Cortés leads his thirteen hundred soldiers and…
June 1520 CE
Cortés leads his thirteen hundred soldiers and ninety-six horses, plus two thousand Tlaxcalan warriors, on an arduous trek back over the Sierra Madre Oriental.
Years later, when asked what the new land is like, Cortés will crumple up a piece of parchment, then spread it part way out: "Like this."
Cortés returns to Tenochtitlan on St. John's Day June 1520, to find that Alvarado and his men had attacked and killed many of the Aztec nobility during a religious festival.
Alvarado's explanation to Cortés is that the Spaniards had learned that the Aztecs planned to attack the Spanish garrison in the city once the festival was complete, so he had launched a preemptive attack.
Considerable doubt has been cast by different commentators on this explanation, which may have been self-serving rationalization on the part of Alvarado, who may have attacked out of fear (or greed) where no immediate threat existed.
In any event, the population of the city had risen en masse after the Spanish attack.
Fierce fighting has ensued, and the Aztec troops now besiege the palace housing the Spaniards and Moctezuma.
Cortés orders Moctezuma to ask his people to stop fighting.
Moctezuma tells him that they will not listen to him and suggests Cortés free Cuitláhuac, the eleventh son of the ruler Axayacatl and a younger brother of Moctezuma II, so that he can persuade them to dispose of their arms and not fight anymore.
Cortés then frees Cuitláhuac and once Cuitláhuac is free, the nobility of Tenochtitlan chooses Cuitláhuac as Huey Tlatoani (Emperor).
He now leads his people against the conquistadors.
Cortés orders Moctezuma to speak to his people from a palace balcony and persuade them to let the Spanish return to the coast in peace.
Moctezuma is jeered and stones are thrown at him, mortally wounding Moctezuma.
Aztec sources state the Spaniards killed him.