Human sacrifice in Aztec culture

[Michelle Sandberg]

Human sacrifice as shown in the Codex Magliabechiano

The role of sacrifice in Mesoamerican religion
 
Human sacrifice as shown in the Codex Magliabechiano.Sacrifice was a common theme in Mesoamerican cultures. In the Aztec myth "Legend of the Five Suns", all the gods sacrificed themselves so humanity could live. Some years after the Conquest, a body of Spanish Franciscans confronted the remaining Aztec priesthood and demanded - under threat of death - that they desist from their murderous practices. The Aztec priests conferred on the matter and boldly gave this defense:

“Life is because of the gods; with their sacrifice they gave us life... they produce our sustenance... all which nourishes life.”(Colligues & Christian Doctrines)

What the Aztec priests were referring to was a central Mesoamerican belief - that a great, on-going sacrifice sustains the universe. Everything is tonacayotl - the ‘spiritual flesh-hood’ or ‘bodily (sacrificial) presence’ of the gods on earth. Everything- earth, crops, moon, stars and people - springs from the severed or buried bodies, fingers, blood or heads of sacrificed gods (Nicholson, 'Religion in Pre-hispanic Central Mexico, 1971, 402). Humanity itself is macehuale- “the dead brought back to life through penance.”

A strong sense of indebtedness was connected with this worldview. Indeed, nextlahualli (debt-payment) was a commonly used metaphor for human sacrifice, and it was said that the victim was someone who “gave her service” (Sahagun II: 36:156)or “fulfil(led)” his “duty” (Sahagun III: 10: 29).

Human sacrifice was in this sense the cherry on top of a whole pile of offerings through which the Aztecs sought to repay their debt to the gods. They “gladly parted” (Motolinia, History of the Indians, 122) with everything - burying, smashing, slaying and sinking vast quantities of quail, rabbits, dogs, feathers, flowers, insects, beans, grains, paper, rubber and treasures as sacrifices (Sahagun II: Appendix 176). Even the ‘stage’ for human sacrifice - the massive temple-pyramids - were offering mounds: crammed with treasures, grains, soil and human and animal sacrifices that were buried as gifts to the deities. Adorned with the land’s finest art, treasure and victims, temples themselves became offerings - being buried under new structures every 8 or 52 years.

The sacrifice of animals was common, a practice for which the Aztecs bred special dogs. Objects also were sacrificed, broken and offered to their gods. The cult of Quetzalcoatl required the sacrifice of butterflies and hummingbirds.

Self-sacrifice was also quite common; people would offer maguey thorns, tainted with their own blood, and Maya kings would offer blood from their tongue, ear lobes [2], or their **** [verification needed]. Blood held a central place in Mesoamerican cultures; in one of the creation myths, Quetzalcoatl would offer blood extracted from a wound in his own **** to give life to humanity [verification needed]. There are several other myths in which Nahua gods offer their blood to help humanity [verification needed].

Common people would offer maguey thorns with their blood [verification needed]. They also practiced bloodletting from cuts made with obsidian knives or bone needles, on fleshy parts of the body, like earlobes, lips, tongue, chest, calves, etc. This was considered private and a personal act of communication with the gods. The thorns were put in a ball of straw called Zacatapayoli and put in the adoratorium.

More extreme and public forms were used by the Maya. In times of problems, the Maya kings would make a wound on their tongue or on their ****, and pass a piece of rope through it [verification needed]. If this supreme sacrifice failed, the entire dynasty could fall. This kind of autosacrifice, exclusive to the upper classes, was not practiced by the Aztec

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture

[Boreas]

"Don't forget the teachings of the ancestors. In their paths we will find hope for the future."

Mayan elder, speaking of the need to maintain Mayan ethnicity in the face of the conflict in Guatemala. Quoted in Victor D. Montejo (1997), "The Pan-Mayan Movement, Mayans at the doorway of the new millenium." (Cultural Survival Quarterly 21:28.)

