Cortés Flees from Tenochtitlan
When the Spaniards entered Mexico it was November 8, 1519.
Between this date and the beginning of 1520,
Cortés and his men found lodgings in
the halls and chambers of the tecpan, the official house or council
lodge in the great square, near the great temple, formerly the
quarters of Montezuma himself, but now
vacated to accommodate the Spaniards; Montezuma having taken up new
quarters in one of the vast communal dwellings. Here Cortés made
himself secure by placing cannon to command the approaches, and here
he was received in audience by Montezuma, who, causing him to be
seated on "a very rich platform," in a chamber "facing a court"
embellished with fountains and flowers, addressed him thus: "We
believe that our race was brought to these parts by a lord, whose
vassals they all were, and who returned to his native country. . . .
And we have always believed that his descendants would come to
subjugate this country and us, as his vassals; and according to the
direction from which you say you come, which is where the sun rises,
and from what you tell us of your great lord, or king, who has sent
you here, we believe and hold for certain that he is our rightful
sovereign."
Early fruits of the occupation of the tecpan by Cortés were the
discovery by accident of the walled-up storeroom containing the
official treasure of the Aztec Government — that Aladdin's cave
whence had come the gold and silver wheels; the burning alive of
certain Aztec plotters; and the seizure of the person of the
Chief-of-Men, who, transferred to the tecpan, became, under
Castilian tutelage, the tool and mouthpiece of his captor.
During 1520 complications for the invaders arose. Cortés contrived
the seizure of the war chiefs of Tezcoco and Tlacopan, sub-heads of
the Aztec tripartite confederacy, and of the war chiefs of
Coyohuacan and Itztapalapan, two of the four sub-heads of the Aztec
district itself. Then, further, he forbade human sacrifices. By both
these acts he stored up trouble for himself. Trouble, furthermore,
developed independently from without. Diego Velásquez, Governor of
Cuba and Adelantado of the lands over which Cortés was exercising
sway, had at length organized a strong expedition under Pánfilo de
Narváez, a man of "hollow" voice, to assert his authority. Narváez
reached San Juan de Ulúa in April, and secretly got into relations
with Montezuma. In order to check him, Cortés was compelled to
divide his own small command. Leaving one hundred and forty men
under Pedro de Alvarado in Tenochtitlan, he marched forth with
ninety-two men in May, and before the end of the month had, near
Cempoalla, met
his foe, defeated him, and made him prisoner. Meanwhile in
Tenochtitlan, Alvarado,
impetuous by nature and roused by tales of conspiracy among the
Aztecs fostered by the coming of Narváez, set upon the population
while engaged in celebrating the festival of the god Tezcatlipoca
and slaughtered them without discrimination and without ruth.
Stunned by the onslaught but rallying promptly, the Mexicans
fiercely assaulted the tecpan where the Spaniards were housed, and
held them in a state of siege till Cortés, informed of their plight
by secret messengers, was able to return to their relief. Food was
running short, and Montezuma, being appealed to, induced Cortés to
liberate the war chief of Itztapalapan, Cuitlahuatzin by name, that
he might calm the people and procure it. This was the beginning of
the end of the official character of Montezuma. Cuitlahuatzin was
henceforth recognized by the clans as Chief-of-Men, and led the
Mexicans in desperate attempts to force the Spaniards out of
Tenochtitlan.
It was now late June and departure from the lake settlement became
imperative for Cortés. In vain did the Spaniards in a hand-to-hand
struggle drive the Aztecs from the dizzy summit of the pyramid in
the great square. In vain did Montezuma appeal to his countrymen
from the roof of the tecpan. The Chief-of-Men, no longer such, was
reviled to his face; nay more, was assailed by missiles and stricken
in the forehead. Within three days he was dead, and on the fourth at
midnight his erstwhile jailers stole silently from the tecpan into
the avenue leading west to the Tacuba Causeway — shortest of the
three routes to the mainland and interrupted by the fewest
sluice-ways. At first undetected, they had nearly gained the
causeway-head, when the night silence reechoed to a cry — the shriek
of a native woman. A signal drum on the pyramid in Tlatelolco at
once boomed forth a warning, and secrecy was at an end. It was the
noche triste — the "doleful night." The bridges over the sluiceways
were gone and could not be quickly replaced. Men, horses, and booty,
smitten in rear and flank, filled the chasms in a tangled mass.
Cortés himself got over by the greatest difficulty. Alvarado, it is
said, cleared one of the chasms by an unparalleled vaulting leap.
Velásquez de León and Francisco de Morla fell, to emerge no more. Of
the total force of Spaniards — 1250 men since the capture of Narváez
— some 450 were missing.
Twenty-four horses survived the catastrophe, but the significance of
this fact was now small. Neither white stranger nor horse was any
longer preternatural. Both were proven mortal; both could perish.
Cortés, after all, was not the Fair God Quetzalcoatl — was not even
his priest. He was not divine in any sense — just human, just
lustful — a dissembling conqueror of flesh and blood. Once on the
mainland, the Spaniards were able to stay somewhat the Aztec
pursuit; and though, as Cortés expressed it, "without a horse that
could run, or a horseman who could lift an arm, or a foot soldier
who could move," he finally managed to round Lake Tezcoco on the
north, and so, after a fierce melee at Otumba on the 7th of July, to
reach friendly and sheltering Tlascala. Among the saved, besides
Alvarado, were Gonzalo de Sandoval, Cristóbal de Olid, and the
indispensable Marina and Aguilar.
Back to: The Spanish Conquerors
