THAT FATEFUL MOMENT WHEN TWO
                      CIVILIZATIONS CAME FACE TO FACE
 
                            Charles L. Mee Jr.
 
     Even before anyone came, there were amazing events: a comet
appeared and split into three; the waters of the lake boiled up
in a rage; a sign like a tongue of fire burned up into the sky,
up to the heavens. 
     These and other remarkable things began to happen ten years
before the Spaniards landed: omens that foretold their coming,
said the old men who drew pictographs of them some 30 years
afterward for the Fransciscan missionary Fray Bernardino de
Sahagun.
     According to Sahagun's aged native informants, a messenger
brought word of "towers or small mountains floating on the waves
of the sea."  The ships came in the spring of 1519, off the
northern shore of the Yucatan peninsula.  There were 11 all told
(or according to other sources, 10 or 12 ships), carrying 10
large bronze cannon, 4 falconets, or light cannon, stories of
powder and shot, 16 horses, some large dogs, 550 soldiers
(including 32 crossbowmen and 13 musketeers), 100 sailors along
with 200 Cuban natives, several black people and a few Indian
women.
     The Spaniards, with their white skin, their suits of armor,
their cannon and their horses, were an arresting sight.  "They
were very white," the old men told Sahagun.  Their faces were
like chalk.  Indian amazement, in any case, has been the theme of
most historians for the past four centuries and more, who have
written of the Spanish ships of supernatural size and appearance. 
The newcomers were observed riding on the backs of extraordinary
deerlike beasts, which snorted and bellowed, and whose running
made tremors "as if stones were raining on the earth."  Perhaps
these creatures who rode such beasts were gods, white gods.
     Yet the natives of the Yucatan and of Mexico could hardly
have been quite as astonished as all that.  In truth, just a year
before, in 1518, the Indians had seen Spaniards cruise precisely
this same coastline, in an expedition led by the aventurer Juan
de Grijalva.  The Indians had met the Spaniards and traded native
gold ornaments and jewels for green glass beads, some scissors,
pins and other trinkets.  And the year before Grijalva, Francisco
Hernandez de Cordoba had sailed into the Gulf of Mexico looking
for gold and silver and slaves.
     The new lot of Spaniards was led by Hernan Cortes, a soldier
of fortune whose parents had destined him for the law until he
had quit school at the age of 16.  According to an account
written years later by Cortes' private secretary and chaplain,
Francisco Lopez de Gomara, this "vexed his parents
exceedingly....He was a Source of trouble to his parents as well
as to himself, for he was restless, haughty, mischievous, and
given to quarreling, for which reason he decided to seek his
fortune."  Cortes arrived in the New World in 1504, and
eventually was chosen by Diego Velazquez, governor of Cuba, to
command an expedition to Mexico - for exploration and trade but,
officially at least, not to conquer or colonize.
     Even so, many of those who sailed with him were experienced
soldiers of fortune, men who had sighned up in the hope of
getting fame and riches, as well as conquering lands for Spain. 
Tough as they were, they were also committed, in a way we can
hardly understand today, to the mission of converting the Indians
to Christianity.  Along the route of their journey, they picked
up Jeronimo de Aguilar, a Spaniard who had been shipwrecked eight
years before, then enslaved by the Maya, learning thier language. 
The Spaniards also picked up a woman sold to the Maya by allies
of the Aztecs.  They called her Dona Marina.  She spoke Nahuatl,
the language of the Aztecs, as well as Maya.  As the Spaniards
moved into Aztec territory, she was helpful, translating from
Nahuatl into Maya, while Aguilar translated from Maya into
Spanish.
     On Holy Thursday, 1519, the fleet found safe harbor on the
island of San Juan de Ulua, as the Spaniard called it, off
Mexico's eastern shore.  As Bernal Diaz, one of Cortes' foot
soldiers who chronicled these events years later, tells the
story, they no sooner had dropped anchor than two large canoes
came out filled with Aztec ambassadors.  The Indians brought with
them some gifts, and they were taken aboard the flagship and
given food and wine and some blue beads.
     "They said that their lord," related Bernal Diaz, "a servant
of the great Montezuma [as the Spanish spelled it], had sent them
to find out what kind of men we were and what we were seeking." 