[Michelle Sandberg]

The antecedents of Mesoamerican sacrifice

The practice of human sacrifice was widespread in the Mesoamerican and in the South American cultures during the Inca Empire.[5][6] Like all other known pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica the Aztecs practiced human sacrifices. The extant sources describe how the Aztecs sacrificed human victims on each of their eighteen festivities, one festivity for each of their 20-day months.[7] It is unknown if the Aztecs engaged in human sacrifice before they reached the Anahuac valley and started absorbing other cultural influences. The first human sacrifice reported in the sources was the sacrifice and skinning of the daughter of the king Cóxcox of Culhuacán, this story is a part of the legend of the foundation of Tenochtitlan.[8] Several ethnohistorical sources state that under the guidance of Tlacaelel the importance of human sacrifice in Aztec history was given extra emphasis

[Michelle Sandberg]

Maya Queen "Lady Xoc" draws a barbed rope through her pierced tongue in the Yaxchilan Lintel 24.


The role of sacrifice in Mesoamerica
 
Human sacrifice as shown in the Codex Magliabechiano.Sacrifice was a common theme in Mesoamerican cultures. In the Aztec "Legend of the Five Suns", all the gods sacrificed themselves so that mankind could live. Some years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, a body of Franciscans confronted the remaining Aztec priesthood and demanded, under threat of death, that they desist from their murderous practice. The priests defended themselves by speaking out their Weltanschauung:

“ Life is because of the gods; with their sacrifice they gave us life [...]. They produce our sustenance [...] which nourishes life.[9] ”

What the Aztec priests were referring to was a central Mesoamerican belief: that a great, on-going sacrifice sustains the universe. Everything is tonacayotl: the "spiritual flesh-hood" or "bodily [sacrificial] presence" of the gods on earth. Everything —earth, crops, moon, stars and people— springs from the severed or buried bodies, fingers, blood or the heads of the sacrificed gods. Humanity itself is macehuale, "the dead brought back to life through penance".[10] A strong sense of indebtedness was connected with this worldview. Indeed, nextlahualli (debt-payment) was a commonly used metaphor for human sacrifice, and, as Bernardino de Sahagún reported, it was said that the victim was someone who "gave her service".

Human sacrifice was in this sense the highest level of an entire panopoly of offerings through which the Aztecs sought to repay their debt to the gods. Both Sahagún and Toribio de Benavente (also called "Motolinía") observed that the Aztecs gladly parted with everything: burying, smashing, sinking, slaying vast quantities of quail, rabbits, dogs, feathers, flowers, insects, beans, grains, paper, rubber and treasures as sacrifices. Even the "stage" for human sacrifice, the massive temple-pyramids, was an offering mound: crammed with treasures, grains, soil and human and animal sacrifices that were buried as gifts to the deities. Adorned with the land's finest art, treasure and victims, these temples had become buried offerings under new structures every half a century.

The sacrifice of animals was common, a practice for which the Aztecs bred dogs, eagles, jaguars and deer. Objects also were sacrificed, broken and offered to their gods. The cult of Quetzalcóatl required the sacrifice of butterflies and hummingbirds.

Self-sacrifice was also quite common; people would offer maguey thorns, tainted with their own blood and, like the Maya kings, would offer blood from their tongue, ear lobes, or their ****.[11] Blood held a central place in Mesoamerican cultures. The Florentine Codex reports that in one of the creation myths Quetzalcóatl offered blood extracted from a wound in his own **** to give life to humanity. There are several other myths in which Nahua gods offer their blood to help humanity.[12]

Common people would offer maguey thorns with their blood.[13] Lloyd deMause has argued that, like present-day self harmers, the Aztecs also practiced bloodletting from cuts made with obsidian knives or bone needles on fleshy parts of the body, like earlobes, lips, tongue, chest and calves.[14] This was considered private and a personal act of penitence toward the gods. The thorns were put in a ball of straw called zacatapayoli and later placed in an adoratorium.

