Cortés landed on the east coast in 1519, bringing with
him an army of only a few hundred men, and began his long march on
Tenochtitlán. Several key factors assured his survival: superior
weaponry, which included firearms; the shock effect of horses
(never having seen such animals, the Aztecs at first believed them
to be extensions of their riders); the support of tribes who were
either enemies or suppressed subjects of the Aztecs; and the
unwillingness of the Aztec emperor to resist openly.
Moctezuma II (Montezuma), who had suffered heavy defeats
in campaigns against the Tarascans in the west, was a broodingly
religious man who, it is said, believed Cortés to be the
pale-skinned, bearded god Quetzalcoatl, returned to fulfil ancient
prophecies. Accordingly he admitted him to the city - fearfully,
but with a show of ceremonious welcome. By way of repaying this
hospitality the Spanish took Moctezuma prisoner, and later attacked
the great Aztec temples, killing many priests and placing Christian
chapels alongside their altars. Meanwhile, there was growing unrest
in the city at the emperor's passivity and at the rapacious
behaviour of his guests. Moctezuma was eventually killed -
according to the Spanish stoned to death by his own people while
trying to quell a riot - and the Spaniards driven from the city
with heavy losses. Cortés, and a few of his followers, however,
escaped to the security of Tlaxcala, most loyal of his native
allies, there to regroup and plan a new assault. Finally, rearmed
and reinforced, their numbers swelled by indigenous allies, and
with ships built in secret, they laid a three-month siege, finally
taking the city in the face of suicidal opposition in August
1521.
The city's defeat is still a harsh memory: Cortés himself is
hardly revered, but the natives who assisted him, and in particular
Moctezuma and Malinche, the woman who acted as Cortés's
interpreter, are non-people. You won't find a monument to Moctezuma
in the country, though Cuauhtémoc, his successor who led the fierce
resistance, is commemorated everywhere; Malinche is represented,
acidly, in some of Diego Rivera's more outspoken murals. More
telling, perhaps, of the bitterness of the struggle, is that so
little physical evidence remains: "All that I saw then," wrote
Bernal Díaz, "is overthrown and destroyed; nothing is left
standing."