Of all the acts of brutality committed during the Spanish conquest of New Spain, none was more infamous than Pedro de Alvarado's massacre of the Aztec nobility as they celebrated the feast of Uitzilopochtli. It immediately broke the strained, but hitherto peaceful coexistence between the Spanish and their Indian hosts in the capital city Tenochtitlan. It galvanized Aztec resistance against the invaders and precipitated the most devastating defeat yet suffered by a Spanish army in the New World. It also highlighted the extent to which the success of the small European invasion force had depended, to a large degree, on the force of character of one man.
Cortes' Triumph
Returning to the Indian capital at the head of reinforcements, Hernan Cortes had good reason to feel confident. He had just pulled of one of the biggest gambles of his career; successfully ambushing a Spanish force sent by the governor of Cuba to arrest him, taking it's commander Panfilo de Narvaez prisoner, and then persuading the army of new comers to join him.
With his position strengthed by over a thousand fresh troops, Cortes boasted to their commanders about the spectacle which awaited them on their return to Tenochtitlan. He described the dramatic Aztec city which seemed to rise out the lake of Mexico, its architecture, its market, its staggering abundance of gold, but most of all, he emphasized his total subjection of the Indians, who he said revered him like a god, and who would shower them all with lavish gifts upon his return.
Pedro ‘Psycho’ de Alvarado
However Cortes had charged one of his most unruly captains to remain behind and watch over the imprisoned emperor Montezuma, and soon after his departure, Pedro de Alvarado was to commit one of the most shocking atrocities of the conquest. What exactly incited him to massacre hundreds of Aztec nobles as they took part in a ritualized dance is unclear, and attracted fierce speculation.
Did he panic 'at the strange music and the eerie vigor of the dancing', was it 'a good opportunity to kill as many young officers of the Mexican army as he could' (Wright,40) or perhaps, as Valiant argues - not all together convincingly – he genuinely 'scented trouble in the gathering, the actual innocence of which he had no way of knowing.'(Valiant,236)
All accounts agree that Montezuma's nobles approached Alvarado asking for permission to hold their festival, to which he consented. What followed next is probably best described by the Indian's themselves in the Florentine Codex, the graphic detail of which speaks for itself as first hand testimony:
'they came to block everywhere the ways leading out and in...then the one who beat the drum...they severed both his hands, and afterwards struck his neck...They struck the others...their entrails spilled...they attempted to run but their entrails dragged...some went in feigning death, and were able to escape. But one stirred, when they saw him they pierced him.'(Codex,20)
Even the account of the Spanish eye witness Bernal Diaz does not hide from the reader the unconvincing nature of Alvarado's claim that the attack was carried out in self defense, but Diaz remains silent and passive as a narrator at this point. The episode is reduced to a slightly dismissive reaction by Cortes: 'Cortes replied...it was a bad thing and a great mistake...and said no more on the subject.'(Diaz,286) Diaz is clearly reluctant to pass any judgment on a fellow comrade, and even praises Alvarado beforehand as an excellent captain, and states irrelevantly that Alvarado's daughter 'was in every way worthy of her excellent father'.(Diaz,179)
Retribution
Many atrocities were attributed to the Spanish during their conquest of New Spain, but none was more divisive than Pedro's slaying of the nobility - whether it was carried out in self defence or not. Indian retribution was brutal, and it is no wonder that those men who had recently joined Cortes now cursed him for leading them into the city, where they were greeted not by gifts from meek, submissive natives, but instead by arrows and rocks flung from the rooftops. Around two thirds of the army would die trying to escape the city, many drowning in the canals. The authors of the Florentine Codex can scarcely contain their glee at the Spanish defeat, and describe how their bodies were dragged from the water, stripped and lain in rows – adding with a touch of macabre vividness - 'like white reed shoots...or white ears of maze'. (Codex,25)
Sources
Diaz, Bernal : The Conquest of New Spain, Translated and Introduced by J.M.Cohen.Penguin Books, 1963
Sahagun, Bernardino de : Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Books 1 – 12 ; The School of American Research and the University of Utah, New Mexico 1950 - 1982
Vaillant,George C : The Aztecs of Mexico, Penguin Books, 1944
Wright, Ronald : Stolen Continents: The Indian Story, John Murray,London,1992