During social or environmental stress, the Maya kings would make a wound on their tongue or on their ****, and pass a piece of rope through it.[15] If this supreme sacrifice failed it was believed the entire dynasty could fall.

[Michelle Sandberg]

The 52-year cycle

The cycle of fifty-two years was central to Mesoamerican cultures. The Nahua's religious beliefs were based on a great fear that the universe would collapse after each cycle if the gods were not strong enough. Every fifty-two years a special New Fire ceremony was performed.[16] All fires were extinguished and at midnight a sacrifice was made. The Aztecs waited for the dawn. If the Sun appeared it meant that the sacrifices for this cycle had been enough. A fire was ignited on the body of a victim, and this new fire was taken to every house, city and town. Rejoicing was general: a new cycle of fifty-two years was beginning, and the end of the world had been postponed, at least for another 52-year century. (A similar ceremony is still practiced by small indigenous groups, but without human sacrifice.) The ceremony was older than the Aztecs. While originally it was believed it was a matter of luck to survive, the Aztecs thought that constant sacrifice through the fifty-two year cycle could postpone the end.

According to Miguel León-Portilla, Tlacaelel reformed the original Nahua religion and the Aztecs viewed themselves as the main representatives for feeding the gods. This gave them a new sense of identity, from "people without face" as they were called by hostile neighbors, to the people in charge of the existence of the universe. Thus they began to call themselves "The people of the sun". Other researchers dispute León-Portilla's perspective, pointing to the relative lack of primary sources.

[Michelle Sandberg]

Sacrifices to specific gods

Huitzilopochtli

Huitzilopochtli was the tribal deity of the Mexica and, as such, he represented the character of the Mexica people and was often identified with the sun at the zenith, and with warfare.

When the Aztecs sacrificed people to Huitzilopochtli the victim would be placed on a sacrificial stone.[17] Then the priest would cut through the abdomen with an obsidian or flint dagger.[18] The heart would be torn out still beating and held towards the sky in honor to the Sun-God; the body would be carried away and either cremated or given to the warrior responsible for the capture of the victim. He would either cut the body in pieces and send them to important people as an offering, or use the pieces for ritual cannibalism. The warrior would thus ascend one step in the hierarchy of the Aztec social classes, a system that rewarded successful warriors.[19]

[Michelle Sandberg]

 
Victim of sacrificial gladiatorial combat, from Codex Magliabechiano. Note that he is tied to a large stone and his macuahuitl (sword/club) is covered with what appears to be feathers instead of obsidian.

Tezcatlipoca

Tezcatlipoca was generally considered the most powerful god, the god of night, sorcery and destiny (the name tezcatlipoca means "smoky mirror", or "obsidian"). The Aztecs believed that Tezcatlipoca created war to provide food and drink to the gods. Tezcatlipoca was known by several epithets including "the Enemy" and "the Enemy of Both Sides", which stress his affinity for discord. Tezcatlipoca had the power to forgive sins and to relieve disease, or to release a man from the fate assigned to him by his date of birth; however, nothing in Tezcatlipoca's nature compelled him to do so. He was capricious and often brought about reversals of fortune. To the Aztecs, he was an all-knowing, all-seeing nearly all-powerful god. One of his names can be translated as "We Who Are His Slaves".

Some captives were sacrificed to Tezcatlipoca in ritual gladiatorial combat. The victim was tethered in place and given a mock weapon. He died fighting against up to four fully armed jaguar knights and eagle warriors.

