés founds settlement of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz.
JULY 26 Cortés sends treasure ship and letter to Spain; petitions the crown for recognition as separate colony.
AUGUST 16 Cortés departs Cempoala, heading west toward Montezuma and the Valley of Mexico.
SEPTEMBER 2–20 Spaniards battle the Tlaxcalans.
SEPTEMBER 23 Cortés and his forces enter the city of Tlaxcala.
OCTOBER 10–25 Cortés and his forces enter Cholula, commit the Massacre of Cholula.
NOVEMBER 8 Cortés enters Tenochtitlán and has historic first face-to-face meeting with Montezuma.
NOVEMBER 14 Cortés arrests Montezuma and takes him under his guard, effectively as hostage.
1520
APRIL 20 Pánfilo de Narváez, sent on a punitive expedition under Diego Velázquez to seize and imprison Cortés; lands at Vera Cruz. Charles V receives petition from Cortés.
MAY Cortés leaves Tenochtitlán to march on Narváez. Pedro de Alvarado and Spanish soldiers massacre thousands of Aztec nobles during the Festival of Toxcatl.
MAY 27–28 Cortés reaches Narváez camp at Cempoala, launches night attack, and defeats Narváez, one of whose eyes is stabbed out during the rout.
JUNE 24 Cortés and his men (including most of Narváez’s men, horses, and weapons) return to Tenochtitlán.
JUNE 24–29 Spaniards are under siege in Tenochtitlán. Aztecs trap Spaniards in the Palace of Axayacatl. Cuitláhuac is chosen, in secret meetings, to replace the imprisoned Montezuma II as tlatoani and Aztec emperor.
JUNE 29 Montezuma is killed, likely from stones thrown by his own people.
JUNE 30 La Noche Triste. Cortés and the Spaniards flee Tenochtitlán at night. Hundreds die during the flight, and nearly all the treasure taken from Montezuma is lost.
JULY 2–10 Spaniards retreat toward Tlaxcala and the Battle of Otumba. Cortés is severely wounded—his skull is fractured and two fingers are mangled.
JULY 11 Spaniards arrive in Tlaxcala and receive welcome and protection.
SEPTEMBER 15 Cuitláhuac officially becomes tenth Aztec king.
OCTOBER–DECEMBER Smallpox plague, “the Great Rash,” ravages Tenochtitlán and the Valley of Mexico.
DECEMBER 4 Cuitláhuac dies of smallpox after ruling just eighty days.
DECEMBER 28 Cortés initiates his reconquest of Tenochtitlán. The brigantine-building project is under way.
1521
FEBRUARY Cuauhtémoc becomes tlatoani, ruler of Tenochtitlán, the eleventh (and last) Aztec king.
FEBRUARY 18 Cortés arrives back in Texcoco. The brigantine and canal project is well advanced.
APRIL 28 Cortés officially launches brigantines at Lake Texcoco.
MAY 22 Battle for Tenochtitlán begins. Cortés directs a three-pronged naval and amphibious assault, using captains Sandoval, Alvarado, and Olid to lead ground forces.
LATE MAY Spaniards destroy the Chapultepec aqueduct, eliminating the city’s freshwater supply.
JUNE 30–EARLY JULY
Spaniards suffer heavy losses. More than seventy are captured and sacrificed alive at the Aztec temples.
AUGUST 1 Cuauhtémoc issues a bold proclamation, claiming that within eight days not a single Spaniard will be left alive. Spaniards fight their way to the market at Tlatelolco.
AUGUST 13 Cuauhtémoc is captured while escaping the city in a canoe. Cuauhtémoc is taken before Cortés, to whom he formerly surrenders after asking to be slain. The Aztecs surrender, and the siege and battle of Tenochtitlán ends. The Aztecs have been conquered.
APPENDIX C
A Note on Nahuatl Language Pronunciation
Nearly all Nahuatl words are accented on the next to last syllable.
Vowels take the usual English sounds: a, e, i, o, and u. Their corresponding sounds would be “ah,” “eh,” “ee,” “oh,” and “oo.” The letter u, when preceding a, e, i, or o, is pronounced like the English w.