According to Gomara, the Indians also asked the Spaniards, with
exemplary diplomatic tact, "whether they intended to stop or
continue on beyond."  Cortes replied that the Spaniard had come
to speak to the lord of the Aztecs. (According to Sahagun's
native informants the Spaniards were not as polite as all that. 
They put the Indians in irons and fired off a cannon to scare
them.)
     By Easter Sunday, a local Aztec governor had arrived.  His
name was Tentlil, and he was accompanied, says Gomara, by more
than 4,000 men, all unarmed, handsomely dressed and loaded with
presents.  Tentlel had brought along some artists, who made
portraits in the style of Aztec picture-writing, of Cortes, his
captains and soldiers, his ships and horses and guns - a detailed
report to send back to Montezuma.  When Cortes asked to see
Montezuma himself, saying that the Spaniards came as ambassadors
from the greatest king on earth, Tentlel graciously replied that
word would be sent to Montezuma.  Some sources say that Tentlil
at first inquired testily, "How is it that you have been here
only two days, and demand to see the emperor?"  Cortes asked
whether Montezuma had any gold, and Tentlil replied that he did. 
It was then, apparently, that Cortes said, in a phrase that has
rung down through the ages, "Send me some of it, because I and my
companions suffer from a disease fo the heart which can be cured
only with gold."
     From his capital city of Tenochtitlan, the present site of
Mexico City, the emperor Montezuma II ruled over a vast imperial
domain in central Mexico stretching from the Gulf Coast to the
Pacific Ocean, and as far south as present-day Guatemala.  He was
chosen by a group of about a hundred of the richest and most
powerful members of the ruling class, and he had to maintain his
rule with subtle and skillfun maneuvering.  Central Mexico at the
time probably had a population of perhaps 25 million, with 2
million or so in the region about Tenochtitlan.  Of these,
perhaps a total of 500,000 could be mustered as soldiers, though
the offensive force here comprised, on average, probably about
50,000 men.
     Montezuma's reply to Cortes came back to the coast
accompanied by more extremely lavish gifts, and word that
Montezuma "rejoiced to learn about" Cortes' great king, and that
Cortes should determine what he needed for himself and  "the cure
of his sickness," as well as whatever supplies he needed for his
men and his ships.  But, as for Montezuma and the Spanish leader
meeting, that would be "impossible."
     Undismayed, Cortes gathered a sample of Spanish wealth to
send to the emperor, inquiring again about a meeting and the
possibility of trade.  While he waited he had some surprise
visitors, five Indians from the city of Zempoala - a city, they
said, that had recently been brought under Montezuma's yoke by
force of arms.
     This piece of news electrified Cortes.  As Diaz puts it, he
learned "that Montezuma had opponents and enemies, which greatly
delighted him."  Very quickly, Cortes would come to learn how
extraordinarily fragile this great empire of Montezuma's was. 
Mexico was a loose organization of villages and city-states
linked together in an uneasy alliance.  Their inhabitants spoke
more than 20 different languages and hundreds of different
dialects.  Their local loyalties made them resentful of central
government.  The empire, in short, was based upon the conquest
and subjugation of many embittered peoples.  Cortes instantly saw
the possibility of revolt in Mexico, with himself as the leader.
     Eager to be rid of Cortes, Montezuma apparently reiterated
in his next communication that the Spaniards might have whatever
they needed by then must take their fleet and leave.  Now surer
of his ground, Cortes refused.  It was impossible, he insisted,
for the Spaniards to leave without seeing the emperor.  Montezuma
had provided men to wait on the Spaniards, but about this time,
Cortes saw that these people had disappeared.  He called his
captains together and told them to prepare for war.
     The route the Spaniards eventually took to Montezuma's
capital city was circuitous.  First they headed north, to
Zempoala, finding the people ready to join in an uprising against
Montezuma.  From there, gathering allies, they moved on to
Quiahuitzlan, where they came across some of Montezuma's tax
collectors - and had them arrested.  (Later, Cortes quietly set
them free for diplomatic purposes.)  As soon as the chiefs of the
neighboring towns heard that the Spaniards had arrested
Montezuma's tax collectors, they joined forces of allegiance. 
Almost overnight his tiny force was increased by thousands of
fighting men.
