History of the Indians, of North and South America

by Samuel G. Goodrich

Meanwhile the people of the city were busily engaged in preparing for a vigorous assault on the Spanish quarters. Cortés had just despatched a messenger to Vera Cruz, to announce his safe arrival in the capital, and his confident expectation of a speedy submission on the part of the rebels, as he termed them, when suddenly the din of war rose on the air, and his messenger, who had been gone scarcely half an hour, returned in breathless haste with the intelligence that the city was all in arms. The appalling tidings were speedily confirmed, by the appearance of the furious populace rushing on through every avenue towards the fortress, as if determined to carry it by storm. The conflict was fierce and obstinate. Nothing daunted by the storm of iron hail poured in upon their defenceless bodies from the Spanish ordnance, which stretched them on the ground by hundreds, they pressed on up to the very muzzles of the guns. Repulsed on one quarter, they turned with undiminished fury to another,—striving, now, to scale the parapet, now to force the gates, and now to undermine or open a breach in the walls,—and finally endeavouring to fire the edifice by shooting burning arrows into it. In this last they were partially successful; but the approach of night at length caused them to retire.

On the following day the Mexicans prepared to renew the attack; but Cortés resolved to anticipate it by a sortie. Accordingly he sallied out at the head of his cavalry, supported by the infantry and his Tlascalan allies. The Mexicans fled in disorder; but soon rallying behind a barricade which they had thrown up across the street, they began to pour in volleys of missiles upon the Spaniards, which served in a degree to check their career. With the aid of his field pieces, however, Cortés speedily cleared away the barricade, when the Mexicans again turned and fled. But now, as the Spaniards continued to advance, the enemy had recourse to a new mode of annoyance. Mounting to the roofs of the houses, they hurled down large stones upon the heads of the cavaliers with a force which would often tumble them from their saddles. Unable to protect themselves against this species of missiles, Cortés ordered the buildings to be set on fire, and in this manner several hundred houses were destroyed. The Spaniards were now victorious at every point; at length, sated with slaughter, and perceiving that the day was beginning to decline, Cortés withdrew his troops to their quarters.

The Mexicans, however, were determined to allow the hated strangers no rest. Although, conformably to the usage of their nation, they made no attempt to renew the combat during the night, they nevertheless bivouacked around the fortress, and disturbed the slumbers of their enemy by insulting taunts and menaces, which indicated but too clearly that their ferocity was in no degree subdued by the terrible havoc dealt out to them during the two preceding days.

In the hope of influencing the Mexicans, Cortés now brought out Montezuma to command them to cease from hostilities. At the sight of their venerated sovereign in his royal robes, they dropped their weapons, and silently bowed their heads in prostration to the ground. Obeying Cortés’s directions, he addressed them, and plied them with arguments to urge them to peace. When he ceased, sullen murmurs and indignant reproaches ran through the ranks, and, in a rage, deeming their sovereign only the supple instrument of their foe, flights of arrows and volleys of stones were poured forth on the ramparts where he stood, so that, before he could be protected, Montezuma fell, wounded by the hand of one of his own subjects. Horror-struck, the Mexicans fled; while Montezuma, disdaining to live after this degradation, died in the Spanish quarters.

Cortés, knowing that affairs had arrived at the greatest extremity, now prepared for his retreat, which he was not, however, suffered to effect, till after long and bloody conflicts, in one of which his own life was endangered by the devotion of two young Mexicans, who seized on him and hurried him to the edge of the platform of the temple, intending to cast him and themselves down, that they all might be dashed in pieces. Many of his soldiers were driven into the lake, and there perished; others were killed, and others still were taken prisoners. He lost, it is said, more than half his army, escaping with only about 400 foot soldiers and twenty horsemen, with which force he broke through the multitudes by whom he was everywhere hemmed in. He lost also his artillery, baggage, and ammunition; besides 4,000 Tlascalans who were killed and taken prisoners, which latter the Mexicans sacrificed to their gods.

The retreat continued for six days, during which time Cortés and his soldiers were forced to feed on berries, roots, and stalks of green maize. On the seventh day, they reached Otumba, on the route from Mexico to Tlascala, the point towards which he was directing his course. The Mexicans, as he advanced, hung on his rear, exclaiming, exultingly, “Go on, robbers! go where you shall quickly meet the vengeance due to your crimes!” On reaching the summit of the mountain range, they understood too well the meaning of this threat; for the whole wide plain below them in front was covered with a vast army, drawn up in battle array. The Mexicans, leaving the smaller portion of their force to pursue the flying enemy on one side of the lake, had gathered the main body of their army on the other side, and, marching forward, posted it in the plain of Otumba.

Cortés, without a moment’s hesitation, lest the sight of such vast numbers might strike his troops with dismay, led them on to the charge; and, notwithstanding the fortitude of the Mexicans, succeeded in penetrating their dense battalions. But, as one quarter gave way, the Mexicans rallied on another, and continued to pour upon the foe in such numbers, that, but for a fortunate event which turned the tide of battle, the Spaniards must have been overpowered from exhaustion. Cortés, availing himself of the knowledge which his stay at Mexico had enabled him to gain, directed his efforts against the quarter where the standard was carried before the Mexican general, assured, that, by the capture of this, he could throw the whole Mexican army into confusion.

The event justified his expectation; for when, in spite of the resistance of the nobles, he killed the Mexican general, and seized on the standard, the whole Mexican army, panic-struck, threw down their weapons and fled to the mountains. The spoils of the field in some degree compensated the Spaniards for the losses they had sustained in their retreat from the capital. Pursuing their march without further molestation from the enemy, they shortly afterwards reached Tlascala, where they were received with the greatest kindness by their faithful allies. Here Cortés remained, raising recruits, and forming new plans for the subjugation of the empire.