Fall of Tenochtitlan

Background

Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Mexica and the heart of the Aztec Empire, stood on an island in Lake Texcoco, joined to the shore by long causeways. With perhaps 200,000 people or more, it was one of the largest cities in the world. Hernán Cortés landed on the coast of Mexico in 1519 with about 500 men. He made an alliance with Tlaxcala, a powerful independent state that had long resisted the Mexica, and entered Tenochtitlan in November 1519, where he took the ruler Moctezuma II prisoner. In May 1520 his lieutenant Pedro de Alvarado massacred Mexica nobles at a festival, and the city rose. Moctezuma died, and on the night of 30 June 1520, later called the Noche Triste, the Spaniards fought their way out with heavy losses. They survived the battle of Otumba in July and retreated to Tlaxcala. Soon afterward smallpox, brought from Europe, spread through central Mexico. It killed a great part of the population, including the new ruler Cuitláhuac, who was succeeded by the young Cuauhtémoc.

The Battle

Cortés spent late 1520 and early 1521 gathering allies and reducing the cities around the lake. Texcoco, Huexotzinco, Chalco and other states joined him, and Tlaxcala sent thousands of warriors and porters. Shipwrights under Martín López built thirteen brigantines, which were carried in pieces to Texcoco and launched on the lake in April 1521. Cortés had fewer than a thousand Spaniards, a few dozen horses and some small cannon. His indigenous allies numbered tens of thousands, perhaps far more, and their share in the fighting has often been played down. In late May three divisions under Alvarado, Cristóbal de Olid and Gonzalo de Sandoval seized the ends of the causeways and cut the aqueduct from Chapultepec. The brigantines defeated the Mexica canoe fleet and blockaded the city. Day after day the attackers pushed along the causeways, filling breaches in them, while the defenders fought back from canoes and rooftops. On 30 June a Spanish assault was routed, and dozens of Spaniards were captured and sacrificed. Cortés then turned to demolishing the city block by block. Starving and struck by disease, the defenders were pressed into Tlatelolco in the north. On 13 August 1521 Cuauhtémoc was captured while trying to escape by canoe, and resistance ended.

Weapons

The defenders fought with the Aztec Macuahuitl, darts thrown with the Atlatl, bows, slings and spears such as the Tepoztopilli, and they fixed captured Spanish swords to long poles. They wore the Ichcahuipilli and carried the Chimalli, as did the Tlaxcalans and other allies, who fought with the same weapons. Many Spaniards also wore quilted cotton. The Spaniards used steel swords and lances, and their Crossbow and Arquebus men fought from the causeways and the brigantines, supported by small guns. Late in the siege they built a Trebuchet against Tlatelolco, but it failed at its first shot.

Aftermath

The number of dead is unknown, but estimates of Mexica deaths in the siege, from fighting, hunger and disease, run to 100,000 or more. Cortés built Mexico City on the ruins, and it became the capital of New Spain. Cuauhtémoc was later executed during an expedition to Honduras in 1525. Tlaxcala received privileges from the Spanish crown for its help. The fall of the city is a turning point of the Age of Exploration, and historians now stress that it was won by an indigenous coalition and by epidemic disease as much as by the Conquistadors.