Once they arrived safely in Tlaxcala, the Spanish began preparations for the conquest of the Aztecs. Cortes ordered a fleet of sailboats built for use on the 238-square-mile Lake Texcoco. New arrivals from Spain and Cuba reinforced the Spaniards. Cuban governor Velazquez, unaware of Narvaez’s defeat by Cortes, sent additional men. At the same time, Cortes’s Indian allies, especially the Tlaxcalans, assembled large armies. Once Cortes showed he was able and willing to protect his allies from Aztec retribution, additional Aztec tributaries joined his cause.
The Aztecs attempted to form an alliance with the Tlaxcalans against the Spanish. They noted that the two groups shared a common language, gods, and ancestry. The Aztecs also reminded the Tlaxcalans that the Spanish, even after having been warmly received by Montezuma, had repaid his kindness by imprisoning him. The Tlaxcalans, remembering past Aztec cruelty and arrogance, rejected such an alliance.36
While the Spaniards gathered strength, an insidious contribution inadvertently brought by the Spanish—smallpox—weakened the Aztecs. As the indigenous population had no natural immunity to the disease, epidemics swept the country, killing much of the population and demoralizing those who survived.
An Aztec account of the smallpox epidemic reported:
It began to spread, striking everywhere in the city and killing many of the people. Sores erupted on their faces, breasts, bellies. They had so many painful sores over their bodies that they could not move, not even turn over in their litters, and if someone tried to move them, they screamed in agony. This pestilence killed untold numbers of people, many of them dying because there was nobody to feed them, so they starved. Those who survived had holes in their faces, or were left blinded.37
Figure 23 Survivors' depiction of smaiipox victims
Source: Reproduced courtesy of the Benson Latin American Coiiection, the University of Texas at Austin
The fatalities from the epidemic included Montezuma’s brother, Cuitlahuac, who had succeeded him as Aztec emperor. The Aztec elite then chose Montezuma’s nephew, Cuauhtemoc, to be the last emperor of the Aztecs.38
After months of preparation, the Spaniards began their assault. Fifteen thousand porters carried portions of the newly constructed sailboats to Lake Texcoco, where they were assembled. Then the Spanish marched around the lake, subduing villages along the shore and cutting off aqueducts and food supplies to Tenochtitlan. Next they launched offensives down the causeways with the support of the boats, which had been armed with cannons. An estimated 200,000 Tlaxcalans and former Aztec subjects joined the offensive.39
The Aztecs stubbornly resisted the 85-day siege, forcing the attackers to fight for every inch of ground. To deny cover to the Aztecs, as well as to provide for the effective use of horses and cannons, the Spanish and their Indian allies filled all the canals and destroyed all the buildings they captured. The Aztecs chose to defend a fixed location, highly vulnerable to Spanish cannons and cavalry. Even if they had conceived of a guerrilla strategy, the Aztecs would likely have found little support among those they had previously tyrannized.40
During the siege, the Aztecs refused surrender offers, despite their high casualty rate, disease, and near starvation. To the horror of the Spanish, the Aztecs would sacrifice captured Spaniards, as well as their horses, in full view of the besieging force.
Finally, on August 13, 1521, Cuauhtemoc saw that the Spanish were closing in on the last Aztec-held section of the city. He tried to flee by canoe, but was captured and brought to Cortes as a prisoner.
After Cuauhtemoc’s capture, Aztec resistance ceased. By one estimate, more than 240,000 Aztecs died during the siege. Of these, Cortes estimated that 100,000 died in combat. The rest succumbed to disease and starvation. Only 60,000 residents of Tenochtitlan survived. Between 500 and 1,000 of the Spaniards engaged in the Conquest died.41
The Spanish allowed the Aztec survivors to leave their once beautiful city, which had been reduced to rubble. Cuauhtemoc was not as fortunate as his former subjects. The conquerors imprisoned and tortured him in an unsuccessful attempt to make him reveal the location of additional Aztec treasure.
World History