A curious sacrifice was that of a young handsome Nahua. Throughout a year he would be dressed in Tezcatlipoca's likeness and treated as a living incarnation of the God. At the end of the year at the festival of Toxcatl he would climb up the temple's steps voluntarily and offer himself for sacrifice. This was accomplished by recruiting a young volunteer and letting him live a luxurious life for the year. The youth would represent Tezcatlipoca on earth; he would get four beautiful women as his companions until he met his destiny, in the meantime he walked through the streets of Tenochtitlan playing a flute. On the day of the sacrifice a feast would be held in Tezcatlipoca's honor. The young man would climb the pyramid, break his flute and surrender his body to the priests. This was one of the more solemn festivities for the Aztecs. Sahagún compared it to the Christian Easter.[20]


Huehueteotl

To appease Huehueteotl, the fire god and a senior deity, the Aztecs had a ceremony where they prepared a large feast at the end of which they would burn captives alive. Motolinía and Sahagún reported that the Aztecs believed that if they did not placate Huehueteotl a plague of fire would strike their village. Huehueteotl was believed to have a preference for the bodies of newlywed couples. The sacrifice was considered a double offering to the deity. Just before the victims died in the flames they were removed from the fires to have their the hearts extracted.

Tláloc

Tláloc was the god of rain. The Aztecs believed that if sacrifices weren't supplied for Tláloc, rain wouldn't come and their crops wouldn't flourish. Leprosy and rheumatism, diseases caused by Tláloc, would infest the village. Tláloc required the tears of the young as part of the sacrifice. The priests made the children cry during their way to immolation: a good omen that Tláloc would wet the earth in the raining season. In the Florentine Codex, also known as General History of the Things of New Spain, Sahagún wrote:

“ They offered them as sacrifices to [Tlaloc and Chalchiuhtlicue] so that they would give them water.[21] ”


The Flower Wars

It has often been claimed by scholars that, the Aztecs resorted to a form of ritual warfare, the Flower War, in order to obtain living human bodies for the sacrifices in time of peace. This claim however has been severely criticised by scholars such as Ross Hassig[22][23]and Nigel Davies[24] who claim that the main purpose of the Flower Wars was political and not religious and that the number of sacrificial victims obtained through flower wars was insignificant compared to the number of victims obtained through normal political warfare.

According to Diego Durán's History of the Indies of New Spain, and a few other sources that are also based on the Crónica X, the Flower Wars were originally a treaty between the cities of Aztec Triple Alliance and Tlaxcala and Huexotzingo motivated by a famine in Mesoamerica in 1450. Aztec prisoners were also sacrificed in Tlaxcala and Huexotzingo. The capture of prisoners for sacrifices was called nextlaualli ("debt payment to the gods"). These sources however are contradicted by other sources, such as the Codex Chimalpahin, which mentions "Flower Wars" much earlier than the famine of 1450 and against other opponents than the ones mentioned in the treaty.

Because the objective of Aztec warfare was to capture victims alive for human sacrifice, battle tactics were designed primarily to injure the enemy rather than kill him. After towns were conquered their inhabitants were no longer candidates for human sacrifice, only liable to regular tribute.

Slaves also could be used for human sacrifice, but only if the slave was considered lazy and had been resold three times.[25]

[Michelle Sandberg]

A tzompantli, or skull rack, as shown in the post-Conquest Ramirez Codex.

Estimates of the scope of the sacrifices

For the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days, though they were probably much less. (According to Ross Hassing, author of Aztec Warfare, "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed in the ceremony.[30]) Four tables were arranged at the top so that the victims could be jettisoned down the sides of the temple. Michael Harner, in his 1997 article The Enigma of Aztec Sacrifice, estimates the number of persons sacrificed in central Mexico in the 15th century as high as to 250,000 per year. Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl, a Mexica descendant and the author of Codex Ixtlilxochitl, claimed that one in five children of the Mexica subjects was killed annually. Victor Davis Hanson argues that an estimate by Carlos Zumárraga of 20,000 per annum is more plausible. Other scholars believe that, since the Aztecs always tried to intimidate their enemies, it is more likely that they could have inflated the number as a propaganda tool.[31] The real number of sacrificed victims during the 1487 consecration in unknown.

