CORTÉS ON TENOCHITITLAN REVOLT
The people who went inside were some of them harquebusiers and crossbowmen; the rest carried pikes and pickaxes, and iron bars to break into the houses and throw down the barricades the Indians had built in the streets. While we were constructing these machines the enemy continued to attack; whenever we left the fortress they tried to break in, and we repulsed them only with great difficulty. Mutezuma, who together with one of his sons and many other chiefs who had been captured previously was still a prisoner, asked to be taken out onto the roof of the fortress where he might speak to the captains of his people and tell them to end the fighting. I had him taken out, and when he reached a breastwork which ran out beyond the fortress, and was about to speak to them, he received a blow on his head from a stone; and the injury was so serious that he died three days later. I told two of the Indians who were captive to carry him out on their shoulders to the people. What they did with him I do not know; only the war did not stop because of it, but grew more fierce and pitiless each day.
That same day they called to me from the place where they had wounded Mutezuma, asking me to go there, for certain captains wished to speak with me. This I did, and we had many discussions and I begged them not to fight me, for they had no cause to, and to consider the good deeds I had done for them and how they had always been well treated by me. They replied saying that once I had left their land they would stop the war; otherwise they had all determined to die or put an end to us. This they said, or so it seemed, to persuade me to leave the fortress, for then they could have taken us easily at the bridges. I replied that they should not think I asked for peace because I feared them, but because it distressed me to see the harm we had done them, and would still have to do them, for I did not want to destroy so fine a city as theirs; yet still they answered that they would not end the war until I left the city.
On the following day, when we had finished the engines, I went out to capture some of the roof tops and bridges. The engines went in front, and behind them came four guns, many crossbowmen and shield-bearers and more than three thousand Indians from Tascalteca who had come with me and served the Spaniards. When we reached one of the bridges we placed the engines against the wall of a house and set up ladders with which to climb onto the roof, but there were so many people defending that bridge and the roof top, and so many and so large were the stones which they threw down at us, that they put our engines out of action and killed one Spaniard and wounded many more. We were unable to advance one step, although we fought hard from morning until midday, at which hour we returned to the fortress sorely disappointed. This gave the enemy such heart that they almost reached our gates. They captured the great temple, and some five hundred Indians, who seemed to me to be persons of rank, climbed up the main tower carrying provisions of bread and water and other things to eat, and many stones. All the rest had very long lances with flint heads wider than ours and no less sharp. From there they did much damage to the people in the fortress which stood close by. Once or twice the Spaniards attacked this tower and attempted to climb it, but because it was very high and the ascent very difficult, for there were a hundred or more steps, and because those at the top were well provided with stones and other weapons, and at an advantage because we had failed to take the other roof tops, every time the Spaniards began to climb they were driven back down again; and many were wounded thereby. When those of the enemy who were engaged elsewhere saw this, they became so elated that they came fearlessly right up to the fortress.
Last Updated: October 9, 2008
