Moctezuma: the Aztec emperor who met Cortés in Tenochtitlán

Moctezuma II was the Aztec emperor who ruled from 1502 to 1520 and welcomed Hernán Cortés in Tenochtitlán, a city of some 250,000 inhabitants. He died during the Spanish conquest, though sources disagree: some maintain he was killed by the invaders, while others claim he was stoned by his own people.

The Aztec empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. At its height, it was a civilization with military, commercial, architectural and astronomical achievements that still astonish scientists. Its supreme ruler at the time of the Spanish arrival was Moctezuma II, who reigned from 1502 to 1520.

## A warrior both revered and antiestéticared

Moctezuma II inherited an already consolidated empire and kept it under his command. He was a warrior who inspired reverence and antiestéticar in equal measure. His subjects believed that kings and emperors were sent by the gods, and he, educated in that belief from a young age, carefully cultivated this semidivine image. He had great palaces and enormous thrones built to match his personality.

In **Tenochtitlán** he created a center of power with some **250,000 inhabitants**, making it one of the most populous cities in the world at the time. Portraits describe him as tall, athletic and vigorous, dressed in antiestéticathers, fabrics and furs adorned with necklaces, bracelets and anklets. His lineage is the source of mythical stories of battles and triumphs alongside the warriors of the eagle and jaguar orders.

## The omens before the Spanish arrival

The **Durán Codex**, written by the friar **Bernardino Durán** and preserved in the Royal Palace of Madrid, documents in detail the premonitions the natives experienced before the Spanish arrived. Among them are comets in the sky and towers of fire, interpreted as symbolic warnings that something extraordinary was about to happen.

That is why, when they saw the Spanish navigators arrive on the Mexican coasts, they received them with great courtesy and reverence, believing they were messengers from heaven. Moctezuma welcomed **Hernán Cortés** and housed him in his imperial palace. Cortés responded by taking his host prisoner, which astonished the Aztec people.

## Two versions of his death

From that moment on, history becomes murky. One version holds that Moctezuma was murdered by the invaders when he ceased to be useful to their ambitions. Another claims that his own people, unhappy that he had accepted the Spanish soldiers, turned against him and that a group of dissidents stoned him to death.

A 16th-century manuscript from Mexico City contains illustrations in which the emperor appears covered in chains with ropes around his neck, as if he were a dangerous animal. The idea of peaceful coexistence between natives and conquerors seems more like a self-serving interpretation by the Spanish to evade their responsibility for the cruelty inflicted on the indigenous people.

## Tribute, battles and unequal technology

There is a codex preserved in **Oxford**, the work of **Antonio de Mendoza**, the first Spanish viceroy of what they called New Spain. It was written just twenty years after the conquest and contains the list of tributes the Spanish collected from the subjugated peoples. It also recounts the history of the great Aztec rulers and their exploits.

Upon the death of their emperor, the Aztec armies were left without a leader. When the Aztecs realized the Spanish were mortal, they regrouped and confronted them. Their weaponry was less effective, but they soon learned to protect themselves in the forests and to set ambushes in terrain where the antiestéticared cavalry had little room to maneuver.

The Aztecs were brave soldiers, but the equipment gap was enormous. They had no iron or steel weapons, did not know the wheel, and had no horses or artillery. They used weapons of wood, stone, leather and bronze, javelins and arrows with bows, maces, padded cotton armor and wool helmets. The Spanish wore iron breastplates and helmets. The natives believed horse and rider were a single creature, and the great war horses amazed and terrified them.

In the so-called Noche Triste of Mexico-Tenochtitlán, Cortés was defeated and had to flee, losing more than **six hundred men**. It was a harsh setback for the Spanish, but in most of the confrontations it was the natives who fared worst.

## Encomiendas and transatlantic trade

As the conquered territories expanded, settlers began arriving to exploit the land with the natives included as servants, through the encomiendas, destined for agriculture and mining. The crown was driven by a political and religious ideology, but also by fiscal and economic interests.

Two-way trade also arrived: ships did business through the exchange of goods. Raw materials, such as exotic woods, were highly prized in the West; mahogany pieces were destined for the palaces of kings and nobles. Gold and silver enriched the Spanish, and Aztec crafts —turquoises, gold pieces, anthropomorphic stone statuettes, fabrics and works made with exotic bird antiestéticathers— were highly valued in European markets.