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The American Yawp Reader

An Aztec account of the Spanish attack

An Aztec account of the Spanish attack

This source aggregates a number of early written reports by Aztec authors describing the destruction

of Tenochtitlan at the hands of a coalition of Spanish and Indian armies. This collection of sources

was assembled by Miguel Leon Portilla, a Mexican anthropologist.

When Montezuma had given necklaces to each one, Cortés asked him: “Are you Montezuma? Are

you the king? Is it true that you are the king Montezuma?”

And the king said: “Yes, I am Montezuma.” Then he stood up to welcome Cortés; he came forward,

bowed his head low and addressed him in these words: “Our lord, you are weary. The journey has

tired you, but now you have arrived on the earth. You have come to your city, Mexico. You have

come here to sit on your throne, to sit under its canopy.

“The kings who have gone before, your representatives, guarded it and preserved it for your coming.

The kings Itzcoatl, Montezuma the Elder, Axayacatl, Tizoc and Ahuitzol ruled for you in the City of

Mexico. The people were protected by their swords and sheltered by their shields.

“Do the kings know the destiny of those they left behind, their posterity? If only they are watching!

If only they can see what I see!

No, it is not a dream. I am not walking in my sleep. I am not seeing you in my dreams…. I have seen

you at last! I have met you face to face! I was in agony for �ve days, for ten days, with my eyes �xed on

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the Region of the Mystery. And now you have come out of the clouds and mists to sit on your

throne again.

This was foretold by the kings who governed your city, and now it has taken place. You have come

back to us; you have come down from the sky. Rest now, and take possession of your royal houses.

Welcome to your land, my lords!”

When Montezuma had �nished, La Malinche translated his address into Spanish so that the Captain

could understand it. Cortés replied in his strange and savage tongue, speaking �rst to La Malinche:

“Tell Montezuma that we are his friends. There is nothing to fear. We have wanted to see him for a

long time, and now we have seen his face and heard his words. Tell him that we love him well and

that our hearts are contented.”

Then he said to Montezuma: “We have come to your house in Mexico as friends. There is nothing to

fear.”

La Malinche translated this speech and the Spaniards grasped Montezuma’s hands and patted his

back to show their a�ection for him….

During this time, the people asked Montezuma how they should celebrate their god’s �esta. He said:

“Dress him in all his �nery, in all his sacred ornaments.”

During this same time, The Sun commanded that Montezuma and Itzcohuatzin, the military chief

of Tlatelolco, be made prisoners. The Spaniards hanged a chief from Acolhuacan named

Nezahualquentzin. They also murdered the king of Nauhtla, Cohualpopocatzin, by wounding him

with arrows and then burning him alive.

For this reason, our warriors were on guard at the Eagle Gate. The sentries from Tenochtitlan stood

at one side of the gate, and the sentries from Tlatelolco at the other. But messengers came to tell

them to dress the �gure of Huitzilopochtli. They left their posts and went to dress him in his sacred

�nery: his ornaments and his paper clothing.

When this had been done, the celebrants began to sing their songs. That is how they celebrated the

�rst day of the �esta. On the second day they began to sing again, but without warning they were all

put to death. The dancers and singers were completely unarmed. They brought only their

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← Journal of Christopher Columbus, 1492 Bartolomé de Las Casas Describes the Exploitation of Indigenous Peoples, 1542 →

embroidered cloaks, their turquoises, their lip plugs, their necklaces, their clusters of heron feathers,

their trinkets made of deer hooves. Those who played the drums, the old men, had brought their

gourds of snu� and their timbrels.

The Spaniards attacked the musicians �rst, slashing at their hands and faces until they had killed all

of them. The singers-and even the spectators- were also killed. This slaughter in the Sacred Patio

went on for three hours. Then the Spaniards burst into the rooms of the temple to kill the others:

those who were carrying water, or bringing fodder for the horses, or grinding meal, or sweeping, or

standing watch over this work.

The king Montezuma, who was accompanied by Itzcohuatzin and by those who had brought food

for the Spaniards, protested: “Our lords, that is enough! What are you doing? These people are not

carrying shields or macanas. Our lords, they are completely unarmed!”

The Sun had treacherously murdered our people on the twentieth day after the captain left for the

coast. We allowed the Captain to return to the city in peace. But on the following day we attacked

him with all our might, and that was the beginning of the war.

Miguel Leon Portilla, ed., The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico

(Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), pp. 64 66, 129 131.

Available through the Internet History Sourcebooks Project.  5

The American Yawp Reader

Bartolomé de Las Casas Describes the Exploitation of Indigenous Peoples, 1542

Bartolomé de Las Casas Describes the Exploitation of Indigenous Peoples, 1542

Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Spanish Dominican priest, wrote directly to the King of Spain hoping for

new laws to prevent the brutal exploitation of Native Americans. Las Casas’s writings quickly spread

around Europe and were used as humanitarian justi�cation for other European nations to challenge

Spain’s colonial empire with their own schemes of conquest and colonization.

