Aztec Deities and Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, was the chief deity and the patron divinity of the Aztec nation. Next was Quetzalcoatl, the "white god of Mexican mythology, who taught the Aztecs the arts of peace and Worship. good government, and forbade human sacrifices. All the Aztec gods were represented by idols of clay, wood, stone or precious metals. Great numbers of priests were attached to the temples, and the religious ceremonies were conducted on a scale of the greatest magnificence. The principal religious ceremonial of the Aztecs were human sacrifices; and twenty-five hundred persons, mainly captives taken in war, are said to have been annually sacrificed on the altars of the capital. The Aztecs had two kinds of temples, low and circular, or high and pyramidal, on the tops of which the sacrifices took place. Torquemada estimates that there were forty thousand of these temples throughout the Aztec Empire. There were hundreds of them in each principal Aztec city, besides the great temple with several smaller ones within its precincts. There were other small courts with as many as six temples in each outlying quarter of the city, and there were temples on the mountains and along the public highways. The temples were solid pyramidal masses of earth cased with brick or stone, many of them being more than one hundred feet square and of a still greater height. The ascent to the temple was by a flight of one hundred and fourteen steps on the outside, so arranged that it was necessary to pass around the whole edifice four times to reach the top; and the base of the temple is believed to have been three hundred feet square. The summit of the temple was a large area paved with broad, flat stones; and on it were two towers or sanctuaries, which contained the idols of the deities, and before each of which was an altar on which a fire was kept constantly burning. The top of this remarkable edifice commanded a splendid view of the city, the lake, the valley and the surrounding mountains. The most remarkable building of the city of Mexico was the great Teocalli, or temple, completed in 1486; which was encompassed by a stone wall about eight feet high, ornamented on the other side by figures of serpents in bas-relief, and pierced on its four sides by gateways opening on the four main streets. Over each gate was an arsenal; and near the temple were barracks, which were garrisoned by ten thousand soldiers. The temple was a solid pyramidal structure of earth and pebbles, coated on the outside with hewn stone. It was square, its four sides facing the cardinal points of the compass; and it was five stories high, each story receding so as to be smaller than the one below it. Human Sacrifices. Aztec Temples. Teocalli, or Great Temple of the City of Mexico. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, Tenochtitlan, or the City of Tenochcity of Mexico, the capital of the Aztec Empire, was a large and splentitlan, or did city, being nine miles in circumference, and having about sixty Mexico. thousand houses and probably a population of half a million. Most of Its Great the streets were short and narrow, and were lined with mean houses. Palaces. The large streets were intersected by many canals crossed by bridges. Police of the Capital. King Montezuma II. Invasion Fernando The royal palace near the center of the city was a pile of low, irregular stone edifices of enormous size. Another palace, which was assigned to Fernando Cortez when he entered the city, was large enough to accommodate his entire army. The capital had an efficient and vigilant police, and a thousand men were employed daily in watering and sweeping its streets. The lake that surrounded the city was very brackish, and pure water was supplied to the inhabitants by means of an aqueduct from the neighboring hill of Chapultepec, where Montezuma had a summer palace surrounded by vast and magnificent gardens. The Aztec king АHUITZOтL was succeeded on the Mexican throne by his nephew MONTEZUMA II., in 1502. Montezuma II. was an active and warlike sovereign, and made conquests as far south into Central America as Honduras and Nicaragua. He made numerous changes in the internal administration of his kingdom, and was distinguished for the strictness and stringency with which he executed the laws. He liberally rewarded those who served him faithfully, and expended vast sums on the public works. He maintained his court on a scale of magnificence never before equaled in Mexico. Heavy taxes were imposed upon his subjects to provide for these expenditures, and these caused frequent insurrections. As we have seen, the Spaniard Cordova discovered Mexico in 1517. of Mexico In 1519, when King Montezuma II. was at the height of his power and by the Spaniards glory, Fernando Cortez, a Spanish adventurer, at the head of five hununder dred and fifty Spaniards, and with ten pieces of cannon and about a dozen horsemen, invaded the Aztec Empire for purposes of conquest, landing on the eastern coast. Cortez defeated the natives who endeavored to prevent the landing, founded the city of Vera Cruz (True Cross), burned his ships, left a small garrison to defend his new conquest, and advanced into the interior. Cortez. Conquest of the Republic of by Cortez first subdued the warlike republic of Tlascala, defeating the Tlascalans in four battles and entering the city of Tlascala on September 18, 1519. The natives were astonished at the fair skin and the Tlascala martial prowess of the Spanish invaders, and believed them to be beings of divine origin, so that a rumor was circulated that the gods had undertaken the conquest of the country. Cortez vainly endeavored to persuade the Tlascalans to abjure their religion and to accept Christianity, but he succeeded in inducing them to acknowledge themselves vassals of the King of Spain. Cortez. Cortez remained at Tlascala twenty days; after which he resumed his march toward the city of Tenochtitlan, or Mexico, accompanied by a Chastise ment of the force of several thousand Tlascalans who had espoused