Cortés and Montezuma Three Sources



Cort?s and Montezuma Source #1 This Day in History () Aug 13, 1521:

Aztec capital falls to Cort?s

After a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hern?n Cort?s capture Tenochtitl?n, the capital of the Aztec empire. Cort?s' men leveled the city and captured Cuauhtemoc, the Aztec emperor.

Tenochtitl?n was founded in 1325 A.D. by a wandering tribe of hunters and gatherers on islands in Lake Texcoco, near the present site of Mexico City. In only one century, this civilization grew into the Aztec empire, largely because of its advanced system of agriculture. The empire came to dominate central Mexico and by the ascendance of Montezuma II in 1502 had reached its greatest extent, extending as far south as perhaps modern-day Nicaragua. At the time, the empire was held together primarily by Aztec military strength, and Montezuma II set about establishing a bureaucracy, creating provinces that would pay tribute to the imperial capital of Tenochtitl?n. The conquered peoples resented the Aztec demands for tribute and victims for the religious sacrifices, but the Aztec military kept rebellion at bay.

Meanwhile, Hern?n Cort?s, a young Spanish-born noble, came to Hispaniola in the West Indies in 1504. In 1511, he sailed with Diego Vel?zquez to conquer Cuba and twice was elected mayor of Santiago, the capital of Hispaniola. In 1518, he was appointed captain general of a new Spanish expedition to the American mainland. Vel?zquez, the governor of Cuba, later rescinded the order, and Cort?s sailed without permission. He visited the coast of Yucat?n and in March 1519 landed at Tabasco in Mexico's Bay of Campeche with 500 soldiers, 100 sailors, and 16 horses. There, he won over the local Indians and was given a female slave, Malinche?baptized Marina? who became his mistress and later bore him a son. She knew both Maya and Aztec and served as an interpreter. The expedition then proceeded up the Mexican coast, where Cort?s founded Veracruz, mainly for the purpose of having himself elected captain general by the colony, thus shaking off the authority of Vel?zquez and making him responsible only to King Charles V of Spain.

At Veracruz, Cort?s trained his army and then burned his ships to ensure loyalty to his plans for conquest. Having learned of political strife in the Aztec empire, Cort?s led his force into the Mexican interior. On the way to Tenochtitl?n, he clashed with local Indians, but many of these people, including the nation of Tlaxcala, became his allies after learning of his plan to conquer their hated Aztec rulers. Hearing of the approach of Cort?s, with his frightful horses and sophisticated weapons, Montezuma II tried to buy him off, but Cort?s would not be dissuaded. On November 8, 1519, the Spaniards and their 1,000 Tlaxcaltec warriors were allowed to enter Tenochtitl?n unopposed.

Montezuma suspected them to be divine envoys of the god Quetzalcatl, who

Maraline Ellis

Salem--Keizer School District

2013--2014

was prophesied to return from the east in a "One Reed" year, which was 1519 on the Aztec calendar. The Spaniards were greeted with great honor, and Cort?s seized the opportunity, taking Montezuma hostage so that he might govern the empire through him. His mistress, Marina, was a great help in this endeavor and succeeded in convincing Montezuma to cooperate fully.

In the spring of 1520, Cort?s learned of the arrival of a Spanish force from Cuba, led by P?nfilo Narvez and sent by Vel?zquez to deprive Cort?s of his command. Cort?s led his army out of Tenochtitl?n to meet them, leaving behind a garrison of 80 Spaniards and a few hundred Tlaxcaltecs to govern the city. Cort?s defeated Narvez and enlisted Narvez' army into his own. When he returned to Tenochtitl?n in June, he found the garrison under siege from the Aztecs, who had rebelled after the subordinate whom Cort?s left in command of the city massacred several Aztec chiefs, and the population on the brink of revolt. On June 30, under pressure and lacking food, Cort?s and his men fought their way out of the capital at heavy cost. Known to the Spanish as La Noche Triste, or "the Night of Sadness," many soldiers drowned in Lake Texcoco when the vessel carrying them and Aztec treasures hoarded by Cort?s sank. Montezuma was killed in the fighting?in Aztec reports by the Spaniards, and in Spanish reports by an Aztec mob bitter at Montezuma's subservience to Spanish rule. He was succeeded as emperor by his brother, Cuitl?huac.