 
Stones came like hail from Indian slings
 
After establishing a base at Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, the
Spaniards and their new allies ventured into the territory of the
Tlaxcalans, where their mettle was tested in battles with several
thousand warriors.  The Indians fought with clubs, spears,
slings, arrows, and darts; the Spanish with lances, artillery,
muskets, crossbows and swords.  Some days of nearly continuous
hand-to-hand fighting occured.  Stones came like hail from the
Indians' slings, Diaz says, and "their barbed and fire-hardened
darts fell like corn on the threshing floor."
     The Spaniards "wondered what would happen," Diaz adds, "when
we had to fight Motezuma if we were reduced to such straits by
the Tlaxcalans, whom our Compoalan allies described as a peaceful
people."  But in the end they had the victory, the first of many.
     How, in fact, was it possible for this little band of
Spaniards to march into unknown territory, defeat the vast armies
brought against them, and lose only two score or so Spanish lives
in such encounters?
     First of all, not too much faith should be placed in the
numbers used to describe the size of the enemy.  Though the
various Spanish estimates range from 30,000 to 100,000 warriors,
it is clear that if such numbers were accurate, only a miracle
could explain a Spanish victory.  That miracle would seem less
necessary if, say, a decimal point were moved, given the
Tlaxcalans 10,000 warriors at most.  Even so, the Spaniards were
greatly outnumbered.
     Not too much credit can be given to the Spanish crossbows. 
Although they outclassed Indian bows, they were difficult to use. 
Nor can too much credit be given to the purely material effects
of gunpowder.  Spanish powder was often wet, and the rate of fire
cannon and muskets was appallingly slow.
      The psychological effect of gunpowder and horsed and
glistening armor, though, must have been phenomenal.  The
Spaniards must have impressed the Indians in the way that street
demonstrators are impressed - and suddenly made to feel
vulnerable - when heavily armed, modern riot police wade into the
midst of a crowd.  Besides, some Indian tactics helped the
Spaniards.  They tended not to kill their enemies, hoping to
wound and capture them mainly for use as sacrifices to the gods. 
They also stopped fighting periodically to remove their dead and
wounded from the battlefield.  At close range, the Indians used
wooden clubs tipped and ridged with razor-sharp obsidian - a
vicious weapon against other Indians, but one which probably
shattered against Spanish helmets.
     The Spaniards brought their swords into this close combat,
and they were dreadfully effective.  Pointed and double-bladed,
they could stab, and slash left and right, quickly killing of
maiming.  Driving directly at warriors clustered around their
leaders, the Spaniards would often capture or kill a local chief. 
Once their chief was taken, his men usually fell back.
     After two weeks the Taxcalans surrendered, agreeing to join
Cortes against the Aztecs.  As the Spaniards penetrated farther
and farther into Mexico, they recruited allies until, when they
reached Tenochtitlan at last, their forces included about 5,000
Indians.
     As the Spaniards advanced, they laid waste to the town of
Cholula.  It was there that Cortes killed 3,000 Indians, because,
he said, they had plotted with Montezuma to attack him.  Other
sources describe it as an unprovoked massacre.  In any case, as
they approached Tenochititlan the Spaniards' reputation for
savagery and invincibility grew gerater and greater.
     By the time they had reached the city of Cuitlahuac, just
southeast of Tenochtitlan, they had entered the lake country in
the Valley of Mexico, where the towns were sometimes built
entirely in the water, connected to the land by broad causeways. 
The towns and stone buildings, says Diaz, "seemed like an
enchanted vision....Indeed, some of our soldiers asked whether it
was not all a dream."
     As they approached the Aztec capital the Spaniards set foot
on a causeway - wide enought for ten horsemen to ride abreast. 
And partway along it, Gomara says, they were met by 4,000
"gentlemen of the court" of Tenochtitlan, "richly dressed after
their fashion," who, each in turn, bowed to the Spaniards as a
sign of peace.  Then, just across a little bridge, the Spaniards
saw Montezuma.  "He walked," Gomara adds, "under a pallium of
gold and green feathers, strung about with silver hangings, and
carried by four gentlemen."  He was supported on the arms of two
royal princes.
     Courtiers walked ahead of Montezuma, sweeping the ground and
laying down thin mantles so that his feet would never touch the
earth.  Then came 200 lords, all barefoot, but wearing rich
cloaks.  Cortes stepped forward to embrace Montezuma; but the two
princes put out their hands at once to prevent it.  The tow
leaders exchanged brief greetings.  Only then was Cortes
permitted to step forward and take a splendid necklace of pearls
and cut glass and put it around the neck of Montezuma.
