Fall of Tenochtitlan

In 1521, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan fell to a Spanish expedition led by Hernán Cortés and a large force of indigenous allies. The surrender of the city ended the independent Aztec, or Mexica, state and opened the way for Spanish colonial rule over central Mexico. Mexico City was later built on the ruins, and the conquest remains one of the most consequential and debated episodes in the history of the Americas.

Tenochtitlan, founded on an island in Lake Texcoco in the fourteenth century, was the center of the Triple Alliance, a partnership of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan that dominated much of central Mexico. The empire collected tribute from many conquered peoples, and some of these resented the burden and the demands for captives for ritual sacrifice. When Cortés landed on the Gulf coast in 1519 with several hundred Spaniards, he found willing partners among these discontented groups, notably the Tlaxcalteca, who had long resisted Aztec domination.

Cortés entered Tenochtitlan in late 1519 and was received by the ruler Moctezuma II, who was soon held captive by the Spaniards. Tensions grew, and in 1520, after a massacre of Aztec nobles during a festival while Cortés was away, the population rose in revolt. Moctezuma died during this turmoil, though accounts differ over whether Spanish or Mexica hands were responsible. The Spaniards fled the city on the night later called the Noche Triste, suffering heavy losses.

Cortés regrouped with Tlaxcalan and other allies, and he had ships built to be carried in pieces and assembled on the lake. Meanwhile, a smallpox epidemic, introduced by the Europeans, swept through the region and killed a significant portion of the population, including the new ruler Cuitláhuac. The siege of Tenochtitlan began in the spring of 1521 and lasted roughly three months. Attackers cut off the causeways and the water supply, and fought through the city street by street. Under the last ruler, Cuauhtémoc, the defenders resisted fiercely, but famine and disease weakened them. The city fell in August 1521, and Cuauhtémoc was captured.

Indigenous allies made up the great majority of the attacking force, and many historians stress that the victory was as much their achievement as that of the Spaniards. Estimates of the numbers involved and of the dead vary widely and are uncertain.

The Spaniards razed much of the city and built the capital of New Spain over it, reusing its stones and its site. The conquest brought epidemic disease, forced labor and the imposition of Christianity, while also creating a new mixed society. Remains of the Templo Mayor, uncovered in the twentieth century, lie in the heart of modern Mexico City.