The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico

This short chapter dives into Motecuhzoma’s mental state at the approach of the Spanish. The narratives continue to be sourced from the Codex Florentino, which preserved the accounts of the Spanish friar Sahagun’s Nahua informants.

Motecuhzoma continues to propitiate the Spanish because he believes the visitors are gods. In “Motecuhzoma Sends out Wizards and Magicians,” he sends captives to be sacrificed for them, but the Spanish respond with disgust: “They refused to eat the food that was sprinkled with blood, because it reeked of it; it sickened them, as if the blood had rotted” (33). Motecuhzoma hopes too that his best wizards might deal magical damage to the Spanish in secret, but they fail (34). In “Motecuhzoma Learns of the Magicians’ Failure,” Motecuhzoma leans harder into doing everything possible to please the Spanish, as they seem completely impervious to the usual methods of attack.

The final sections of the chapter, “The Anxiety of Motecuhzoma and His People” and “Motecuhzoma Thinks of Fleeing,” paint a psychological portrait of the king and his citizens as they face an existential threat to their way of life. Some citizens of Tenochtitlan argue, weep, and gossip, while others “encourage their neighbors” (35).