During the Spaniards' retreat, they defeated a large Aztec army at Otumba and then rejoined their Tlaxcaltec allies. In May 1521, Cort?s returned to Tenochtitl?n, and after a three-month siege the city fell. This victory marked the fall of the Aztec empire. Cuauht?moc, Cuitl?huac's successor as emperor, was taken prisoner and later executed, and Cort?s became the ruler of a vast Mexican empire.

The Spanish conquistador led an expedition to Honduras in 1524 and in 1528 returned to Spain to see the king. Charles made him Marqu?s del Valle but refused to name him governor because of his quarrels with Vel?zquez and others. In 1530, he returned to Mexico, now known as New Spain, and found the country in disarray. After restoring some order, he retired to his estate south of Mexico City and sent out maritime expeditions from the Pacific coast. In 1540, he returned to Spain and was neglected by the court. He died in 1547.

Maraline Ellis

Salem--Keizer School District

2013--2014

Source #2 Montezuma Meets Cort?s

In 1519 Hernan Cort?s sailed from Cuba, landed in Mexico and made his way to the Aztec capital. Miguel Leon-Portilla, a Mexican anthropologist, gathered accounts by the Aztecs, some of which were written shortly after the conquest.

Speeches of Montezuma and Cort?s When Montezuma had given necklaces to each one, Cort?s asked him: "Are you

Montezuma? Are you the king? Is it true that you are the king Montezuma?" And the king said: "Yes, I am Montezuma." Then he stood up to welcome

Cort?s; he came forward, bowed his head low and addressed him in these words: "Our lord, you are weary. The journey has tired you, but now you have arrived on the earth. You have come to your city, Mexico. You have come here to sit on your throne, to sit under its canopy.

"The kings who have gone before, your representatives, guarded it and preserved it for your coming. The kings Itzcoatl, Montezuma the Elder, Axayacatl, Tizoc and Ahuitzol ruled for you in the City of Mexico. The people were protected by their swords and sheltered by their shields.

"Do the kings know the destiny of those they left behind, their posterity? If only they are watching! If only they can see what I see!

"No, it is not a dream. I am not walking in my sleep. I am not seeing you in my dreams.... I have seen you at last! I have met you face to face! I was in agony for five days, for ten days, with my eyes fixed on the Region of the Mystery. And now you have come out of the clouds and mists to sit on your throne again.

"This was foretold by the kings who governed your city, and now it has taken place. You have come back to us; you have come down from the sky. Rest now, and take possession of your royal houses. Welcome to your land, my lords!"

When Montezuma had finished, La Malinche translated his address into Spanish so that the Captain could understand it. Cort?s replied in his strange and savage tongue, speaking first to La Malinche: "Tell Montezuma that we are his friends. There is nothing to fear. We have wanted to see him for a long time, and now we have seen his face and heard his words. Tell him that we love him well and that our hearts are contented."

Then he said to Montezuma: "We have come to your house in Mexico as friends. There is nothing to fear."

La Malinche translated this speech and the Spaniards grasped Montezuma's hands and patted his back to show their affection for him....

Massacre in the Main Temple During this time, the people asked Montezuma how they should celebrate their

god's fiesta. He said: "Dress him in all his finery, in all his sacred ornaments." During this same time, The Sun commanded that Montezuma and Itzcohuatzin,

the military chief of Tlatelolco, be made prisoners. The Spaniards hanged a chief from Acolhuacan named Nezahualquentzin. They also murdered the king of Nauhtla,

Maraline Ellis

Salem--Keizer School District

2013--2014

Cohualpopocatzin, by wounding him with arrows and then burning him alive. For this reason, our warriors were on guard at the Eagle Gate. The sentries

from Tenochtitlan stood at one side of the gate, and the sentries from Tlatelolco at the other. But messengers came to tell them to dress the figure of Huitzilopochtli. They left their posts and went to dress him in his sacred finery: his ornaments and his paper clothing.

