Abstract and Introduction
Abstract
This article analyzes the head injury of Emperor Moctezuma as one of those injuries that affected the course of history. The Emperor's death arguably changed the fate of an entire nation and led to the destruction of the Aztec civilization.
Moctezuma died in the evening hours of June 30, 1520, in his palace in the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, while a prisoner of the Spanish conquistadors. The Emperor had been speaking to his people in an effort to persuade them to cease hostilities against Hernán Cortés, his Spanish soldiers, and Indian allies. Both Spanish and Indian contemporary sources document that he sustained a severe head injury when one of his own warriors hit him with a rock thrown from a sling. However, after the Conquest of Mexico some of the information collected by Spanish friars from Indian stories, songs, and pictorial representations raised the possibility that Moctezuma died of strangulation or stabbing at the hands of the Spaniards. There is even a suggestion of suicide. This issue remains unresolved and emotionally charged.
The historical and clinical analysis of the events surrounding Moctezuma's death indicates that the Emperor most likely died as a consequence of head injury. The author has attempted to present a neutral analysis but agrees with Benjamin Keen that neutrality may be unattainable, no matter how remote the subject of historical inquiry is from the present.
Introduction
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Figure 1.
"Moctezuma II" from de Solis, A. Istoria della conquista del Messico, della popolazione, e de'progressi nell'America Settentrionale conosciuta sotto nome di Nuova Spagna. Florence: Stamperia di S. A. S. per G. F. Cecchi, 1699. Source: Typ 625.99.800, Houghton Library, Harvard Source. Public domain.
When Hernán Cortés landed with his troops on April 22, 1519, on the Gulf coast (at present day Veracruz), he was seen by Moctezuma as the previously vanquished god Quetzalcoatl coming to reclaim his throne. Quetzalcoatl was an important Aztec god who opposed human sacrifice and was in direct conflict with the sun gods Tezcatlipoca (spiritual guardian of the Aztecs) and the warrior sun god Huitzolopochtli (another manifestation of Tezcatlipoca), who required continuous blood sacrifices. According to legend, Quetzalcoatl had promised to return on a certain anniversary date to the east coast of Mexico, whence he had departed. Aware of various celestial events interpreted as ominous portents by Moctezuma and his magicians, the emperor had ordered a continuous watch of the east coast for signs of Queztalcoatl's return. On May 15, 1518, Moctezuma received news of large vessels seen off the Gulf coast and of landing parties of strange men. One year later (April 1519), Cortés' arrival to the coast coincided with the predicted anniversary of Quetzalcoatl's return. The emperor thus found himself in what he saw as a battle against a supernatural foe.
On August 8th, 1519, Cortés and his army of Spanish conquistadores began their invasion of Mexico from the east coast. With lavish gifts Moctezuma unsuccessfully tried to prevent Cortés and his troops from advancing towards his capital city of Tenochtitlan. Cortés made alliances with the Cempoalan peoples. With others, such as the Tlaxcalans and the Cholulans, he waged victorious battles using firepower, steel weapons, horses, and war dogs. These actions were nervously followed by Moctezuma's informants and reinforced the Emperor's belief in the conquistadores' stature as gods and the inevitability of their march into Tenochtlitlan. This led the Emperor to welcome the newcomers into Tenochtitlan on November 8, 1519. Moctezuma provided food and quarters for those he believed to be the gods. As 5 months went by, acts of disrespect for the Aztec gods and the Spaniards' abhorrence of human sacrifice gradually turned the populace against the Spaniards. By late May 1520, the Spaniards, feeling extremely vulnerable, made the bold move of making the Emperor their prisoner in his own palace, under the pretext that Moctezuma had ordered the killing of some Spanish soldiers. The Emperor's humiliation and an alleged unprovoked attack and massacre of the Mexica nobility prompted a full-scale revolt by the Aztec warriors, which inflicted heavy casualties on the Spanish.
Fighting against overwhelming odds and with unrest within his own camp, Cortés decided to withdraw from the Aztec capital. He requested that Moctezuma address his people, so that they would allow the Spaniards to leave; Moctezuma reluctantly agreed. In the Aztec ranks this was seen as betrayal, and the warriors began hurling stones, spears and arrows at the Emperor (Fig. 2). Moctezuma died in the evening hours of June 30, 1520, in his palace in Tenochtitlan while being held as a prisoner of the Spanish.
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Figure 2.
"The death of Moctezuma at the hands of his own people." Unknown artist. The Library of Congress, The Conquest of Mexico Paintings, Painting 4. The farthest Aztec warrior on the left, lower row, is in the process of throwing a stone with his "temat-latl" (sling). Source: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/exploring-the-early-americas/interactives/conquest-of-mexico-paintings/painting4/. Public domain.
Both Spanish and Indian sources of the time documented that Moctezuma received a severe head injury from a sling shot from those of his own people whom he was addressing in his attempt to persuade them to cease hostilities against Cortés and his Spanish soldiers and Indian allies. However, after the conquest, some of the information that Spanish friars collected from Indian stories, songs, and pictorial representations raised the possibility that Moctezuma died of strangulation or stabbing at the hands of the Spaniards. There is even a suggestion of suicide. This issue remains unresolved and emotionally charged.
In order to consider the validity of Moctezuma's death from a head injury, it is imperative to analyze the historical as well as the scant clinical data. Similar attention is demanded of the analysis of theories of Moctezuma's possible execution by the Spaniards (not the main purview of this work).
Where prior translations are not available, I have translated the Spanish sources and have also added a minor revision to Patricia de Fuentes' translation of the chronicle of Fray Francisco de Aguilar and translated a sentence in Muñoz Camargo's Historia de Tlaxcala.