Consonants approximate English, except for the following:
x and ch sound like the English sh
z sounds like the English s
tl has a single sound, as in the English word atlas. A Nahuatl example would be atlatl.
ts and tz also have a single sound
APPENDIX D
Major Deities of the Aztec Pantheon1
Deities of War, Sacrifice, Death, and Blood
The deities in this group required human blood for life, as well as to perpetuate the existence of the earth and the sun. Blood was provided either through self-sacrifice (auto/personal sacrifice in the form of cutting and piercing with obsidian blades or cactus spines) or through human sacrifice of captured prisoners, primarily obtained in battle.
Huitzilopochtli “Hummingbird of South.” God of war, sacrifice, and sun. Patron of the Mexica Aztecs.
Mictlantecuhtli “Lord of Mictlan, Place of Death.” God of the underworld, death, and darkness.
Mixcoatl “Cloud Serpent.” God of sacrifice, hunting, and war.
Tonatiuh “He Goes Shining Forth.” God of the sun.
Deities of Creation, Creativity, and Divine Paternalism
Deities in this group are connected to the origins and creation of the world and sources of life.
Ometeotl “Two God.” Originator and creator-progenitor of the gods.
Tezcatlipoca “Smoking Mirror.” God of omnipotent power (sometimes malevolent power). Patron of kings.
Xiuhtecuhtli “Turquoise Lord.” God of fire and hearth.
Deities of Rain and Agricultural Fertility
The gods of fertility and rain were the most commonly worshipped of all the gods, revered by Aztec priests and common people alike.
Centeotl “Maize God.” God of maize and its harvest.
Ometochtli “Two Rabbit.” God of pulque, maguey, and fertility.
Teteoninnan “Mother of Gods.” Goddess of earth and fertility. Patroness of curers, midwives, birth.
Xipe Totec “Our Lord with the Flayed Skin.” God of agricultural fertility. Patron of goldsmiths.
Other Deities
Quetzalcoatl “Quetzal-Feathered Serpent,” “Plumed Serpent.” God of creation, fertility, wind. Patron of the priesthood.
Yacatecuhtli “Nose Lord.” God of commerce. Patron of merchants.
APPENDIX E
The Aztec Kings1
Acamapichtli (“Reed-Fist”) Ruled 1372–91. Founder of royal Aztec lineage.
Huitzilíhuitl (“Hummingbird Feather”) Ruled 1391–1415. Son of Acamapichtli.
Chimalpopoca (“Smoking Shield”) Ruled 1415–26. Son of Huitzilíhuitl.
Itzcóatl (“Obsidian Serpent”) Ruled 1426–40. Son of Acamapichtli.
Montezuma I Ilhuicamina (“Angry Lord,” “Pierces the Sky with an Arrow”) Ruled 1440–68. Son of Huitzilíhuitl.
Axayacatl (“Water Mask” or “Water Face”) Ruled 1468–81. Son of Montezuma I.
Tízoc (“Bled One”) Ruled 1481–86. Brother of Axayacatl.
Ahuitzotl (“Water Animal”) Ruled 1486–1502. Brother of Tízoc.
Montezuma Xocoyotl (or Xocoyotzin), Montezuma II (“Frowned like a Lord,” “The Younger”) Ruled 1502–20. Son of Axayacatl. Great-grandson of Montezuma I.
Cuitláhuac (“Excrement”) Ruled only eighty days in 1520. Brother of Montezuma II.
Cuauhtémoc (“Descends like an Eagle”) Ruled 1520–21. Son of Ahuitzotl.
NOTES
Introduction
1. Francisco López de Gómara, Cortés: The Life of the Conqueror by His Secretary, tr. and ed. Lesley Byrd Simpson (Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif., 1964), 8.
2. Overviews of the early life of Hernán Cortés (for which there is significantly less information than for his later life) can be found in the following: Gómara, Cortés, 7–10; Hernán Cortés, Letters from Mexico, tr. and ed. Anthony Pagden (New Haven, Conn., 2001), xxxix–xliii; William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico (New York, 2001), 170–73; and Dennis Wepman, Hernán Cortés (New York, 1986), 13–21.