     The emperor ordered that Cortes and many of his Indian
allies be shown to a beautiful palace.  There, Montezuma himself
took Cortes by the hand, bidding him, Cortes says, to "sit on a
very rich throne...and then left saying that I shoud wait for
him."  In the heart of Montezuma's empire, the Spaniards and
their allies were surrounded.  The Aztecs, in turn, were
surrounded by more of Cortes' allies outside the city.  Frozen in
this balance of forces, they commenced a curious diplomatic
dance, one whose end was entirely unpredictable.
     Montezuma, Diaz reports, was about 40 years old, "of good
height, well proportioned, spare and slight."  He bathed every
afternoon, according to Diaz - twice a day, according to Gomara. 
The Spaniards, who sometimes slept in their armor without even
removing their shoes, were impressed by the frequency of
Montezuma's bathing.
     For a time the Spaniards were left alone.  The city in which
they found themselves would have impressed anyone.  Tenochtitlan
lay at the center of a vast bowl dominated by high mountains.  At
the bottom was a large plain and may shallow lakes, including
lake Texcoco, a large body of salt water.  The Axtec capital had
been built up atop mudbanks and islands until, like Venice, it
was a wonder of human artifice, laced with canals and bridges. 
Three long and wide causeways connected it to the mainland.  An
aqueduct brought fresh water from a hillside spring into the
middle of the city.
     Cortes describes a marketplace "twice as big as that of
Salamanca, with arcades all around, where more than sixty
thousand people come each day to buy and sell."  The array of
goods on sale reflected the far-flung trade that the Axtecs had
developed: all manner of birds - chickens, partridge, quail,
turtledoves, falcons - uses for food, for feathers, for hunting;
gold or featherwork in the form of butterfiled, trees, flowers; a
silver monkey that moved its feet and head; carved turquoise and
emeralds; stuff made of conchs and perwinkles; toys for children;
ointments, syrups and culinary delicacies, such as little
barkless dogs that had been castrated and fattened.  There were
even cakes made from a sort of scum skinned from the ooze on the
lake's surface and dried, to be eaten like cheese.  "Delicious,"
says Gomara.
     All around the city, according to Cortes, were many temples,
"beautiful buildings," but among them all, there was one "whose
great size and magnificence no human tongue could describe."  The
main temple occupied a site about 70 by 80 yards at its base,
with two staircases leading up nearly 200 feet to a terrace and
twin shrines.  There the stones were splatered black with the
blood of human sacrifices.
     Most often, the victim would be led or dragged to the top of
the temple steps and stretched out over a block of stone by five
priests.  A priest would cut him open, reach in and pluck out his
still-beating heart.  The heart was offered up in a sacred
vessel, often to placate the Sun.  The body was thrown down the
temple steps and then flayed and cut up.  Its skull went to a
great skull rack (where, according to Gomara, there were 136,000
skulls, arranged in rows, teeth outward), and the remainder was
sometimes ceremoniously eaten, usually by the warriors who had
captured the victim.
     In the days to come, as Cortes and Montezuma met, Cortes
broached his wish to convert Montezuma to Christianity and spoke
fo the evils of the Aztec gods - a topic of conversation that
must have struck Montezuma as outrageously rude, and irrelevant
to the business of conducting trade or to negotioations between
an emperor and a visiting captain general.
 
A commander "beset with misgivings"
 
For their part, the Spaniards evidently became increadingly
uneasy about the absurdity and perilousness of their position. 
Even Cortes himself came to feel "beset with misgivings," sharing
a dreadful sense of being caught in a web from which he and his
men could never escape.  It had begun to dawn on them that there
was no reason for Montezuma to let them leave Tenochtitlan alive. 
Eventually, they devised a most astounding way out of their
dilemma.  They decided to seize Montezuma and hold him hostage in
his own city.
     And so, says Gomara, Cortes took some of his soldiers with
him to pay a call on the emperor.  Cortes greeted Montezuma "as
usual, and then began to jest and banter with him, as he had done
before."  But soon enough Cortes got to the point, and told the
emperor that he would need to come and stay with the Spaniards. 
