Barbara_E._Mundy]_The_Death_of_Aztec_Tenochtitlan

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no Tes T o Pages 71–86 • 217

Dress of the Aztec Rulers”; Colin McEwan and
Leonardo López Luján, eds., Moctezuma: Aztec
Ruler, 81; Hajovsky, “Without a Face.”



  1. Durán, History, 298.

  2. Durán, History, 125.


chaPTeR 4



  1. Francisco López de Gómara, Cortés: The
    Life of the Conqueror by His Secretary, ed. and
    trans. Lesley Byrd Simpson, 264.

  2. Rafael Tena, ed. and trans., Anales de
    Tlatelolco, 119.

  3. Díaz del Castillo, True History, vol. 4,
    ch. 156, p. 187.

  4. Tena, Anales de Tlatelolco, 119.

  5. For instance, Agustín de Vetancourt,
    “ Tratado de la ciudad de Mexico,” in Te a t r o
    Mexicano, fol. 1.

  6. José Ignacio Mantecón Navasal and
    Manuel Toussaint, Información de méritos y
    servicios de Alonso García Bravo, alarife que trazó
    la ciudad de México; Ana Rita Valero de García
    Lascuráin, La ciudad de México-Tenochtitlán: Su
    primera traza, 1524–1534; Lucía Mier y Terán
    Rocha, La primera traza de la ciudad de México,
    1524–1535; Guillermo Porras Muñoz, El gobierno
    de la ciudad de México en el siglo XVI.

  7. Motolinia, Historia, tratado 1, ch. 1, 16.

  8. Rodolfo Acuña-Soto et al., “Megadrought
    and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico.”

  9. Motolinia [Motolinía], or Toribio de
    Benavente, Motolinía’s History of the Indians of
    New Spain, ed. and trans. Francis B. Steck, 271.

  10. On the debates over where to build the
    Spanish capital, see Porras Muñoz, El gobierno
    de la ciudad de México, 17–19; Valero de García
    Lascuráin, La ciudad de México-Tenochtitlán,
    64–73.

  11. Inga Clendinnen, “‘Fierce and Unnatural
    Cruelty’: Cortés and the Conquest of Mexico.”

  12. Gibson, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule, 381.

  13. Edward Calnek, “The Localization of
    the 16th-Century Map Called the Maguey
    Plan”; María Castañeda de la Paz, “Sibling
    Maps, Spatial Rivalries: The Beinecke Map
    and the Plano Parcial de la Ciudad de México”;
    Castañeda de la Paz, “El Plano Parcial de la
    Ciudad de México.”

  14. Gibson, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule,



  15. López de Gómara, Cortés, 160.

  16. López de Gómara, Cortés, 160–163.

  17. Díaz del Castillo, True History, vol. 2, ch.
    92, p. 71; Cortés, Letters from Mexico, 104.

  18. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, bk. 11, ch. 11.

  19. Ignacio Bejarano, ed., Actas de cabildo de
    la ciudad de México, August 26, 1524, mentions
    the appointment of someone to guard the “agua
    que viene de Chapultepec” (water that comes


from Chapultepec), revealing that the rebuilding
of the aqueduct was one of the earliest public
works projects in the post-Conquest city.


  1. Chimalpahin, Codex Chimalpahin, 1:169,
    gives this succession.

  2. Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico,
    Tierras 24, exp. 3, fol. 111.

  3. Cortés, Letters from Mexico, 263.

  4. Cortés, Letters from Mexico, 321;
    López de Gómara, Cortés, 323, also names
    his appointment; don Pedro Moctezoma
    Tlacahuepantli (the son of the pre-Hispanic
    emperor) was named to another district.
    The evidence for Tlacotzin’s appointment to
    Moyotlan is circumstantial, because his son don
    Geronimo had a large house in that district that
    he inherited from his mother and was a resident
    of that barrio. Archivo General de la Nación,
    Mexico, Tierras 24, exp. 3, fol. 140. Kubler,
    Mexican Architecture of the Sixteenth Century,
    1:45, says he was assigned San Antonio Abad,
    but this is clearly a misunderstanding, as this
    was not one of the four parts of the early city.

  5. It is described as “tianguis de la casa de
    Juan Velazquez” (market of the house of Juan
    Velazquez) in Bejarano, Actas de cabildo, May
    22, 1524; after his death, it is described as the
    “tianguis que era de Juan Velazquez” (market
    that was Juan Velazquez’s) in Bejarano, Actas de
    cabildo, May 20, 1526.

