Cortés and his forces enter the island…

November 1519 CE

Cortés and his forces enter the island capital of the Mexica-Aztecs, on November 8, 1519.

Of all the cities in Europe, only Constantinople is larger than Tenochtitlan.

The most common estimates put the population at around sixty thousand to over three hundred thousand people.

The largest city in Spain, for example, is Seville, which has a population of only thirty thousand.

According to the Aztec chronicles recorded by Sahagún, the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II welcomes Hernán Cortés, El Caudillo, with great pomp, on the Great Causeway.

According to Sahagún's manuscript, Moctezuma personally dressed Cortes and his commanders with flowers.

In turn, Cortés attempted to embrace the Emperor but was restrained by a courtier.

This contradiction between "the arrogant emperor' and the "humble servant of Quetzalcoatl" has been problematic for historians to explain and has led to much speculation.

However, all the proscriptions and prohibitions regarding Moctezuma and his court had been established by Moctezuma and were not part of traditional Aztec customs.

Those prohibitions had already caused friction between Moctezuma and the pillis (noble classes).

There is even an Aztec legend in which Huemac, the legendary last lord of Tollan Xicotitlan, instructed Moctezuma to live humbly and eat only the food of the poor, to divert a future catastrophe.

Thus, it seems out of character for Moctezuma to violate rules that he himself had promulgated.

Yet, as supreme ruler, he had the power to break his own rules.

Moctezuma has the royal palace of Axayácatl, Moctezuma's father, prepared for Cortes.

Later the same day that the Spanish expedition and their allies enter Tenochtitlan, Moctezuma come to visit Cortés and his men.

What happened in this second meeting remains controversial.

According to several Spanish versions, some written years or decades later, Moctezuma first repeated his earlier, flowery welcome to Cortés on the Great Causeway, but then went on to explain his view of what the Spanish expedition represented in terms of Aztec tradition and lore, including the idea that Cortés and his men (pale, bearded men from the east) were the return of characters from Aztec legend.

At the end of this explanation, the Emperor pledges his fealty to the King of Spain and accepts Cortés as the King's representative.

According to Diaz, Moctezuma said to Cortes, "As for your great king, I am in his debt and will give him of what I possess."

While in the Axayacatl palace, the Spaniards discover the secret room where Moctezuma keeps the treasure he had inherited from his father.

The treasure consists of a "quantity of golden objects - jewels and plates and ingots".

Diaz noted, "The sight of all that wealth dumbfounded me."

Cortés later asks Moctezuma to allow him to erect a cross and an image of Virgin Mary next to the two large idols of Huichilobos and Tezcatlipoca, after climbing the one hundred and fourteen steps to the top of the main temple pyramid.

Moctezuma and his priests are furious at the suggestion, with Moctezuma claiming his idols, "give us health and rain and crops and weather, and all the victories we desire.”