Montezuma was "profoundly shaken," says Gomara, and replied, "My
person is not such as can be taken prisoner, and even if I should
consent to it, my people would not suffer it."
     According to Diaz, Cortes and Montezuma spent more than half
an hour discussing the question.  Cortes' soldiers grew jittery. 
"What is the use of all these words?" one of them burst out. 
"Either we take him or we knife him. If we do not look after
ourselves now we shall be dead men."  In the end Montezuma went
peacefully with the Spaniards.
     How was it that the Aztec emperor could have allowed himself
to be placed in such a position?  Sahagun's informants gave an
explanation of the mystery that has endured ever since: Montezuma
and the Aztecs thought that Cortes was none other than the
ancient god-king Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, who,
according to religious myth, had been driven from his kingdom
vowing one day to return and reassert his rule.  Therefore some
historians believe that Montezuma was a prisoner of his own
mythology.  The myth is a wonderful explanation but, as British
archaeologist Nigel Davis points out, it "has been rather
overplayed in popular accounts."  Besides, purely diplomatic
protocol provides a reasonable explanation - Montezuma waited for
Cortes to arrive at Tenochtitlan simply because it was the Aztec
custom that an ambassador was immune to harm.
     Or it may be that, as word came of Spanish military and
diplomatic victories, Montezuma came to comprehend that these
strangers needed to be handled with great care.  This, in any
case, appears to have been Cortes' view.  As Gomara explains,
Montezuma "did not wish to stir up trouble for himself (and this
was the truest reason)" by offering open resistance to Cortes and
thus perhaps encouraging more of his discontented subjects to
join the Spaniards in an attempt to unseat his power.  He would
prusue the strategy of the spider and the fly; he would bring
Cortes into Tenochtitlan and informally hold him hostage, in the
same way that he customarily held numerous rival chiefs as
permanent hostages.
     While the Spaniards kept Montezuma in captivity - sometimes,
indeed, in manacles - the myth of Montezuma's rule had to be
maintained.  Each day the Spaniards would ask him what his orders
and his wants were, and these were carried out.  Sometimes Cortes
and Montezuma would sit together and play totoloque, a game that
involved tossing small pellets of gold for higher stakes, usually
more gold or jewelry.
     Eventually, perhaps trying to quench the Spanish thirst for
gold, Montezuma agreed not only to open up his personal treasure
but to call in gifts from his whole empire and give them to
Cortes.  The list of what he gave is breathtaking: gold and
silver and pearls, golden nose crescents and necklaces, blowguns
inlaid with silver, silver plates and cups, pitchers and saucers. 
There was so much gold treasure from Montezuma;s gifts alone,
says Diaz, that it took the Spaniards three days just to examine
it all.
     Soon afterward it appeared that some of the Aztec leaders,
tired of seeing their emperor truckling to the Spaniards, told
Montezuma that either the Spaniards should take their leave or
the Aztecs should kill them.  Aware of the danger, Cortes ordered
that the horses be kept saddled and bridled day and night;
Spanish soldiers slept in their armor, their weapons beside them.
     But just at the critical point - it was May 1520 -
Montezuma's messengers brought news that another Spanish fleet,
captained by Panfilo de Narvaez, had been spotted back at San
Juan de Ulua, where Cortes had originally landed.  A picture
painted on cloth was brought to Montezuma.  There were 18 ships,
80 horses, and 900 soldiers.
     Cortes greeted the news with an appearance of relief, even
joy.  However, out of Montezuma's presence he grew "very
thoughtful," Diaz says.  He guessed that Diego Velazquez had sent
the fleet to put a stop to his enterprise, and he sensed the
presence of rivals for the Aztec riched as well as a possible
split among the Spaniards that the Aztecs might exploit.  Cortes
left for the coast, taking about 120 soldiers with him and
leaving fewer than 100 at Tenochtitlan, under the command of
Pedro de Alvarado, a man with the reputation of being brave but
cruel.
     At Zempoala, Cortes took Narvaez's army by surprise at
night.  Narvaez himself got a pike thrust that cost him an eye
and was put into irons.  Most of his men joined Cortes,
augmenting his force with a large and fresh lot of soldiers,
including, as Gomara reports, "a Negro sick with the smallpox"
who would, as we now know, turn out to be a very significant
figure in the final tragedy.
