The Conquest of Tenochtitlan

Upon entering the great Azetc City of Tenochtitlan, Cortez's conquistadores behold the following:

By far the largest city in the Americas, Tenochtitlan occupied a cluster of islands in a large lake.  Interwoven with canals, the city reached the mainland by three long and narrow causeways.  Fresh water arrived by a stone aqueduct.  Most of the whitewashed stone adobe buildings were small and humble, but some lofty aristocratic houses embraced internal courtyards and gardens.  Above all, the Spanish marveled at the immense palace of Moctezuma.  Cortez declared, "In Spain there is nothing to compare with it."  The city's central plaza of tall stone pyramid-temples also dazzled with a combination of red, blue, and ocher stucco.  Dedicated to both Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec's god of war, and Tlaloc, their god of rain, the largest pyramid stood sixty meters tall.  Every year it hosted public ritual human sacrifices of captured people, their chests cut open and their still-beating hearts held up to the sun. 

The population of about 200,000 dwarfed the largest city in Spain, Seville, which had only 70,000 inhabitants.  Accustomed to the din, clutter, and filth of European cities, Spaniards marveled at the relative cleanness and order of the Aztec Metropolis.  The soldier Bernal Diaz del Castillo recalled, "These great towns and pyramids and buildings arising from the water, all made of stone, seemed like an enchanted vision from the tale of Amadis.  Indeed, some of our soldiers asked whether it was not all a dream."  

The Spanish destroy Tenochtitlan, using the Aztecs' "heathen" religious icons and human sacrifices as justification.  

In August 1521, after four months of fighting, the Spanish and their native allies reduced the city to bloody rubble.  Recalling his first dazzled vision of Tenochtitlan, Diaz del Castillo sadly concluded, "But today all that I then saw is overthrown and destroyed; nothing is left standing."

An Aztec poem recalls the end.

Broken spears lie in the roads;
We have torn our hair in our grief. 

The houses are now roofless,
And their walls are red with blood. 

Worms are swarming in the streets and plazas,
And the walls are splattered with gore.
The water has turned red, as if it were dyed,
and when we drink it, it has the taste of brine. 

We have pounded our hands in despair
Against the Adobe walls,
For our inheritance, our city, is lost and dead.
The shields of our warriors were its defense,
but they could not save it.

Cortez becomes the richest man in Spain.


-- American Colonies: The Settling of North America
   Alan Taylor
   pp 53 - 54
   Penguin Books
   The Penguin History of the United States
    Eric Foner, Editor
    Penguin Books 2002