3. Details of Montezuma’s upbringing, education, and life as emperor are thoroughly treated in the excellent C. A. Burland, Montezuma: Lord of the Aztecs (New York, 1973), 41–61, 83–143. Also useful is Peter G. Tsouras, Montezuma: Warlord of the Aztecs (Washington, D.C., 2005), 3–33. A fascinating overview of the ruling and organizational structure of Aztec government is Susan D. Gillespie, The Aztec Kings: The Construction of Rulership in Mexica History (Tucson, Ariz., 1989). Also see Maurice Collis, Cortés and Montezuma (New York, 1954), 40–52. For the complex Aztec cosmovision, see David Carrasco and Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Moctezuma’s Mexico: Visions of the Aztec World (Boulder, Colo., 2003), 3–38. Also Jane S. Day, Aztec: The World of Moctezuma (Denver, Colo., 1992), 41–56.
4. Montezuma’s self-deification, appearance, and behavior are described in R. C. Padden, The Hummingbird and the Hawk (Columbus, Ohio, 1967), 80–82, 165.
5. The cities of Texcoco and Tacuba have the frequently used alternative spellings (and in the case of Tacuba, names) Tetzcoco and Tlacopan. A thorough treatment of the Triple Alliance is Pedro Carrasco, The Tenochca Empire of Ancient Mexico: The Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlán, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan (Norman, Okla., 1999).
6. Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America (New York, 1984), 4.
7. Cortés, Letters, 261–63, 491n. This large figure of over 200,000 includes death by smallpox. Burland, Montezuma, cites “a quarter of a million Aztecs died” (249–51). John Pohl and Charles M. Robinson III, Aztecs and Conquistadors: The Spanish Invasion and the Collapse of the Aztec Empire (Oxford, U.K., 2005), 150, and Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (New York, 2005), 129, both cite a more conservative estimate of 100,000 dead during the siege.
8. Richard Townsend, The Aztecs (London, 1992), 208.
Chapter 1
1. For the arrival on Cozumel, see Cortés, Letters, 11–17, and Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain, trans. J. M. Cohen, (New York, 1963), 57–61. See also Prescott, History, 194–97; Hugh Thomas, Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés, and the Fall of Old Mexico (New York, 1993), 158–64; Richard Lee Marks, Cortés: The Great Adventurer and the Fate of Aztec Mexico (New York, 1993), 40–44.
2. Quoted in Thomas, Conquest, 158; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 58.
3. Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 58.
4. C. Harvey Gardiner, Naval Power in the Conquest of Mexico (Austin, Tex., 1956), 17–21; Prescott, History, 191; Marks, Cortés, 42.
5. The muster is chronicled in Gómara, Cortés, 21–29; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 58–59; and Marks, 41–42. For Spanish weaponry and armor, see Pohl and Robinson, Aztecs and Conquistadors, 33–50.
6. Gómara, Cortés, 28–29.
7. Andrés de Tapia, in The Conquistadors, ed. and trans. Patricia de Fuentes (New York, 1963), 20. Also in Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 61–62; Prescott, History, 195; Thomas, Conquest, 159; Marks, Cortés, 43.
8. Quoted in Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 62; also see Gómara, Cortés, 28–33.
9.
The episode is chronicled by Cortés, Letters, 18; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 62; Gómara, Cortés, 28; Tapia, in Fuentes, Conquistadors, 21; Prescott, History, 197–98; Thomas, Conquest, 159–60; Marks, Cortés, 43–44.
10. Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 63.
11. Ibid., 59.
12. Tapia, in Fuentes, Conquistadors, 20; Gómara, Cortés, 30–31; Cortés, Letters, 17; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 63–64.
13. The amazing saga of Aguilar and Guerrero is reported variously in Cortés, Letters, 17, 19, 453n (an extensive note by Anthony Pagden); Gómara, Cortés, 28–32; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 63–64; Peter O. Koch, Aztecs, Conquistadors, and the Making of Mexican Culture (North Carolina and London, 2006), 28–31; Hammond Innes, The Conquistadors (New York, 1969), 50–52.
14. Cortés, Letters, 17; Tapia, in Fuentes, Conquistadors, 21; Gómara, Cortés, 31–32; Díaz, New Spain, trans. Cohen, 64–65; Prescott, History, 199–200.