The same can be said for Bernal Díaz's inflated calculations when, in a state of visual shock, he grossly miscalculated the number of skulls at one of the seven Tenochtitlan tzompantlis. According the Florentine Codex, fifty years before the conquest the Aztecs burnt the skulls of the former tzompantli. Mexican archeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma has unearthed and studied some tzompantlis.[32]

Sacrifices were made on specific days. Sahagún, Juan Bautista de Pomar and Motolinía report that the Aztecs had eighteen festivities each year, one for each Aztec month. They clearly state that in those festivities sacrifices were made. Each god required a different kind of victim: young women were drowned for Xilonen; children were sacrificed to Tláloc; Nahuatl-speaking prisoners to Huitzilopochtli, and a single nahua would volunteer for Tezcatlipoca. The Ramírez Codex states that for the annual festivity of Huitzilopochtli more than sixty prisoners were sacrificed in the main temple, and prisoners were sacrificed in other large Aztec cities as well.

Not all sacrifices were made at the Tenochtitlan temples; a few were made at "Cerro del Peñón", an islet of the Texcoco lake. According to an Aztec source, in the month of Tlacaxipehualiztli (from February 22 to March 13), thirty-four captives were sacrificed in the gladiatorial sacrifice to Xipe Totec. More victims would be sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli in the month Panquetzaliztli (from 9 November to 28 November) according to the Ramírez Codex. This would mean a figure as low as 300 to 600 victims a year. Marvin Harris multiplies it by twenty, assuming that the same sacrifices were made in every one of the sections or calpullis of the city. There is little agreement on the actual figure due to the scarcity of archeological evidence.

Every Aztec warrior would have to provide at least one prisoner for sacrifice. All the male population was trained to be warriors, but only the few who succeeded in providing captives could became full-time members of the warrior elite. Those who could not would became macehualli, workers. Accounts also state that several young warriors could unite their efforts in order to capture a single prisoner, which suggests that capturing prisoners for sacrifice was challenging.

[Michelle Sandberg]

The serpents of Lápida de Aparicio (250-900 CE) from the pre-Aztec site of El Tajín represent jets of blood of a decapitated victim. Anthropology Museum of Xalapa.

Discussion of primary sources
 
The serpents of Lápida de Aparicio (250-900 CE) from the pre-Aztec site of El Tajín represent jets of blood of a decapitated victim. Anthropology Museum of Xalapa.Early Spanish accounts mention the sacrificial practice of the Aztecs as well as other Mesoamerican cultures in the 16th century. There are numerous depictions of sacrifices in the Mexica statuary, as well as in codices such as the Ríos, Tudela, Telleriano-Remensis, Durán, and Sahagún's Florentine. On the other hand, the pre-Columbian, indigenous codices that depict the rites were not written texts but pictorial and highly symbolic ideographs -- the Aztecs had not developed the fully written language that their predecessors, the Mayans, had.

For Mesoamerica as a whole, the accumulated archaeological, iconographical and in the case of the Maya written evidence, indicates that human sacrifice was widespread across cultures and periods, dating back to 600 BCE and possibly much earlier. Osteological analyses have also been interpreted as corroborating the texts.[33][34] Pictorial illustrations of sacrifices on Maya ceramics and stelae have also been published.[35]


Accounts from the Grijalva expeditions

In addition to the accounts provided by Sahagún and Durán, there are other important texts to be considered.

Juan de Grijalva, Hernán Cortés, Juan Díaz, Bernal Díaz, Andrés de Tapia, Francisco de Aguilar, Ruy González and the Anonymous Conqueror wrote about the Conquest of Mexico. Martyr d'Anghiera, Lopez de Gomara, Oviedo y Valdes and Illescas, while not in Mesoamerica, wrote their accounts based on interviews with the participants. Bartolomé de Las Casas and Sahagún arrived later to New Spain but had access to direct testimony, especially of the indigenous people. All of these narratives mention and describe the practice of human sacrifice


Juan Díaz

Juan Díaz, a participant of the 1518 Grijalva expedition, wrote Itinerario de Grijalva before 1520, in which he describes the aftermath of a sacrifice on an island near Veracruz.


