The Last Aztec
The siege
Cortés retreated to Tlaxcala and regrouped. He forged alliances with the town of Tepeaca and with the Cholollans, and recruited a huge force of more than 10,000 warriors. He led his new army back to the Valley of Mexico, and built ships on the eastern lake shore. Then, dividing his force into three bases, one at each of the three causeways, he launched short, sharp attacks on Tenochtitlan.
The Spanish ‘gift’
Thousands of Aztec citizens were killed in daily fighting
The Aztecs resisted fiercely and the war turned into a siege. The Spanish burnt buildings and bridges, cut off food supplies to the city and destroyed its aqueducts. Already weakened by an epidemic of smallpox – a ‘gift’ from the Spaniards – thousands of Aztec citizens were killed in daily fighting. They held out for 93 days, while their city was burned around them. Only when the Spanish had seized the royal palace and the Great Temple and their new emperor had been caught trying to flee did they surrender.
On 13 August 1521, the Aztec empire finally fell.
Missing idols
The great Aztec capital was in ruins, its sacred idols missing. They were said to have been smuggled out by priests and hidden in the Sierra Madre, along with Moctezuma’s treasure. During the years that followed, as Cortés built a new Christian city on the rubble and claimed the vast wealth of the gold mines for Spain, he made several attempts to find this treasure.
It is still missing.
