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The Aztec forces were destroyed and the Aztecs surrendered on 13 August 1521, Julian Date. [ 34 ] : 404 Cortés demanded the return of the gold lost during La Noche Triste . Under torture, by burning their feet with oil, Cuauhtémoc and the lord of Tacuba confessed to dumping his gold and jewels into the lake.
The strategy backfired badly, and in the ensuing mayhem Moctezuma was killed and Cortes instead resorted to an attempt to stealthily depart under cover of darkness and a rainstorm, but they were detected and what followed became known as La Noche Triste or The Night of Sorrows in which many conquistadors and their Tlaxcaltec allies were killed.
Although hard-pressed, the Spanish infantry was able to hold off the overwhelming numbers of enemy warriors, while the Spanish cavalry under the leadership of Cortés charged through the enemy ranks again and again. When Cortés and his men killed one of the Aztec leaders, the Aztecs broke off the battle and left the field. [49]: 303–05
The Aztecs left rulers of conquered cities in power so long as they agreed to pay semi-annual tribute to the alliance, as well as supply military forces when needed for the Aztec war efforts. In return, the imperial authority offered protection and political stability and facilitated an integrated economic network of diverse lands and peoples ...
The Aztecs [a] (/ ˈ æ z t ɛ k s / AZ-teks) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries.
It is said that the Aztec god, Huitzilopochtli, instructed the Aztecs to found their city at the location where they saw an eagle, on a cactus, with a snake in its talons (which is on the current Mexican flag). The Aztecs, apparently, saw this vision on the small island where Tenochtitlan was founded.
The Aztecs, however, jeered at Moctezuma, and pelted him with stones and darts. By Spanish accounts, he was killed in this assault by the Aztecs, though the Aztecs claim he had been killed instead by the Spanish. [2]: 294 [3]: 90 A map of Tenochtitlan and its causeways leading out of the capital
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca [a] [b] (December 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century.