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Part 7

Tenochtitlan was the largest city in the world, according to some of my sources. The Spanish conquistadors described it as being more beautiful and organized than anything in Spain at the time. You can look up artist renditions online of how the city might have been in the early 1500s. You’ll see paintings of massive pyramids with temples on top. You’ll see floating bridges. You’ll see palaces. None of that exists today. The Spanish completely destroyed the city.

So, supported by nearly 150,000 native warriors, they crossed the causeways again and got to work. They battled the remaining Aztecs for a few days. The enemy had now holed up in the marketplace, where they were about to make their last stand.

Cortes feigned a retreat to lure them into an ambush. Ten cavalrymen got their attention. The Aztecs chased them to an open square, where 30 more cavalry were waiting. Cortes gave the attack order. The horses were devastating. Great numbers of Aztecs fell.

Meanwhile, Alvarado was attacking the marketplace. They encountered heavy resistance even though the opposing army was divided and starving and literally losing their minds. The Tlaxcalans burned Cuauhtemoc's palace to the ground.

On July 1 Alvarado sent up smoke, indicating that he had taken the marketplace. All that was left to do now was to slaughter the holdouts, including women and children.

Cortes climbed the temple and saw the severed heads of his soldiers and allies on skull racks. He stood at the edge of the pyramid, hoping that any Aztecs who saw him there would give up. But pockets of Eagle and Jaguar knights still resisted. They were the most elite members of the Aztec military. For them, surrender was simply not in their vocabulary. They refused to submit.

The siege had gone on for three months, but the Aztecs remained defiant. They had taken refuge in houses on stilts along the lake shore.

A man in Cortes’ army knew how to build catapults, and he thought they could easily use one to tear down the buildings on the lake. They built it on top of a pyramid for dramatic effect. But as they loaded stones into the sling, the catapult failed. The stones fell out and tumbled uselessly to the ground. They tried some repairs, but they just couldn't get it right. Cortes ordered them to dismantle and hide it. Not wanting to look like fools, the Spanish taunted the Aztecs by saying they removed the catapult out of compassion for them, sparing their lives.

By now so many of the city's inhabitants had died from hunger or thirst that the stench of decomposing bodies filled the air. In the ensuing days the Spanish claimed to have killed or enslaved more than 50,000 Aztec men, women, and children. Several Spanish accounts claim that 12,000 people were killed or captured in one day. Most of them put up no resistance.

Cortes sent several messages to Cuauhtemoc, wanting to speak with him, but was rebuked every time. So they continued their raids.

Houses all over the city were filled with the dead and dying. Children wandered the streets crying. Women screamed and pounded their fists on walls.

It was a city in its final throes. One of the world's biggest and, in some ways, most advanced civilizations had faced torture and starvation for months and was now dying.

In the ransacking of Tenochtitlan, the Tlaxcalans were more than happy to brutalize their historic enemy. They murdered anyone they found in the streets.

Cuauhtemoc must have known his empire was done. It had been happening for months. His army was forced out of their own city while the Spanish smashed everything. But he sent one of his greatest warriors to... I don't know... mayb