One sad night

Hi, this is Our Bloody History, where we crawl through a thousand Wikipedia pages to piece together a concise story that makes sense.

Here’s the beat today:

The conquistadores' retreat from the Aztec capital that made the infamous conqueror of Mexico weep this week, 502 years ago, on 1 July 1520.

Vamos.

It's been 28 years since Christopher Colombus' "great discovery" of the Americas in 1492. Despite what many of us were taught in school, Colombus isn't the first; he is actually one of the last European explorers to reach the new world (Vikings arrive 500 years before he does). But it's his explorations, sponsored by the Crown of Castile (a predecessor of modern-day Spain) that leads to the mass exploitation of an entire continent by the Spanish empire.

So far the Spanish have established a thriving hub in the Caribbean, which they call the West Indies to distinguish from the original Indies in Asia. Not at all confusing, right? Cuba has recently been annexed and exciting new expeditions are underway to explore the lands north of the Yucatán Peninsula, the southeastern tip of Mexico. It's frontier dynamics at their best (or worst): power-hungry, glory-driven, gold-seeking nobodies from Europe making a name for themselves in the new world, all while trying to balance personal greed with the overarching objectives of a very distant crown. Ay, caramba...it's politics, drama and ego galore.

Enter Hernán Cortés – a man of mystique and controversy, hated by most today, but easily the most famous of the conquistadores (conquerors). He's a man on a mission, forging a path through foreign territory, greatly outnumbered with the odds stacked against him.

Cortés has his eyes set on Tenochtitlan, capital of the mighty Aztec Empire, a source of unimaginable riches, or so he believes. The island capital has a population of more than 200,000 inhabitants and is one of the largest cities in the world at the time. It's also the site of present-day Mexico City (yeah, so the Spanish later drain most of the lake, which is why Mexico City does NOT look like this today. Lame).

The Aztec Empire is an alliance of three city-states that dominates the neighbouring peoples in and around the Valley of Mexico. Led by their emperor Moctezuma II, the Aztecs ruthlessly rule over 38+ tribute-paying providences. They keep everyone in line with brutal military action and the sacrifice of vassal children to the gods. It's fair to say that dissension is rife in the empire and many view the arrival of the conquistadores as a time of opportunistic change. Some of the native tribes even ally with the Spaniards to overthrow their Aztec oppressors.

After a ton of back and forth between Cortés and Moctezuma, some failed attempts to buy-off the intruders and then ambush them, the Spaniards finally traverse the mountains like Hannibal of old and arrive at Tenochtitlan on 8 November 1519. The Aztec Emperor warmly welcomes Cortés. He has no other option. In fact, he receives the conquistador as the embodiment of the long-prophesied return of Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god, who is often depicted as a white bearded man. How convenient.

But Moctezuma doesn't really believe in the divinity of Cortés. Historians have little doubt about this. The emperor is just slinging off the cuff and it suits him momentarily. Maybe he can use the prophesied arrival of their chief god as a way to further validate his own rule while buying time to get rid of the Spanish nuisance. It's a dangerous game Moctezuma's playing.

Upon entering the city, the Spaniards and their Tlaxcalan allies are showered with gifts and are given the palace of Axayacatl as a place of residence smack bang in the middle of the island. At first the capital is festive and the vibe is awesome. It's like a scene from the kids movie The Road to El Dorado.

But the mood very quickly changes.

To keep things simple, the downwards spiral goes like this:

• Moctezuma orders a hit on Vera Cruz, Cortés' coastal base of operations, which fails.

• Cortés publicly accuses Moctezuma and takes him hostage, moving the emperor to the palace of Axayacatl to reside with the conquistadores.

• Moctezuma helps snuff out a local insurrection and then Cortés forces him to formally declare fealty to the King of Spain. Moctezuma agrees and gifts the Spaniards an absurd amount of gold, "turning over several rooms of his palace that were filled to the ceiling with the yellow metal."

• The local Aztec lords are not impressed and their fury grows as Cortés transforms one of their temples into a Catholic place of worship. The blood is scrubbed clean, a crucifix adorned, and a holy mass held. If it isn't clear that Cortés is not Quetzalcoatl reborn, it's pretty damn obvious now.

• Moctezuma tells Cortés that the Spaniards must leave now, otherwise every single Aztec will rise against them. Cortés says OK, but I don't have any ships. Give me some time bro. So the Spaniards begin construction of a new fleet at Vera Cruz.

• Then in May, Cortés catches word of an even greater crisis. A Spanish force sent by the Governor of Cuba is on its way to imprison Cortés for insubordination and fetch him back to Spain for trial.

• Cortés leaves the about-to-explode-in-all-out-insurrection Tenochtitlan in the hands of one of his officers and takes a tiny group of 70 men to ambush the new threat. To everyone's surprise, Cortés succeeds against a force of 1,000+ Spaniards and 1,000+ native allies. Not only does he win, but he quintuples his forces by dishing out gold to the survivors.

