The Fall of Meso-America’s Greatest City: Tenochtitlan
- Calvin Stevens
- Jun 26
- 16 min read
What Hernán Cortés forgot to mention — the spiritual and psychological demise of the Aztecs.
It is the eve of August 13, 1521, and one of the world’s largest cities is ablaze. This is neither London, Baghdad nor Constantinople; the city looms large and magnificent, neither in Africa, Asia, nor Europe; rather, it is a city little known in the so-called “Old World”, tucked away in the tropics of modern-day Mexico, presiding over an empire arguably larger than anything Europe has seen since the fall of Rome or the conquests of the Mongol horde.
This is the city of Tenochtitlan, heart of the Aztec Empire.
Watch as it burns much the way the Library of Alexandria did; watch as it is dismantled more crudely than Hulegu’s destruction of Baghdad.
It is, perhaps, one of the gravest days in human history, depending on who you ask. Regardless, it marks another tragedy for humanity’s hermeneutical resources as a once teeming city full of knowledge, potential, and grand feats of civilisation is reduced to mere embers and smouldering ash.
For Hernán Cortés — and all of Spain, the Catholic Church, and the Western World, for that matter — this day is a great victory as a 93-day long siege finally comes to and end. But it comes at a terrible cost to the Mexica people which, for centuries to come, would become a central debate amongst future historians.
“Some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream?… I do not know how to describe it, seeing things as we did that had never been heard of or seen before, not even dreamed about.” — Bernal Díaz del Castillo.
The City of Tenochtitlan
Left: the first Spanish drawn map of Tenochtitlan, 1524. Right: a modern, aerial reconstruction of the city-layout by Hanns Prem | Taken from Wikimedia Commons.
“The next day after my arrival at this city [Iztapalapa] I departed on my route, and having proceeded half a league, I entered upon a causeway that extends two leagues through the centre of the salt lake, until it reaches the great city of Temixtitan [Tenochtitlan], which is built in the middle of the lake.”
As the conquistador, Hernán Cortés, describes above during his first visit to the city in November 1519, Tenochtitlan was situated on the brackish waters of Lake Texcoco, connected by three major causeways to the north, south, and west. It consisted, much like Venice, of many canals along the outer suburbs, all of which encircled a central islet where the main palaces, marketplaces, and temples were erected.
Formerly, the city was divided into two smaller cities, namely Tenochtitlan in the South and Tlatelolco in the North; but as the population grew and the cities sprawled outward towards each other, the two were eventually married into a single urban entity consisting of many smaller suburbs.
These suburbs, in turn, were laced together by an impressive network of bridges so that one could either travel around on foot or via canoes in the canals. Moreover, to ensure better traffic flow between the various suburbs along the waterways, bridges were built in such a manner that they could be pulled away at a moment’s notice.
“I pursued my course over the abovementioned causeway… I found at its intersection with another causeway, which extends from this point to terra firma, a very strong fortress with two towers, surrounded by a double wall, twelve feet in height, with an embattled parapet, which commands the two causeways, and has only two gates, one for entering, and the other for departure… Connected with the city is a wooden bridge ten paces wide, where the causeway is open to allow the water free ingress and egress… and also for the security of the city, as they can remove the long and wide beams of which the bridge is formed, and replace them wherever they wish.”
But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the city was its functional utilities.
Due to the brackish nature of Lake Texcoco, the water was not drinkable. Thus, two double aqueducts were constructed from terracotta, stretching 4 kilometres inland to the fresh-water springs of Chapultepec.
A giant dike or levee was also constructed to the east of the city (the side facing the open waters of the lake) in an attempt to keep much of the salt-water at bay.
Finally, the outer suburbs also consisted of swampy, clustered paddy fields that were not only used as arable plots of land but functioned as a natural filtration system for the city’s waste and sewage. According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo, one of the conquistadors accompanying Cortés, these plots sometimes even included artificial floating gardens.
“This causeway is as broad as two spears’ length, and well constructed, so that eight horsemen can ride on it abreast; and within two leagues, on either side of this causeway, there are three cities [suburbs], one of which, called Alesicalsingo, is built for the most part on the lake, and the two others, called Nyciaca and Huchilohuchico, are situated along its borders, with many houses on the water.”