When this had been done, the celebrants began to sing their songs. That is how they celebrated the first day of the fiesta. On the second day they began to sing again, but without warning they were all put to death. The dancers and singers were completely unarmed. They brought only their embroidered cloaks, their turquoises, their lip plugs, their necklaces, their clusters of heron feathers, their trinkets made of deer hooves. Those who played the drums, the old men, had brought their gourds of snuff and their timbrels (a musical instrument similar to a tambourine).

The Spaniards attacked the musicians first, slashing at their hands and faces until they had killed all of them. The singers-and even the spectators- were also killed. This slaughter in the Sacred Patio went on for three hours. Then the Spaniards burst into the rooms of the temple to kill the others: those who were carrying water, or bringing fodder for the horses, or grinding meal, or sweeping, or standing watch over this work.

The king Montezuma, who was accompanied by Itzcohuatzin and by those who had brought food for the Spaniards, protested: "Our lords, that is enough! What are you doing? These people are not carrying shields or weapons. Our lords, they are completely unarmed!"

The Sun had treacherously murdered our people on the twentieth day after the captain left for the coast. We allowed the Captain to return to the city in peace. But on the following day we attacked him with all our might, and that was the beginning of the war.

From Miguel Leon-Portilla, ed., The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), pp. 64-66, 129-131.

Maraline Ellis

Salem--Keizer School District

2013--2014

Source #3

Conquest of the Cities of Gold ()

Europe's Interactions

When Cortez arrived in the New World, he had dreams of creating a permanent settlement. To encourage his men not to leave, Cortez burned the ships that brought them there, and set out into the Yucatan interior.

Expecting to find tribes like the ones he had encountered in Cuba, Cortez must have been surprised to discover an empire. These people, the Aztecs, had their own language and belief system. While Cortez never learned Nahuatl, the native Aztec language, he spoke through two interpreters. With his two translators and a band of his own men, Cortez traveled deeper into the uncharted lands. As Cortez journeyed further into the Yucatan interior, he heard stories of a powerful ruler, a man of gold named Montezuma, the emperor of the Aztec empire. Cortez' mission became to meet up with Montezuma. Along the way, the Aztecs began to mistake Cortez for one of their gods, Quetzalcoatl, the man with the white skin.

It took six months for Cortez and Montezuma to finally meet. Before this first meeting, Montezuma was anxious to meet Cortez, but was unsure about those that accompanied Cortez. Montezuma had sent forth messengers to send Cortez' man gifts of gold if they would turn back, but Montezuma's requests were not obeyed. When the two did finally meet in the city of Tenoshtitlan, the two men and completely different ideas of what was going on.

Cortez saw the power of the Aztec Empire; he saw Montezuma adorned with gold and precious stones, and he wondered how much more was hidden away elsewhere. Such power, he thought would surely be suited to his home country of Spain. It became his mission to convert Montezuma to Catholicism, to make Montezuma loyal to Spain, and to plunder the wealthy Aztec Empire.

Montezuma was uncertain whether Cortez really was Quetzalcoatl, the god from the east, but he felt that Cortez must have been sent from the gods. Feeling that he might be holding a long foretold destiny in his hands, Montezuma wanted to appease Cortez with the religious practices that were a custom for the Aztec people. It must have troubled Montezuma to hear Cortez asking for gold and riches. Montezuma must have thought that if the gods wanted their treasure back, it was theirs to take, even if it saddened the Aztec people.

As Montezuma toured his guest through Tenochtitlan, Cortez saw how many followers Montezuma had, and wondered if Montezuma wanted to do away with him and his travelers. Cortez thought it would be wise to make Montezuma his prisoner before

Maraline Ellis

Salem--Keizer School District

2013--2014

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download