• Meanwhile, all hell has broken loose back in the capital. Pedro de Alvarado, the officer left in charge, massacres hundreds of Aztecs during a peaceful celebration. History disagrees on how it starts and there's lots of finger pointing. But the tragedy happens. The city is then blockaded and Alvarado and his men are cut off from food and water.

• Cortés and his enlarged force rush back to Tenochtitlan to find the gates open and the city eerily quiet – a very different welcome than the one they received six months earlier. Within hours the city is under attack as hidden warriors suddenly appear out of nowhere. The gates are shut, the drawbridges connecting the causeways are raised, and the conquistadores and their allies are officially trapped inside their palace.

• Cortés begs Moctezuma to appeal to the people from the walls of the palace, but the emperor has long since lost their respect. The crowd responds with stones and arrows and Moctezuma is mortally wounded. He dies soon after.

• With the emperor dead, Cortés loses all leverage. The palace is now besieged on all sides and the Aztecs, under their new leader, seek total annihilation. No deals. Forget peace.

Dang, what a spiral.

Cortés is in serious hot water.

Or better said: he's trapped in a palace on a floating island surrounded by water of debatable temperature.

And that brings us to our day in history this week.

In the early hours of 1 July 1520, well after midnight, Cortés and his troops attempt a breakout. They pad the horses' hooves and creep out into the rain. Carrying a portable wooden span they had constructed to cross the broken drawbridges, the conquistadores head towards the shortest of the three causeways, the one heading to the lakeside city of Tlacopan (modern-day Tacuba, a section of Mexico City) two miles to the west. Using the makeshift bridge, they cross the first segment of the causeway successfully, but are soon discovered by the Aztecs. Uh oh.

The narrow causeway becomes thick with death and tangled bodies as the Spaniards and their allies desperately fight their way towards the mainland. Aztec warriors press from all sides and hundreds of canoes harass the intruders from the water, pelting them with a storm of arrows and slinging stones. The footing is slippery with rain and blood and many tumble into the lake. Cortés had told his men to travel light, but a great number of them, loath to leave behind their treasure, drown under the weight of their greed. Real gold doesn't float.

Bloodied and battered, Cortés and his vanguard make it to Tacuba on the other side, leaving many unlucky men to fend for themselves. Some 600-1,000 Spaniards and over 2,000 Tlaxcalan allies are killed. It's a complete disaster and one of Spain's worst defeats. And Cortés feels it deeply.

Tradition has it that Cortés sits under an enormous Ahuehuete tree in Tacuba Plaza and weeps for the great loss of men (and gold, let's be honest). Hence, the name of this eventful night: La Noche Triste or the The Night of Sorrows, literally translated as "The Sad Night."

There's still so much to be sad about.

Because the very thing that drove the conquistadores drives many today – the pursuit of more and a desire to overfill one's pockets, even at the risk of drowning under the weight.

Cortés once famously confessed: “We Spaniards know a sickness of the heart that only gold can cure.”

FYI, this sickness isn't exclusive to the Spaniards. It's universal. And left unchecked, it can ravage families, communities and entire cultures.

3 quick facts:

• Fortunately for Cortés and his men, the Aztec army doesn't pursue them from Tenochtitlan. Unknown until later, one of the slaves Cortés had acquired by defeating the other Spanish force had brought smallpox to the capital. The disease decimates the Aztec community, reducing the population by at least a third and rips the army apart.

• A year later, in May 1521, Cortés returns to besiege the capital with more than 100,000 men, mostly native allies. The siege lasts two months. But in the end the Aztecs surrender on 13 August 1521, sparking the Fall of Tenochtitlan and the formal end of the Aztec empire.

• Hernán Cortés isn't liked by many in modern Mexico and little remains of his legacy. In 2010, there was a petition to change the name of the plaza in Tacuba, which is called "Plaza of the Tree of the Night of Sorrows" to "Plaza of the Tree of the Night of Victory." The movement didn't succeed, maybe because there isn't much left of the tree anymore.

Other conflicts that happened this week:

• 27 June 1556: The thirteen Stratford Martyrs are burned at the stake near London for their Protestant beliefs.

• 28 June 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated – the casus belli of World War I.

• 29 June 1659: The Ukrainian armies of Ivan Vyhovsky defeat the Russians at the Battle of Konotop.

• 30 June 1934: Hitler violently purges his political rivals in Germany in the Night of the Long Knives.

• 1 July 1898: U.S forces win at the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba, a major encounter during the Spanish–American War.

• 2 July 1839: 53 kidnapped Africans led by Joseph Cinqué mutiny and take over the slave ship Amistad twenty miles off the coast of Cuba.

• 3 July 1778: The Native American Iroquois kill 360 people in the Wyoming Valley massacre during the American Revolutionary War.

A historical quote about historical things:

DisclaimerYou are reading my abstractions based on the abstractions of others. History is not always an accurate map of what really happened. The map is not the territory. Reality can be very different. We are like blind people groping an elephant, describing what we feel. It always pays to do your own research and ask questions.