The exact population and origin-date of the city, however, is not entirely clear. Most scholars and modern sources pin the date of the city’s founding to 1325; but the reality is that that is merely a guessed date for convenience-sake. Modern research methods have only managed to suggest a rough founding between 1250CE and 1350CE, after which the city formally became the capital to the Aztec Empire in 1428.
Tenochtitlan’s population, meanwhile, is also a point of contestation. Cortés describes the city as being potentially larger than either Spanish Córdoba or Seville (at the time) with one of the marketplaces, he insists, hosting almost 60 000 individuals every day.
Modern sources and historians place the total number in a range between 150 000 and 250 000, with 200 000 being the most accepted answer in current discourse.
That number would ultimately make Tenochtitlan bigger than most European cities at the time, even rivaling the likes of Paris, Venice, and Constantinople.
And then came the Spanish
By the early 1500s, Spanish power in the region of the Americas was largely limited to the small Caribbean islands — concentrated around Cuba — with a small enclave on the mainland at the port of Veracruz.
It was from this point that Hernán Cortés embarked upon his journey inland, followed by some 600 soldiers and 15 horsemen, and armed with no more than 20 arquebus muskets and a dozen cannons. Three months later, on the 8th of November 1519, after having travelled hundreds of kilometres across the expanse of the Aztec Empire, he would be welcomed into Tenochtitlan by the tlatoani (emperor), Moctezuma II.
A series of events led to the deterioration of relations between the Aztec emperor and Cortés, ultimately forcing the conquistador and his waning army to flee the city during an uprising in late June and early July of 1520.
This was later popularised in the tale of Le Noche Triste, or the Night of Sorrows.
In early 1521, Cortés returned with a fresh army and besieged the city for several months before achieving victory in August, destroying the city in its entirety for the rebuilding of a new, Spanish colonial city that would later become Mexico City.
A Tale of Conflicting Sources
Brief summary aside, the story is, of course, far more complex.
Cortés’ letters to King Charles V, describing the conquest of the Aztecs, were for a very long time considered the holy grail of truth when it came to telling the story of Tenochtitlan’s fall. Even Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s account of the events was largely overshadowed by his superior’s notoriety.
Interestingly, there are moments within the narrative that both conquistadors, themselves, seem to disagree on, already offsetting the “smooth” recounting of events. Particularly, the two provide slightly alternative descriptions of Aztec customs and etiquette but, more importantly, two opposing stories on Cortés’ interactions with Moctezuma II and what was said between the two leaders.
And these were just the beginning discrepancies within the Spanish narrative.
It is no secret that the narrative presented by Cortés and Castillo was somewhat sensationalised. After all, what an amazing tale it would make to further add on to the previous decade’s victories during the Reconquista: an army of a mere thousand, heroic Spaniards was able to topple not just one of the largest cities on Earth but one of the largest empires (at the time) in some distant, faraway land!
In actuality, the advanced weaponry of the Spanish only played a minor part in the conquest; a number of other factors were at play.
Even by European standards, Cortés and his army were rather ill-equipped. Their arquebuses were older models with a terribly low fire-rate, and the conquistadors constantly struggled to maintain dry gunpowder in the face of the region’s intense tropical humidity. Moreover, the steel weaponry of the army mostly consisted of low-grade armour and swords — considering Cortés’ expedition did not have the approval of Veracruz’s then-governor, Velázquez, the whole army was mostly self-made with a somewhat “bring what you can spare” attitude.
Of course, both Cortés and Castillo mention their local allies — mainly the Tlaxcaltecs— but only in fleeting words that undermine the full extent of their aid.
Another source of interest, however, eventually came about: namely, Bernardino de Sahagún’s Florentine Codex.
What’s interesting about the Codex is that, alongside Spanish, the original manuscript was composed in Nahuatl — the primary language of the Aztecs and a number of other local polities — with the help of pictographs and eyewitness accounts from Nahua elders, authors, and artists. Within the Codex are also detailed accounts of the fall of Tenochtitlan as well as insights into the Aztec condition both prior to and during the conquest.
And it reveals many hidden elements that contribute to our current understanding of the Aztecs’ downfall, uprooting certain narratives that Cortés himself (whether intentionally or unintentionally) failed to mention.
Spiritual and Psychological Disruption
A disruption of the spiritual fortitude and psychological stability of the Aztecs is, perhaps, one of the most obvious precursors that led to the downfall of Tenochtitlan; and to give Cortés leeway, this was not a particularly straightforward story he would have known.