     Back in Tenochtitlan, however, the whole city had exploded
into violence.  The Indians had been celebrating the annual
festival of Toxcatl in the courtyard of the great temple square
with "drums, conch trumpets, bone fifes" and other instruments. 
They were covered with necklaces and jewels, feathers and pearls,
and danced in circles, accompanied by sacred singing.  In the
midst of the dancing the Spanish soldiers abruptly closed off all
the exits and, with swords drawn, waded into the midst of the
dancers.
     "They attacked the man who was drumming," according to
Sahagun's native informants, "and cut off his arms.  Then they
cut off his head, and it rolled across the floor.  They attacked
all the celebrants, stabbing them, spearing them....Others they
beheaded...or split their heads into pieces....Some attempted to
run away, but...they seemed to tangle their feet in their own
entrails."
     The next day the Aztecs who had not been trapped in the
courtyard counterattacked.  Full-scale fighting swept through the
city, bringing about all of the horrors that Montezuma apparently
had feared and labored for so long to avoid.  The emperor
watched, powerless, as the city, which had thus far been saved
from bloodshed, was threatened with disaster.  The Aztecs closed
off the causeways, destroyed some of the bridges over which the
Spaniards might escape and threw up barricades around the palace,
hoping to starve the Spaniards out.
 
Trapped inside the Aztec city
 
Hearing the news, Cortes at once rushed back toward Tenochtitlan. 
As he passed through the countryside, he discovered "all the land
was in revolt and almost uninhabited."  In late June, when he
reentered Montezuma's city, he found the streets almost deserted. 
There was an ominous quiet, as the Aztecs let the Spaniards back
into the trap.  By the next morning, the roads around
Tenochtitlan were filled with angry warriors, all of them enemies
of the Spaniards.  The thousands of Cortes' native allies now
seemed to melt away, except for the few thousand Taxcalans
trapped with the Spaniards inside the city.
     "Such a multitude" of Aztecs now swarmed in to surround the
Spaniards' quarters, says Cortes, "that neither the streets nor
the roofs of the houses could be seen for them."  And soon, so
many stones began to be "hurled at us from their slings into the
fortress that it seemed they were raining from the sky...."
     Wave after wave of Aztecs repeatedly attacked, often running
headlong into Spanish guns, cannon and swords.  Some tried to
scale the walls of the palace.  Finally, they shot burning arrows
into the fortress, hoping to smoke the enemy out.  One whole
section of the palace fell, but the attackers never got in.
     At last Cortes sent for Montezuma and asked him to go up to
the roof of the palace and tell his people to stop the fighting
and let the Spaniards leave in peace.  According to Diaz,
Montezuma mounted to the roof, and a great silence fell over the
thousands who swarmed over the streets and nearby rooftops.  The
emperor begged his people to put down their arms and let the
Spaniards go.  But, Diaz says, the chiefs replied to Montezuma -
"in tears" - that they no longer recognized him as their leader,
and they would not stop now until all the Spaniards were dead,
"and they begged for his forgiveness."
     And then, a shower of darts and stones was thrown at
Montezuma.  The Spanish soldiers rushed the emperor back inside
the palace.  But soon thereafter, because he refused to eat or
have is wounds tended, Montezuma died.
     While most sources agree with this account, some, mostly
native sources, say that Montezuma was murdered by the Spaniards
back in their palace quarters.
     It was now imperative for the Spaniards to get out of the
city.  In the middle of the night of June 30, 1520, they brought
the gold and jewels and silver out into the middle of a hall in
the palace.  Those who wanted some, took it and stuffed it into
their packs and clothes.  Shortly before midnight, Cortes and his
men made a run for it across one of the causeways.
     The horsemen went out first, presumably to charge and
scatter any Aztecs who might block the way.  They were followed
by soldiers carrying a makeshift wooden bridge to be used in
place of the bridges the Aztecs had destroyed.  The retreating
Spanish managed to slam the bridge down across the first break
they came to.  They had caught the Aztecs by surprise, and so a
good many Spaniards slipped past the main mass of Indians.  But
then an alarm sounded - trumpets, cries and whistles - and their
retreat became a headlong dash down the causeway.  Crowds of
Aztec warriors threw stones and spears at them, and, as Diaz
says, they had to leave the bridge behind at the first gap.
