Everything about Cuauht Moc totally explained
Cuauhtémoc (also known as
Cuauhtemotzin,
Guatimozin or
Guatemoc; c.
1502–
1525) was the
Aztec ruler (
tlatoani) of
Tenochtitlan from
1520 to
1521. The name
Cuāuhtemōc means "One That Has Descended Like an Eagle" in
Nahuatl — commonly rendered in English as "Falling Eagle" — and was .
Cuauhtémoc took power in
1520 as successor of
Cuitláhuac and was a nephew of the emperor
Moctezuma II, and his young wife was one of Moctezuma's daughters. He ascended to the throne when he was 18 years of age, as his city was being besieged by the
Spanish and devastated by an epidemic of
smallpox. Probably after the
killings in the main temple, there were few Aztec captains available to take the position.
Torture
August 13,
1521, Cuauhtémoc went to call for reinforcements from the countryside to aid the falling Tenochtitlán, after eighty days straight of urban warfare against the Spanish. Of all the Nahuas, only Tlatelolcas remained loyal, and the surviving Tenochcas looked for refuge in
Tlatelolco where even women took part in the battle. Cuauhtémoc was captured while crossing
Lake Texcoco in disguise. He surrendered to
Hernán Cortés along with the surviving
pipiltin (nobles), and offered him his knife and asked to be killed.
At first, Cortés treated his foe chivalrously. "A Spaniard knows how to respect valor even in an enemy," he declared. However, he allowed
Aldrete, the royal treasurer, to have Cuauhtemoc tortured to make him reveal the whereabouts of hidden treasure. Cuauhtémoc, insisting that there was no hidden treasure, stood up under the ordeal.
Cuauhtémoc was tortured by having his feet put to a fire, along with Tetlepanquetzal, the
tlatoani of
Tlacopán, and the
Cihuacóatl (counselor)
Tlacotzin, but even so they refused to divulge information about the treasures the Spanish coveted. It is said that during the torture, Tetlepanquetzal asked him to reveal the location of the treasures in order to stop the pain given to them, and Cuauhtémoc is quoted to say "Do you think I'm in a bath for pleasure?" This would be popularized in the
19th century as "Do you think I'm in a bed of roses?" The date and details of this episode are unknown. In the end, a shamed Cortés delivered Cuauhtémoc from Aldrete's hands.
Eventually Cortés recovered some gold from a noble's house, but most of the tales about "Aztec gold" is a myth. Since for the Aztecs, gold had no intrinsic value, they didn't have big solid pieces of gold, instead they preferred wood covered with gold. After those pieces were melted, they only gave a fraction of the gold that Cortés and his men expected.
Execution
In
1525, Cortés took Cuauhtémoc and several other indigenous nobles on his expedition to
Honduras, fearing that Cuauhtémoc could have led an insurrection in his absence. While the expedition was stopped in the
Chontal Maya capital of
Itzamkanac, known as
Acalan in
Nahuatl, Cortés had Cuauhtémoc
executed for allegedly conspiring to kill him and the other Spaniards.
There are a number of discrepancies in the various accounts of the event. According to Cortés himself, on
27 February 1525 it was revealed to him by a citizen of
Tenochtitlan named Mexicalcingo that Cuauhtémoc,
Coanacoch (the ruler of
Texcoco) and
Tetlepanquetzal (the ruler of
Tlacopan) were plotting his death. Cortés interrogated them until each confessed, and then had Cuauhtémoc, Tetlepanquetzal, and another lord named
Tlacatlec hanged. Cortés wrote that the other lords would be too frightened to plot against him again, as they believed he'd uncovered the plan through magic powers. Cortés's account is supported by the historian
Francisco López de Gómara.
According to
Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a
conquistador serving under Cortés who recorded his experiences in his book
The Conquest of New Spain, the supposed plot was revealed by two men, named Tapia and Juan Velásquez. Díaz portrays the executions as unjust and based on no evidence, and admits to having liked Cuauhtémoc personally. He also records Cuauhtémoc giving the following speech to Cortés, through his
interpreter Malinche:
Díaz wrote that afterwards, Cortés suffered from
insomnia due to
guilt, and badly injured himself while wandering at night.
Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl, a
Mestizo historian and descendant of Coanacoch, wrote an account of the executions in the
17th century partly based on Texcocan
oral tradition.
According to the account of the
Chontal Maya inhabitants of Itzamkanac recorded in the
17th century, Cuauhtémoc approached
Paxbolonacha, the local Maya ruler, telling him of the evils of the Spaniards, and suggesting that the Mayas and Nahuas join forces to kill them. Paxbolonacha refused, observing the Spaniards to be peaceful and well-behaved, and after Cuauhtémoc continued to ask repeatedly, went to Cortés and informed him of Cuauhtémoc's plan. Cortés kept Cuauhtémoc in chains for three days. He was then
baptized, although his baptismal name was unknown — "some say he was named don Juan and some say he was named don Hernando". Finally, he was
beheaded, and his head impaled on a
ceiba tree in front of the
temple at
Yaxdzan.
Legacy
Tlacotzin, Cuauhtémoc's
cihuacoatl, was appointed his successor as
tlatoani. He died the next year before returning to Tenochtitlan.
The modern-day town of
Ixcateopan in the
state of
Guerrero is home to an
ossuary purportedly containing Cuauhtémoc's remains.
Many places in Mexico are named in honour of Cuauhtémoc. These include
Ciudad Cuauhtémoc in
Chihuahua and the
Cuauhtémoc borough of the
Mexican Federal District. There is also a
Cuauhtémoc station on the
Mexico City metro and the Monterrey
Metrorrey. Cuauhtémoc is also one of the few non-Spanish
given names for Mexican boys that's perennially popular. In the Aztec campaign of the
PC game, the player plays as Cuauhtémoc, despite the name
Montezuma for the campaign itself. In the next installment to the series,, Cuauhtémoc was the leader of Aztecs.
Cuauhtémoc, in the name Guatemoc, is portrayed sympathetically in the adventure novel
Montezuma's Daughter, by
H. Rider Haggard. First appearing in Chapter XIV, he becomes friends with the protagonist after they save each other's lives. His coronation, torture, and death are described in the novel.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Cuauht Moc'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://cuauht__moc.totallyexplained.com">Cuauhtémoc Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