Aztec mythology held that one of their paramount-most gods, Quetzalcóatl, once departed from the ancient city of Teotihuacan (a little north of Lake Texcoco) and headed east, never to be seen again but prophesised to return in a ce-acatl (one-reed) year, based on a 52-year cycle, to retake his throne.
Sheer coincidence would have it that Cortés’ arrival in 1519 — from the east, no less — was in a ce-acatl year, as per the Aztec almanac.
Sahagún’s Nahua informants have also confirmed the initial suspicion that Cortés, at least symbolically, had something to do with this prophecy. The message of Moctezuma II to Cortés was recorded (and translated) as follows:
“My lord… at last thou hast reached thy home: Mexico City. Thou hast come to take thy place on thy throne, beneath thy royal canopy… No, this is not a dream, I am not awakening from a dream, my senses still dulled by sleep… I have already seen thee, I have already set eyes on thy countenance! Such was indeed the legacy and message of our kings… according to their words thou wouldst be installed on thy seat, on thy royal throne of majesty thou wouldst reach these places.”
So, naturally, there was a mass spiritual and mythological upheaval based around the coincidence of Cortés’ arrival. Moreover, whilst I initially stated the limited effectiveness of the Spanish weaponry, the arquebuses along with the overall alien appearance of the conquistadors did have a psychological effect on the Aztecs.
“Their bodies are completely muffled up; only their faces are to be seen and they are white as chalk. They have yellow hair, although in some cases it is black. Their beards are long; their moustaches are also yellow… they are mounted on their ‘Stags’. Perched in this way they ride at the level of the rooftops… [and of their canons and firearms] if the shot touches a hill, it seems to split it, to crack it open, and if it strikes a tree it shatters it and crushes it, as if by a miracle.” — unknown messenger to Moctezuma II
As one can try and imagine, if you’ve never seen nor heard of a horse before — and this certainly was the case for the Aztecs as the Americas had no horses — then coming face to face with one for the first time must be a daunting experience. Similarly, the firearms and canons were, in some sense, “god-like” in their capabilities.
The horses, in particular, would also be a point of underestimation on the part of the Aztecs; for later, at the battle of Otumba Valley just as the Spanish were fleeing to Tlaxcala, the Aztec army suffered a tragic defeat despite being in a superior position. Previously, in Tenochtitlan, they had only ever seen the horses trotting leisurely through the streets; they were unaware of the full capabilities of a cavalry regiment on a large, open plain; and thus, their commanders were swiftly annihilated in a surprising cavalry charge.
Horses, firearms, and armaments ultimately served as a major destroyer of Aztec psyche and morale.
To a degree, they even contributed to the notion that the Spanish were, indeed, gods.
But as historian Nathan Wachtel points out:
“It is true that beliefs in the divinity of the Spanish were soon destroyed: their strange conduct, their frenzy at the sight of gold, their brutality, quickly shattered these beliefs… the intrusion of the Europeans was for the indigenous societies an unprecedented event which interrupted the normal course of existence. Confronted with this incursion of the unknown, the Indians’ view of the world implied at the least the possibility that the white men were gods. But the answer to the question could be positive or negative according to the place and circumstance.”
And in the case of the Aztecs, one such incident would change their entire attitude towards the Spanish.
The Massacre in the Great Temple
In May of 1520, Cortés briefly left Tenochtitlan to face Pánfilo de Narváez who was sent to arrest him on behalf of Governor Velázquez. During this time, he left his right-hand man, Pedro de Alvarado, in charge of the city. Moreover, on the 22nd of the same month, the Aztecs held the Toxcatl Fiesta to honour the god Tezcatlipoca.
Now, regardless of what exactly happened, it is worth noting that Alvarado was described (even by his own comrades) as someone who, in modern terms, we might call a “trigger-happy” man.
It was said that, amidst the festivities and the Serpent Dance being performed in the Great Temple, of which the Spanish were invited to come watch, Alvarado had his men surround and seal all the entrances before indiscriminately murdering the celebrants inside. Thereafter, the entire city fell into revolt against the Spanish, by which time Cortés hurriedly returned.
Of course, either because he was not told the full extent as to what happened or because he did not wish to speak of it, Cortés barely mentions the massacre and, instead, harps on about the ensuing revolt whence the Spanish would eventually flee to Tlaxcala.
