The Meeting of Montezuma and Cortes
-Jason

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Perhaps one of the most historically consequential meetings of civilizations took place on November 8, 1519, between Aztec Emperor Montezuma II and Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortez. The interactions of these two men would have world-changing consequences: the Spanish Empire would conquer the newly “discovered” lands of the Americas by destroying the indigenous civilizations and absorbing the survivors.

Montezuma II came to rule the Aztecs, or as they called themselves the Mexica, in either 1502 or 1503. The Mexica Empire was centered on the Triple-Alliance cities of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan which were in the Valley of Mexico. This Triple Alliance of Nahua tribes had been in existence for almost a century when acting as mercenaries for the existing city-states of the region. The Mexica of Tenochtitlan became the dominant military power of the Triple Alliance and overthrew their former overlords. The members of Triple Alliance felt it was better to stay as allies and quickly conquered the surrounding city-states. The Mexica Empire came to control what is now Central Mexico and parts of Central America bordering the Gulf of Mexico.

The Mexicas conducted ceremonial warfare against the peoples they conquered. These “Flower Wars” served to ensure a steady supply of prisoners to be used in Tenochtitlan as human sacrifices. In Mesoamerican cosmology, their world was ruled by many gods and spirits that determined rainfall, disease, fertility, among many other things, and humans needed to supply tribute and sacrifices to ensure that the gods and goddesses were fed, and that the world survived. Prisoners were collected from defeated city-states and kept in Tenochtitlan for a year. After that year, they were taken to the main temples to be sacrificed. The continuous need for more and more sacrifices generated hatred against the Mexica in the tributary peoples of their empire.

Columbus’s multiple voyages to the Caribbean Islands ushered in an era of imperial conquest: soldiers of fortune and adventurers left Europe to seize territory. Spanish, and later Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch, colonies were carved out of the soil and flesh of the native peoples of the Americas, beginning in the Caribbean. The natural resources of the Americas, extracted through slave labor, would spur European power and wealth as those empires absorbed the rest of the world.

Hernan Cortes was a Spanish adventurer who left Spain for the New World searching for fame and wealth. Cortes first arrived at Hispaniola in 1504 CE and later helped to conquer Cuba, all the while looking to acquire wealth and slaves. He received plots of land and slaves in Cuba from that colony’s governor, but these were not sufficient in his view: he needed more. Between 1511 and 1519 CE, Cortes assembled an expedition in Cuba that consisted of Spaniards from his original Spanish province, as well as those who had followed him to Cuba. He heard rumors about cities of gold found in the mainland of Central America and was determined to conquer and exploit those regions.

By 1519 Cortes had the soldiers and ships necessary to sail for Central America, but there was a problem: he had no authority to explore, much less conquer this region. The Spanish Throne was still trying to establish firm control of what it had already taken in the Caribbean. There were not enough Spanish colonists to fully occupy all the islands that had been seized. Adding even more territory and people to the growing Spanish Empire would further strain its ability to exploit it while also protecting it against other European powers. The Governor of Cuba sent a message to Cortes telling him to disband his expedition before it sailed. Cortes ignored the Governor and quickly sailed to the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Once he and his men reached land in February 1519, Cortes quickly encountered, and defeated, the coastal native people (an offshoot of the Mayans). He met Geronimo de Aguilar, a Franciscan monk who had been a prisoner of the Mayans and now acted as an interpreter. Cortex also met La Malinche, a native woman fluent in Mayan and Nahuatal, who would be his mistress and a second interpreter. By March 1519, Cortes set sail from the Yucatan Peninsula and sailed to the Tabasco Province of Mexico. There he and his crew received word that they had been declared mutineers and had been ordered to return to Cuba to face punishment. Cortes burned his ships to prevent his soldiers from fleeing. A small garrison was left behind on the coast and founded an outpost, soon to be city of Veracruz. They had been left behind to act as an early warning system to let Cortes known when the Spanish forces sent to arrest him arrived.

Emissaries from Montezuma arrived at Veracruz once word reached Tenochtitlan in hopes of dissuading the Spanish from marching further into the interior. It had the opposite effect: the Mexica gifts of gold fired the Spanish avarice and the desire to find the capital city germinated in the Europeans. In mid-August 1519, Cortes, Malinche, Aguilar, and 600 Spaniards marched inland. They encountered numerous native American peoples who initially fought against them. But Cortes did not annihilate these defeated peoples, instead he made them part of his forces as auxiliary soldiers and porters. Cortes encountered, defeated, and befriended the powerful city-state of Tlaxcala, which was an enemy of the Mexica. The Tlaxcalans saw the Spaniards as a powerful and useful ally that they could use to break free of Mexica domination. While these battles were taking place, Montezuma sent more emissaries and gifts hoping to turn the Spanish away.

On November 8, 1519, the combined Spanish-Tlaxcalan column reached the Valley of Mexico and Tenochtitlan. The sight that greeted the Europeans was stunning: spread before them were five lakes, each with cities clustered along the shores, and even on the water, as large, or larger than, contemporary European cities. Bridges spanned from the shore to the artificial islands that composed the bulk of Tenochtitlan. This was the seat of the Triple Alliance which hundreds of thousands of native people called this area home.

Spanish messengers were sent to Montezuma and his court informing him that Cortes was the representative of foreign monarchy that sought friendship with the Mexica. This was extremely disconcerting for the Mexica as they felt no desire to be friends with this invading and conquering foreign people. Despite his misgivings, Montezuma, his nobles, and his elite warriors marched to one of the causeways connecting the city to the shore to meet the Spaniards. Cortes and his lieutenants crossed to the halfway point of the causeway and waited for Montezuma to arrive.

Once Cortes saw Montezuma, he walked up to the Mexica Emperor and grasped his hand. This action could very well have led to the destruction of the Spanish due to the breaking of several cultural taboos: no one looked directly at the emperor, much less physically touched him. Everyone was caught in a state of tension and did not know what would happen after this faux pas. The Mexica warriors tensed preparing to attack but were silently given the order to not attack the interlopers. The Spaniards were swept up in the meeting of these two worlds. The first real contact between the Spanish and Mexica Empires passed peacefully, though tensions between these two alien peoples would eventually erupt into warfare.

Despite later tales regarding Montezuma and the Mexica believing that Cortes and his Spaniards were gods, this was not the reality: the Mexica nobles, warriors, and even Montezuma realized that the Spaniards were merely human. The Spaniards did have superior military technology and tactics, but it was the diseases they carried, and the native allies they gained on the march to Tenochtitlan, that would ultimately spell the end of the Aztecs.