his cause. His route lay through Cholula, the inhabitants of which were induced by the Aztecs to attempt a treacherous attack upon the Spanish invaders. Cholulans Cortez severely punished the Cholulans for their intended attack, after by which he resumed his march to the city of Mexico, before which he arrived November 8, 1519. King Montezuma II. had already sent ambassadors to Cortez to warn him not to approach the capital. The Aztec king now changed his policy, received the Spanish invaders with great pomp, and assigned them one of the largest and strongest palaces in the city for their quarThe Spaniards soon converted this palace into a fortress. They were very much surprised at the extent and magnificence of the Aztec capital, and from the very beginning they prepared to conquer it, along. with the whole country. Cortez. Reception of Cortez by King Montezuma. Aztec Hostility. The Aztecs strongly disapproved of their king's course in permitting the Spaniards to enter the capital, and manifested their hostility to the invaders on every possible occasion. At length a party of seventeen Aztecs attacked a Spanish detachment. Cortez thereupon sought an interview with Montezuma II. in the Aztec monarch's own palace, seized him and conveyed him a captive to the Spanish quarters, and threatened him with instant death if he should give any sign to the multitude of Montein the streets that he was a prisoner. The Aztecs would have attempted to rescue their captive king had he not assured them that he was going of his own free will to visit the Spanish commander. When Cortez arrived at his quarters he put his royal captive in irons, and captured and burned to death the seventeen natives who had attacked the Spaniards. He then forced Montezuma II. to take an oath of allegiance to the King of Spain, and to induce his nobles to do the same; after which he obtained from the captive monarch a sum of gold equal in value to one hundred thousand ducats. In this emergency Cortez was informed that an expedition from Spain had landed on the eastern coast of Mexico, under the command of Narvaez, who had come to take from Cortez the command of the Spanish troops in Mexico. Cortez left two hundred of his troops to hold the Spanish position in the city of Mexico, and hastened with seventy troops to Cholula, where he was reinforced by one hundred and fifty troops whom he had left there, after which he marched against Narvaez, who was encamped in one of the Cempoallan cities with nine hundred Spanish soldiers, eighty horses and a dozen pieces of artillery. By a bold stroke Cortez captured Narvaez and his entire force. The vanquished troops of Narvaez readily enlisted in the service of their captor, and with this reinforcement Cortez returned to the city of Mexico. Seizure zuma II. by Cortez. Cruel Treat ment of Montezuma II. by Cortez. Capture of a Rival Spanish Force under Narvaez by Cortez. Monte zuma II. Killed by His Enraged Subjects. Cortez Driven from the Upon his return to the Aztec capital Cortez found the inhabitants in open rebellion against his troops. He brought out Montezuma and forced him to address his subjects; but the enraged Aztecs discharged a volley of missiles at their captive king, who thus received a mortal wound, of which he died several days afterward, June, 1520. Such was the melancholy fate of the last monarch of the Aztecs. The Aztecs now assailed the Spaniards with desperate fury, drove them from the city, and literally annihilated their rear-guard in their Capital. retreat across the causeway leading to the mainland. The retreat lasted six days; but at length Cortez halted on the plain of Otumba, where an Victory of overwhelming Aztec force attacked him, July 7, 1520, but he came forth Cortez. Guatemozin's Defense of His Capital. Fall victorious. This battle settled the fate of Mexico. Cortez instantly proceeded to Tlascala, where he collected an auxiliary force of natives, after which he speedily reduced the neighboring provinces, and again appeared before the city of Mexico, April 28, 1521. GUATEMOZIN, the new Aztec king, the nephew and son-in-law of the ill-fated Montezuma II., was a man of firmness and decision. He held his capital against the Spanish invaders for seventy-seven days, during which the city was literally reduced to ruins by the Indian allies of Cortez. By the final assault, August 15, 1521, the Spaniards captured what was left of the beautiful capital of the Aztec Empire. King Guatemozin sought to escape with his family by the lake; but was purGuatemo- sued and taken prisoner by the Spaniards, who treated him with great cruelty, putting him on a bed of fiery coals, from which he was at once released by Cortez. But Cortez soon put Guatemozin and many of his nobles to death. of the Capital. zin's Cruel Death. Final Conquest With the conquest of the remainder of the country the same year the Aztec Empire ended, and for three centuries (A. D. 1521–1821) Mexico was a province of Spain. After effecting the conquest of the by Cortez. country, Cortez rebuilt the city of Mexico upon its present plan, emThe City ploying a large force of natives for that purpose. He exerted himself of Mexico to introduce European civilization and Roman Catholic Christianity by Cortez. into the country. He established a military government in the conHis Rule quered land with himself as its chief. In October, 1522, King Charles in Mexico, I. of Spain, Emperor Charles V. of Germany, issued a decree naming Spain. the conquered country New Spain, and appointed Cortez governor of Natives the new province. The Spanish conquerors enslaved the natives, and Enslaved. compelled them to work in the mines and to till the soil. Rebuilt or New New In 1528 the Spanish king suppressed the system set up by Cortez, Spain as and made New Spain a Spanish viceroyalty, which it remained during a Spanish Vice- the entire subsequent period of the Spanish dominion, during which royalty. period there were sixty-four viceroys, all but one of them being natives of Spain. The province continued to improve, in spite of the policy |