Bernal Díaz

Main article: The Conquest of New Spain
Bernal Díaz corroborates Juan Díaz's history:

“ On these altars were idols with evil looking bodies, and that very night five Indians had been sacrificed before them; their chests had been cut opened, and their arms and thighs had been cut off. The walls were covered with blood. We stood greatly amazed and gave the island the name isleta de Sacrificios [Island of the Sacrifices].[36] ”

In The Conquest of New Spain Díaz recounted that, after landing on the coast, they came across a temple dedicated to Tezcatlipoca. "That day they had sacrificed two boys, cutting open their chests and offering their blood and hearts to that accursed idol". Díaz narrates several more sacrificial descriptions on the later Cortés expedition. Arriving at Cholula, they find "cages of stout wooden bars [...] full of men and boys who were being fattened for the sacrifice at which their flesh would be eaten".[37] When the conquistadors reached Tenochtitlan, Díaz described the sacrifices at the Great Pyramid:

“ They strike open the wretched Indian's chest with flint knives and hastily tear out the palpitating heart which, with the blood, they present to the idols [...]. They cut off the arms, thighs and head, eating the arms and thighs at ceremonial banquets. The head they hang up on a beam, and the body is […] given to the beasts of prey.[38] ”

According to Bernal Díaz, the chiefs of the surrounding towns, for example Cempoala, would complain on numerous occasions to Cortés about the perennial need to supply the Aztecs with victims for human sacrifice. It is clear from his description of their fear and resentment toward the Mexicas that, in their opinion, it was no honor to surrender their kinsmen to be sacrificed by them.[39]


Hernán Cortés

Cortés describes similar events in his Letters:

“ They have a most horrid and abominable custom which truly ought to be punished and which until now we have seen in no other part, and this is that, whenever they wish to ask something of the idols, in order that their plea may find more acceptance, they take many girls and boys and even adults, and in the presence of these idols they open their chests while they are still alive and take out their hearts and entrails and burn them before the idols, offering the smoke as sacrifice. Some of us have seen this, and they say it is the most terrible and frightful thing they have ever witnessed.[40] ”


The Anonymous Conqueror

The Anonymous Conqueror's Narrative of Some Things of New Spain and of the Great City of Temestitan details Aztec sacrifices.[41] On Chapter XIV he depicts the temple in which men, women, boys and girls were sacrificed.[42] On Chapter XXIV the Anonymous Conqueror repeatedly claims that the Aztecs were cannibals, sodomites, alcoholics and polygamists.[43] The original Spanish text is lost. The description of the temple was published in the 1556 Ramusio Italian edition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture

[Boreas]

Hernán Cortés

Cortés describes similar events in his Letters:

“ They have a most horrid and abominable custom which truly ought to be punished and which until now we have seen in no other part, and this is that, whenever they wish to ask something of the idols, in order that their plea may find more acceptance, they take many girls and boys and even adults, and in the presence of these idols they open their chests while they are still alive and take out their hearts and entrails and burn them before the idols, offering the smoke as sacrifice. Some of us have seen this, and they say it is the most terrible and frightful thing they have ever witnessed.[40] ”


Hernan Cortés


The Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote his A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies in which he raised strong accusations of brutality, and heinous violence towards the Indians against the conquistadors in general and Cortés in particular. The accounts of the conquest given in the Florentine Codex by the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún and his native informants are also less than flattering towards Cortés. The result of the scarce sources to the life of Cortés has been sharp divisions in the description of Cortés' personality and a tendency to describe him as either a vicious and ruthless person or a noble and honorable

Cortés was born in Medellín, in the province of Extremadura, in the Kingdom of Castile in Spain in 1485. His father, Martin Cortés de Monroy, an infantry captain of distinguished ancestry but slender means. His mother was Catalina Pizarro Altamirano. Through his mother, Hernan was second cousin to Francisco Pizarro, who later conquered the Inca empire of modern-day Peru (not to be confused with another Francisco Pizarro who joined Cortés to conquer the Aztecs).