According to Francisco López de Gómara:
“While the Mexica gentlemen were dancing in the temple yard of Vitcilopuchtli [Huitzilopochtli], Pedro de Alvarado went there. Whether on [the basis of] his own opinion or in an agreement decided by everyone, I don’t know, but some say he had been warned that the Indian nobles of the city had assembled to plot the mutiny and the rebellion, which they later carried out; others, believe that [the Spaniards] went to watch them perform this famous and praised dance, and seeing how rich they were and wanting the gold the Indians were wearing, he [Alvarado] covered each of the entrances with ten or twelve Spaniards and went inside with more than fifty [Spaniards], and without remorse and lacking any Christian piety, they brutally stabbed and killed the Indians, and took what they were wearing.”
Hence, many of the early Spanish sources suggest that a revolt was imminent and Alvarado was simply conducting a pre-emptive strike. Granted, there was division amongst the Aztec elites regarding the Spanish in Tenochtitlan; but none of the Nahua sources seem to corroborate the idea that there were plans to ambush Alvarado and his men.
In fact, the Nahua eye-witnesses paint a more detailed, harrowing, gruesome account that, once read, gives a good reason for the outrage of the Aztecs and their subsequent revolt. If anything, the massacre was a rather stressful and dispiriting event for them.
“They attacked the man who was drumming and cut off his arms. Then they cut off his head, and it rolled across the floor. They attacked all the celebrants, stabbing them, spearing them, striking them with their swords. They attacked some of them from behind, and these fell instantly to the ground with their entrails hanging out. Others they beheaded: they cut off their heads, or split their heads to pieces… Some attempted to run away, but their intestines dragged as they ran; they seemed to tangle their feet in their own entrails… they could find no escape” — from the Codex Florentino.
“But the songs had hardly begun when the Christians came out of the palace. They entered the patio and stationed four guards at each entrance. Then they attacked the captain who was guiding the dance… after that there was a general slaughter until the patio was heaped with corpses. A priest from the Place of the Canefields [the main temple] cried out in a loud voice: ‘Mexicanos! Who said we are not at war? Who said we could trust them?’” — from the Codex Aubin.
The Death of Moctezuma II
(Right) Quetzel-feathered headdress traditionally attributed to Moctezuma II in the Museum of Ethnology, Vienna. The object, however, might have not belonged to Moctezuma and, contrary to popular belief, it was not used as his crown. (Left) During his coronation, as depicted in the Codex Durán, however, the newly crowned emperor has a similar-looking headdress that is removed and replaced by the Aztec crown.
To complicate matters, in a desperate attempt to quell the deteriorating situation, Cortés ordered Moctezuma II — who had been held captive by the Spanish — to speak to his people and smooth over the situation.
But in the fray, the Aztec emperor was killed.
Cortés blamed the revolting crowd, suggesting that Moctezuma II was hit by three stones and died from his injuries thereof.
The Nahua records, meanwhile, say that the Spanish outright killed the tlatoani once they realized he would be of no use to them.
It remains uncertain as to which of these accounts is correct; additional information can only help us speculate. For one, Moctezuma II, indeed, was of no use to the Spanish at this stage as, prior to Cortés’ return, the Aztec elites had deemed the captive emperor a “traitor” and had subsequently supplanted him by electing Cuitláhuac as the new tlatoani. Thus, Moctezuma II no longer had any real power over his people.
With this information, it is entirely possible that either side could have killed the emperor; for the Aztecs, he was seen as a traitor, and for the Spanish he turned out to be less than useful.
But many of the Aztecs would not have known of the recent power-change, and Moctezuma II was still, at the least, the symbol of royalty. So, his death, whether at the hands of the Spanish or his own people, had a lasting effect of demoralising the regular inhabitants of Tenochtitlan.
Allies, Big and Small
What happened in the Americas is, really, one of the earliest developments of the Europeans’ most infamously effective strategy when it came to conquering local indigenous populations: divide and conquer.
Cortés did not simply topple the Aztec Empire with a mere thousand men. Rather, he had the backing of an estimated 10 000 indigenous allies during the siege of Tenochtitlan, a number that he mostly overlooks.
The Aztec state was loosely federal one, consisting of many conquered city-states; and Cortés knew how to use this to divide the people and pit them against one another. His most famous allies were the Tlaxcaltecs who, hailing from Tlaxcala, were eager to see their overlords ousted from power. Thus, their decision to side with the Spanish gravely concerned the Aztec elites and threw citizens into a lost sense of turmoil.