  6. On Cuitlahua, see Chimalpahin, Codex
    Chimalpahin, 1:165.

  7. Dibble, Códice Aubin, 62.

  8. In Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico,
    Tierras 24, exp. 3, a lawsuit of 1569 uses the
    word tlaltenamitl for the dikes.

  9. Cortés, Letters from Mexico, 323, tells
    us there were two native markets in the city,
    the other to be found where the Indians lived,
    presumably Tlatelolco.

  10. Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico,
    Tierras 1735, exp. 2, fols. 117, 118, and 121,
    published in Arthur J. O. Anderson, Frances
    Berdan, and James Lockhart, Beyond the Codices,
    146–149.

  11. Robert Haskett, Indigenous Rulers:
    An Ethnohistory of Indian Town Government
    in Colonial Cuernavaca; Ruiz Medrano and
    Kellogg, eds., Negotiation within Domination.

  12. López de Gómara, Cortés, 339; Cortés,
    Letters from Mexico, 366, makes the same point.

  13. López de Gómara, Cortés, 339.

  14. Pérez-Rocha and Tena, La nobleza
    indígena, 99–102.

  15. Chimalpahin, Codex Chimalpahin, 1:169,
    notes his quick appointment.

  16. Bejarano, Actas de cabildo, May 31, 1526,
    notes the return of Cortés; in the acta for
    June 28, 1526, Cortés named Alonso de Grado
    “visitador general” (a position with general


oversight) to amend problems with Indians,
and at this moment, when Cortés reasserted
his involvement in the city’s affairs, he may have
appointed the new governor.


  1. García Icazbalceta, “Historia de
    los Mexicanos,” 255, also tells us that
    Motelchiuhtzin (whom he also calls “Viznagual”
    [or Huitznahual]) was sent out to greet Cortés
    before his arrival into Tenochtitlan, so he was
    likely the first high-ranking Mexica lord Cortés
    ever met; this source also credits Cortés with
    the appointment of Motelchiuhtzin, 256, while
    underlining that he was not a nobleman, 260.
    Motelchiuhtzin’s pre-Hispanic role is clarified
    by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who reports that he
    was Moteuczoma’s steward, “a great Cacique to
    whom we gave the name of Tápia and he kept
    the accounts of all the revenue that was brought
    to Moteuczoma, in his books which were made
    of paper which they call amal, and he had a great
    house full of these books.” Díaz del Castillo,
    True History, vol. 2, ch. 91, p. 64.

  2. Chimalpahin, Codex Chimalpahin, 1:171.

  3. Chimalpahin, Codex Chimalpahin, 1:171.

  4. Ruiz Medrano, Reshaping New Spain, esp.
    24–32.

  5. Pérez-Rocha and Tena, La nobleza
    indígena, 99–102; Chimalpahin, Codex
    Chimalpahin, 1:171; García Icazbalceta, “Historia
    de los Mexicanos,” 256.

  6. Chimalpahin, Codex Chimalpahin,
    1:169, 171.

  7. Bejarano, Actas de cabildo, December
    19, 1533; in these minutes of the meeting, one
    of the councilmen, Gonzalo Ruiz, presented a
    summary of testimony given before the royal
    court, the audiencia, about the move of the
    tianguis, and his summary makes it clear that the
    market was being returned to where it once was.
    Dibble, Códice Aubin, 63, also reports a tianguis
    being established in 1533.

  8. It is sometimes called the “ Tianguis de
    San Lázaro” because the church of San Lázaro
    stood on the site into the 1540s, and some
    kind of shrine may have existed there through
    the sixteenth century. See Archivo General
    de la Nación, Mexico, Indios 4, exp. 194, and
    Hospital de Jesus 296, exp. 4, where a public
    announcement is made “en San Lazaro junto al
    tiangues” (at San Lázaro, next to the market)
    in 1592; this document is also reproduced in
    Reyes García, Celestino Solís, and Valencia
    Ríos, Documentos nahuas de la Ciudad de México,
    304; Domingo Francisco de San Antón Muñón
    Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, Annals of
    His Time, ed. and trans. James Lockhart, Susan
    Schroeder, and Doris Namala, 37, also refers to
    it as such.

  9. Dibble, Códice Aubin, 65.

  10. Jorge Olvera Ramos accepts that the Plaza

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