When Hernan Cortés and his band of three hundred Spaniards arrived at Tenochtitlán on November 8, 1519, he brought two great civilizations into contact for the first time and radically changed the culture and language of Mexico and much of North America.
"The ruler of the largest empire in the Americas (Montecuhzoma), still at the height of his power, coming face to face to face with the self-appointed emissary of the king of Spain, who, though under guard in a well-kept and well-ordered city, larger than any to be seen in Europe, was yet strangely unawed," writes Nicholas Ostler in Empires of the Word.
"Their words set the tone for all that was to follow, above all the tragic diplomacy and incomprehension of the Aztecs, and the calculating, dissembling, but unremitting, aggression of the Spaniards. It was the first step towards the replacement of Nahuatl as the imperial language of Mexico, and the progress of Spanish towards its establishment as the language first of government and religion and then of everything else in the New World."
Moctezuma welcomed Cortés on the Great Causeway into Tenochtitlán. Cortés knew that the Aztec ruler suspected him of being the legendary man-god Quetzalcoatl, or at least his emissary. The Messiah-like bearded and white-skinned Quetzalcoatl was expected to return to Tenochtitlán in a One-Reed year on the 52-year Aztec cyclical calendar. Fatefully, 1519 was the One-Reed year in the current cycle.
According to the Spanish record of the meeting, Cortés spoke first: "Are you Moctezuma? Are you the king? Is it true that you are the king, Moctezuma?"
The king replied: 'Yes, I am Moctezuma.'
Standing up, he came forward, bowed his head low, and said, "Our lord, you are weary, the journey has tired you, but now you have arrived on the earth. You have come to your city, Mexico. You have come here to sit on your throne, to sit under its canopy... This was foretold by the kings who governed your city, and now it has taken place. You have come back to us; you have come down from the sky. Rest now, and take possession of your royal houses. Welcome to your land, my lord."
Cortés took full advantage of the Quetzalcoatl myth. Although the visit to Tenochtitlán was his first contact with the Aztec empire, he had been in the New World for eight years and had done his homework. He went along with the mistaken identity and, consequently, Moctezuma treated Cortés as an equal, granting regal hospitality to the Spanish soldiers. He took the conquistador to the roof of the temple to show off the rich, bustling city below them.
According to Cortés and others in his party, Tenochtitlán was larger, more beautiful and more complex than any European city of the time. The city's builders and craftsmen were a match for any in Europe and its pyramids were equal to those in Egypt.
None of this, however, dissuaded Cortés from his self-appointed mission: to impose Christianity and the Spanish Empire on the New World and to plunder the city's riches. He had Moctezuma seized and made a prisoner, collecting a huge ransom from the stunned Aztecs.
After fighting off Spanish troops that were sent by Diego de Velázquez to relieve him of his command and stop his zealous expedition, Cortés took attempted to govern Tenochtitlán through the captive Montezuma, but the Aztec leader was killed during an uprising and the conquistadors left the city with heavy losses.
In 1521, Cortés and the conquistadors returned with reinforcements (enemies of the Aztecs) and, after a three-month siege, they seized and destroyed Tenochtitlán, putting an abrupt end to the Aztec empire.
