AUTOGRAPH OF PEDRO DE ALVARADO.
Copied from a fac-simile in Cabajal’s México, ii. 686.
Meanwhile there were stirring times with Alvarado in Mexico. The Aztecs prepared to celebrate a high religious festival. Alvarado learned, or pretended to learn, that the disaffected native chiefs were planning to rise upon the Spaniards at its close. So he anticipated their scheme by attacking them while at their worship and unarmed. Six hundred or more of the leading men were thus slain. The multitude without the temple were infuriated, and the Spaniards regained their quarters, not without difficulty, Alvarado himself being wounded. Behind their defences they managed to resist attack till succor came.
Cortés, who had learned of the events, was advancing, attaching to himself the peoples who were inimical to the Aztecs; but as he got within the Aztec influence he found more sullenness than favor. When he entered Mexico he was not resisted. The city seemed almost abandoned as his force made their way to the Spanish fort and entered its gates.
As a means of getting supplies, Cortés ordered the release of a brother of Montezuma, who at once used his liberty to plan an insurrection. An attack on the Spanish quarters followed, which Cortés sought to repel by sorties; but they gained little. The siege was so roughly pressed that Cortés urged Montezuma to present himself on the parapet and check the fierceness of the assault. The captive put on his robes of state and addressed the multitude; but he only became the target of their missiles, and was struck down by a stone.[1072] The condition of the Spaniards soon became perilous in the extreme. A parley with the chief of the Aztecs was of no avail; and Cortés resolved to cut his way along the shortest causeway from the city, to the mainland bordering the lake. In this he failed. Meanwhile a part of his force were endeavoring to secure the summit of a neighboring pyramid, from which the Mexicans had annoyed the garrison of the fort. Cortés joined in this attack, and it was successful. The defenders of the temples on its summit were all killed or hurled from the height, and Cortés was master of the spot.
Events followed quickly in this June of 1520. There was evidently a strong will in command of the Mexicans. The brother of Montezuma was a doughtier foe than the King had been. The temporary success on the pyramid had not diminished the anxiety of Cortés. Montezuma was now dying on his hands. The King had not recovered from the injuries which his own people had inflicted, and sinking spirits completed the work of the mob. On the 30th of June he died, at the age of forty-one, having been on the throne since 1503.[1073] Cortés had hoped for some turn of fortune from this event; but none came. He was more than ever convinced of the necessity of evacuating the city. Another sortie had failed as before; and the passage of the causeway was again planned for the evening of that day.[1074] The order of march, as arranged, included the whole Spanish force and about six thousand allies. Pontoons of a rough description were contrived for bridging the chasms in the causeway. As many jewels and gold as would not encumber them were taken, together with such prisoners of distinction as remained to them, besides the sick and wounded.
HELPS’S MAP.
This is the map given by Helps in his Spanish Conquest. One of the differences in the variety of maps which have been offered of the Valley of Mexico, to illustrate the conquest by Cortés, consists in the number and direction of the causeways. The description and the remains of the structures themselves have not sufficed to make investigators of one mind respecting them. Prescott (Kirk’s ed., vol. ii.) does not represent so many causeways as Helps does. The map in Bancroft (vol. i. p. 583) is still different in this respect. There is also a plan of the city and surrounding country in Cabajal’s México (vol. ii. p. 538); and two others have been elsewhere given in the present volume (pp. 364, 379).
A drizzling rain favored their retreat; but the Mexicans were finally aroused, and attacked their rear. A hundred or more Spaniards were cut off, and retreated to the fort, where they surrendered a few days later, and were sacrificed. The rest, after losses and much tribulation, reached the mainland. Nothing but the failure of the Mexicans to pursue the Spaniards, weakened as they were, saved Cortés from annihilation. The Aztecs were too busy with their successes; for forty Spaniards, not to speak of numerous allies, had been taken, and were to be immolated; and rites were to be performed over their own dead.