Hernan Cortés is described as a sickly child by his biographer, chaplain, and friend Francisco López de Gómara. At the age of fourteen, Cortés was sent to study at the University of Salamanca. This was the great center of learning of the country and while accounts vary as to the nature of Cortés' studies, his later writings and actions suggest he studied Law and probably Latin.

After two years, Cortés, tired of schooling, returned home to Medellín, much to the annoyance of his parents, who had hoped to see him equipped for a profitable legal career. However, those two years at Salamanca, plus his long period of training and experience as a notary, first in Seville and later in Hispaniola, would give him a close acquaintance with the legal codes of Castile that was to stand him in good stead in justifying his unauthorized conquest of Mexico[citation needed].

At this point in his life, Cortés was described by Gómara as restless, haughty, and mischievous[citation needed].

The Invasion of Mexico

The most notable achievement of Cortés' career was the invasion of Mexico and conquest of the Aztec empire. In 1518 Velázquez put him in command of an expedition to explore and secure the interior of Mexico for colonization. At the last minute, due to the old gripe between Velázquez and Cortés, he changed his mind and revoked his charter. Cortés ignored the orders and went ahead anyway in an act of open mutiny.

On the way to Tenochtitlan, Cortés made alliances with native American polities such as the Nahuas of Tlaxcala and the Totonacs of Cempoala. By the time he arrived in Tenochtitlan the Spaniards had a large army. At first, the Aztecs received Cortés' forces peacefully in Tenochtitlan where they stayed as guests at the palace of Moctezuma II. Moctezuma gave lavish gifts in gold to the Spaniards which enticed them to plunder vast amounts of gold. The balance turned and Moctezuma became a prisoner in his own house while the Spaniards began surveying his empire. When the Aztecs perceived the weakened state of their ruler they staged a rebellion in order to eject the Spaniards and their native American allies from the city. In the "La Noche Triste" the intruders were forced to flee over the causeway to the mainland and back to Tlaxcala. On the way they suffered great losses. But the Spaniards and their allies prevailed: with reinforcements arriving from Cuba, Cortés began a policy of attrition towards the island city of Tenochtitlan cutting off supplies and subduing the Aztecs' allied cities thus changing the balance. The decisive battle in this campaign was the siege of Tenochtitlan. Cortés' victory over the Aztecs at Tenochtitlan enabled the eventual Spanish conquest of Mexico.

Because of his conquests and all the gold and jewels he had collected, Cortés was very popular back home in Spain. King Charles I of Spain, who had become Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1519, appointed Cortés governor and captain general of the newly conquered territory.

Cortés was one of the first Spaniards to attempt to grow sugar in Mexico and one of the first to import African slaves to early colonial Mexico. At the time of his death his estate contained at least 200 slaves who were either native Africans or of African descent[

Death of Cuauhtémoc

The execution of Cuauhtémoc on the journey to Honduras was another instance of the misconception by Cortés of aboriginal conditions. It is not at all unlikely that the Mexican chieftain was party to a plan to exterminate the Spaniards while they were floundering through the forests and swamps. Cortés had Cuauhtémoc hanged over the strong objections of his men. Another account by Bernal Diaz del Castillo tells us that other Spaniards supported him on his decision to execute Cuauhtémoc. The execution eventually had to be carried out by Tlaxcallan soldiers.[

Sworn testimony at Cortés' many subsequent trials (for murdering his legal wife, etc.) has abundant testimony from friends and enemies alike that this crime ruined Cortés.

(Wikipedia)