     Trying to get over the next gap without the bridge was a
disaster.  As horses slipped and fell into the water, cannon and
bundles and boxes followed.  The Spaniards rushed on from gap to
gap, fleeing ahead of the Aztec warriors, braving the improvised
gauntlet of warrior-filled canoes on either side of the causeway. 
Those who had been most greedy about stuffing gold into their
clothes were among the first to sink with the weight of it as
they crossed.  "So those who died," Gomara notes dryly, "died
rich."
     According to Diaz, there had been 1,300 Spanish soldiers in
Tenochtitlan in those days (much of Cortes' original army, plus
Narvaez's reiforcements) as well as 2,000 native warriors, mostly
Tlaxcalans.  Estimated of those killed in the siege and flight
from the city range from 450 to 860 Spaniards and 1,000 to 4,000
Tlaxcalans.
     The survivors continued to flee, all the way to the city of
Tlaxcala, where their strongest allies took them in.  For Cortes
and the Tlaxcalans, there was no quitting the struggle with the
Aztecs.
     Realizing that to take back the Aztec capital he would have
to attack and seize the city from both the causeways and the
surrounding water, Cortes had boats built so they could be
carried piecemeal over land and then assembled to operate in the
shallow lake waters.  In late December of 1520, Cortes reentered
the Valley of Mexico, secured the shores of the lake, and
destroyed the aqueduct that brought the main supply of fresh
water into the city.
     In late April 1521, the siege began, Cortes sending his
boats across the water, and his foot soldiers down the causeways. 
The Aztecs had prepared their defenses by planting sharpened
stakes just under the water at the gaps in the causeway.  As
fighting continued, the Spanish kept filling in the gaps with
stones and rubble, but at night the Aztecs reopened them.  Once,
when the Aztecs took prisoners, they cut off the heads of some
and bowled them at the approaching army.
     Day and night, the fighting went on.  The Spaniards would
secure a street, only to find it taken back the next day.  At
last Cortes instructed his men to advance, slowly and
deliberately, removing every Aztec barricade, destroying every
Aztec tower and house as they went.  The slow, grinding reduction
to Tenochtitan went on for three months, and toward the end, the
stench of bodies piled high in the streets and rotting in the
water was appalling.  In the last offensive, so "piteous" was the
wailing of women and childern, says Gomara, that Cortes urged his
men to spare the populace, but they kept on.  As the city began
at last to collapse, a gush of old men, women and children came
flooding out toward the causeways with such force, "that they
pushed each other into the water, were many were drowned."
     The end came on August 13, 1521.  The few Aztec warriors
still alive gathered on the rooftops of the houses that still
stood, and "stared at the ruins of their city in a dazed
silence."  As the Spaniards walked at last down in the inner
streets of the conquered city, they tied handkerchiefs over their
noses to guard against the stench.  They went through town,
seeing the stagnant and briny water that had served as drinking
water in these last days of Tenochtitlan, and the remnants of
what the Aztecs had had for food: lizards and salt grasses from
the lake, twigs, roots and tree bark.
     Among the piles of bodies were people who had died not so
much of wounds as of strarvation and of various diseased,
especially smallpox - the virus that had been brought ashore by
the man in Narvaez's crew, a virus that had made its way across
Mexico with Cortes' army.  The populations of the Americas had no
resistance to it.
     In some regions of Mexico, the mortality rate was so great
that the living could not bring themselves to bury the dead.  It
was said that the Indians, overwhelmed by the task, sometimes
pulled down the houses on top of the dead to bury them.
     Cortes' story did not end here.  Like many other New World
adventurers, he went on to great wealth and power.  But in the
end, accused of murder and mismanagement, he died broken-hearted
in Spain.  The pestilence that his invasion brought did not end
with the death of Tenochtitlan, either.  Smallpox and other
epidemics spread throughout the countryside, subsided and
recurred, subsided and recurred, until, eventually, of a total
population of perhaps 25 million, as many as 22 million died.
     And with the death of so many, a civilization died - not
simply a city or a government or an empire, but most of the
accumulated knowledge of life and art and skill, so that, in
time, practically all that remained of it were its artifacts and
its story of the inevitability, in life and in history, of
tragedy, and surprise.
 
 
     This article was taken from Smithsonian, vol. 23, No. 7
(October 1992), published by Smithsonian Associates, 900
Jefferson Drive, Washington, DC 20560.
 
 
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