Fall of Tenochtitlan

[Michelle Sandberg]

The Aztecs’ Last Stand

When the Spanish forces made it into the city, virtually every rooftop was an enemy stronghold. Once again, the Aztecs adopted new tactics, and now attacked the Spanish from their buildings. This held back the Spanish for a while, but it could not prevent their advance through the city. By early August, most of the population of the city had retreated into Tlatelolco. Cortés sent Indian emissaries from a conquered Aztec city to invite the Tlatelolcas to join his side and surrender the Aztec refugees, but the Tlatelolcas remained loyal to the Aztecs. In the chronicles of Tlatelolco, they told they took the last burden of the battle, and at the end the women cut their hair and joined the battle.

The Aztecs faced another major obstacle when the people of Tetzcoco who were still loyal to the Aztecs fell into Spanish hands. For four days, all three armies of Alvarado, Olid, and Sandoval pushed towards the Tlatelolco marketplace. They eventually gained control of seven-eighths of the city. Even in the final days of the siege, when the Aztecs were pitted in open combat against the Indian allies of the Spanish, the exhausted Aztecs were far superior, and crushed their opponents.

In these last desperate days, the Aztecs decided to send the quetzal owl warrior, an Aztec warrior outfitted in a ceremonial costume, into battle: they believed if he succeeded in battle, this would be a sign from the gods that the Aztecs should continue fighting against the Spanish. Throughout their encounters with the Spanish, the Aztecs continued to practice their traditional ceremonies and customs. The warrior Tlapaltecatl Opochtzin was chosen to be dressed in the quetzal owl costume. Once outfitted, he was supplied with darts sacred to Huitzilopochtli, with wooden tips and flint tops. When he appeared, the Spanish soldiers seemed genuinely frightened and intimidated. They pursued the owl-warrior, but he was not captured or killed. The Aztecs took this is as a good sign, especially because the Spanish forces did not attack for the rest of the day or the day after. Yet, the Aztecs could fight no longer, and after consulting with the surviving nobles, Cuauhtémoc commenced negotiations with the Spanish.

[Michelle Sandberg]

The Surrender

The Aztecs surrendered on August 13, 1521. Supposedly, Cortes demanded the gold lost during La Noche Triste soon after. Cuauhtémoc was taken hostage and later executed.

Aztecs fled the city as the Spanish forces continued to attack the city even after the surrender, slaughtering thousands of the remaining population and looting the city. As this practice was generally not done in European warfare, it suggests that Cortes’s Indian allies had more power over him than he suggested. The survivors marched out of the city for the next three days. Almost all of the nobility were dead, and the remaining survivors were mostly very young children. Two-hundred and forty thousand Aztecs are estimated to have died during the siege, which lasted eighty days. The remaining Spanish forces consisted of 900 Spaniards, eighty horses, sixteen pieces of artillery, and Cortes’s thirteen brigantines.

It is well accepted that Cortes’s Indian allies, which may have numbered as many as 200,000, were responsible for his success, though their aid was virtually unacknowledged and they derived little benefit. As there were several major allied groups, no one in particular was able to take power, and the person who benefited was Cortes.