 

Now this in�nite multitude of Men are by the Creation of God innocently simple, altogether void

of and averse to all manner of Craft, Subtlety and Malice, and most Obedient and Loyal Subjects to

their Native Sovereigns; and behave themselves very patiently, submissively and quietly towards the

Spaniards, to whom they are subservient and subject; so that �nally they live without the least thirst

after revenge, laying aside all litigiousness, Commotion and hatred…

The natives are capable of Morality or Goodness and very apt to receive the principles of Catholic

Religion; nor are they averse to Civility and good Manners…, I myself have heard the Spaniards

themselves (who dare not assume the Con�dence to deny the good Nature in them) declare, that

there was nothing wanting in them for the acquisition of eternal grace, but the sole Knowledge and

Understanding of the Deity….

The Spaniards �rst assaulted the innocent Sheep, so quali�ed by the Almighty, like most cruel tigers,

wolves, and lions, hunger-starved, studying nothing, for the space of Forty Years, after their �rst

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landing, but the Massacre of these Wretches, whom they have so inhumanely and barbarously

butchered and harassed with several kinds of Torments, never before known, or heard (of which you

shall have some account in the following Discourse) that of Three Millions of Persons, which lived

in Hispaniola itself, there is at present but the inconsiderable remnant of scarce Three Hundred.

Nay the Isle of Cuba, which extends as far, as Valladolid in Spain is distant from Rome, lies now

uncultivated, like a Desert, and entombed in its own Ruins. You may also �nd the Isles of St. John,

and Jamaica, both large and fruitful places, unpeopled and desolate. The Lucayan Islands on the

North Side, adjacent to Hispaniola and Cuba, which are Sixty in number, or thereabout, together

with those, vulgarly known by the name of the Gigantic Isles, and others, the most infertile whereof,

exceeds the Royal Garden of Seville in fruitfulness, a most Healthful and pleasant Climate, is now

laid waste and uninhabited; and whereas, when the Spaniards �rst arrived here, about Five Hundred

Thousand Men dwelt in it, they are now cut o�, some by slaughter, and others ravished away by

Force and Violence, to work in the Mines of Hispaniola, which was destitute of Native Inhabitants:

For a certain Vessel, sailing to this Isle, to the end, that the Harvest being over (some good Christian,

moved with Piety and Pity, undertook this dangerous Voyage, to convert Souls to Christianity) the

remaining gleanings might be gathered up, there were only found Eleven Persons, which I saw with

my own Eyes. There are other Islands Thirty in number, and upward bordering upon the Isle of St.

John, totally unpeopled; all which are above Two Thousand miles in length, and yet remain without

Inhabitants, Native, or People.

As to the �rm land, we are certainly satis�ed, and assured, that the Spaniards by their barbarous and

execrable Actions have absolutely depopulated Ten Kingdoms, of greater extent than all Spain,

together with the Kingdoms of Aragon and Portugal, that is to say, above One Thousand Miles,

which now lye waste and desolate, and are absolutely ruined, when as formerly no other Country

whatsoever was more populous. Nay we dare boldly a�rm, that during the Forty Years space,

wherein they exercised their sanguinary and detestable Tyranny in these Regions, above Twelve

Millions (computing Men, Women, and Children) have undeservedly perished; nor do I conceive

that I should deviate from the Truth by saying that above Fifty Millions in all paid their last Debt to

Nature.

Those that arrived at these Islands from the remotest parts of Spain, and who pride themselves in the

Name of Christians, steered Two courses principally, in order to the Extirpation, and Exterminating

of this People from the face of the Earth. The �rst whereof was raising an unjust, bloody, cruel War.

The other, by putting them to death, who hitherto, thirsted after their Liberty, or designed (which

the most Potent, Strenuous and Magnanimous Spirits intended) to recover their pristine Freedom,

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← An Aztec account of the Spanish attack Thomas Morton Re�ects on Indians in New England, 1637 →

and shake o� the Shackles of so injurious a Captivity: For they being taken o� in War, none but

Women and Children were permitted to enjoy the bene�t of that Country-Air…

Now the ultimate end and scope that incited the Spaniards to endeavor the Extirpation and

Desolation of this People, was Gold only…

Finally, in one word, their Ambition and Avarice, than which the heart of Man never entertained

greater, and the vast Wealth of those Regions; the Humility and Patience of the Inhabitants (which

made their approach to these Lands more easy) did much promote the business: Whom they so

despicably contemned, that they treated them (I speak of things which I was an Eye Witness of,

without the least fallacy) not as Beasts, which I cordially wished they would, but as the most abject

dung and �lth of the Earth; and so solicitous they were of their Life and Soul, that the above-

mentioned number of People died without understanding the true Faith or Sacraments. And this

also is as really true that the _Spaniards_ never received any injury from the Indians, but that they

rather reverenced them as Persons descended from Heaven, until that they were compelled to take

up Arms, provoked thereunto by repeated Injuries, violent Torments, and unjust Butcheries.

 

Bartolomé de Las Casas, A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies… (Project Gutenberg

EBook: 2007), 9-16.

Available through the Internet Archive

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