Should they side with their “rightful” rulers who had ruled over them for centuries? Or should they side with this new force, an alien force that possibly could have been the very gods they worshipped?
This posed quite the dilemma.
Moreover, there were particular shifty characters in the narrative that only widened the rift between “loyalists” and “traitors”. The controversial figure of La Malinche, Cortés’ Nahua-speaking interpreter (who, once again, is mostly a void in his letters), is one such example. Even today, there is a large divide between those who see her as a traitor to her own people, and those who see her as only having done what she could in her situation.
But her story is a little more complicated than that — a muddy, grey lake — that warrants an entire article of her own; yet she remains a sore point, a symbol of the traumatic divide that ripped through the Aztec world.
Finally, but certainly not least, unbeknownst to the Spanish, their most famous ally was a microscopic one: smallpox.
Certainly, smallpox was the greatest contributor to the Aztec death toll, but it’s very nature — being an unknown and unseen killer — was possibly the greatest demoraliser of all. Although the Spanish had been ejected from Tenochtitlan, the city and its inhabitants would suffer for months to come before Cortés would return.
Sahagún’s fascination with Aztec medicine in the Florentine Codex came, partly, as a result of the frantic attempts by Aztec apothecaries and physicians to quell their unknown saboteur. Corpses were described as “lining the streets” due to the sheer number of those who had succumb; a great “stench” was smelt in the air as it became impossible to rid the city of so many bodies. Nearly half of all the city’s inhabitants, including Emperor Cuitláhuac, were killed by the rapid spread of the disease within months. Cortés was only conquering a graveyard.
For many, it seemed like the end of the world, like a punishment from the gods.
The Spanish, meanwhile, appeared almost immune.
Watch as Tenochtitlan burns.
This fire is more than just a fire; it is a symbol, a final message to give up all hope.
The Aztecs were the people of Huitzilopochtli, the Sun god of War, chosen to bring all the world surrounding Tenochtitlan under their control. Offerings, sacrifices, those people would become; all to please the gods until their return.
But the fall of this magnificent city has put an end to all that. The reign of the Sun god and his people is over. The Aztecs no longer have a purpose; they can no longer find meaning in this mortal life; there is only one thing left to do.
The fall of the city is the fall of all.
“Let us die, then,
Let us die, then
For our gods are already dead”
— Apu Inca Atawallpaman, an elegy.
References:
The Letters of Hernán Cortés to King Charles V (translated):
Hernán Cortés, Letters — available as Letters from Mexico translated by Anthony Pagden (1986).
Hernán Cortés, The Dispatches of Hernando Cortés, The Conqueror of Mexico, addressed to the Emperor Charles V, written during the conquest and containing a narrative of it’s events (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1843).
Other Spanish Sources:
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal (1963) [1632]. The Conquest of New Spain. Penguin Classics. J. M. Cohen (trans.) (sixth printing (1973) ed.). Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books.
Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco. Crónica de la Nueva España. (Madrid: Linkgua Ediciones, 2007).
Lopez de Gómara, Francisco (2008) [1553]. Historia general de las Indias [General history of the Indies]. (Barcelona: Linkgua Ediciones).
The Florentine Codex and Other Nahua Sources (translated):
León-Portilla, Miguel (Ed.) (1992) [1959]. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Ángel María Garibay K. (Nahuatl–Spanish trans.), Lysander Kemp (Spanish–English trans.), Alberto Beltran (illus.) (Expanded and updated ed.). Boston: Beacon Press.
Other References:
Barbara E. Mundy, “Chapter 1 ‘Introduction’” in The DEATH of Aztec Tenochtitlan, The LIFE of Mexico City (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015), pp. 1–24.
Camilla Townsend, Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico, (Albuquerque University of New Mexico Press, 2006).
J. Jorge Klor de Alva, ‘The Vision of the Vanquished’, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1997 (published online in 2018), pp. 101–110.
J. H. Elliott, ‘The Indian and the Spanish Conquest’ in Cambridge History of Latin America Vol 1. Leslie Bethell (1984).
N. Wachtel, ‘The Indian and the Spanish Conquest’ in Cambridge History of Latin America Vol 1. Leslie Bethell (1984).
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