Massacre at the
Templo Mayor

Well, things were like this: while everyone was enjoying the festival--now the dance, now the singing, now one song intertwining with another, and the songs are like waves of thunder--in that precise moment the men from Castile make the decision to kill the people. Right away they come toward here; they all come with weapons of war.

They come and close off the exits, the passageways, the entrances: the Eagle Entrance, in the smaller palace; that of Acatliyacapan (Reed Point), that of Tezcacoac (Mirrored Serpent). And once they were closed off, they posted guards; now nobody could leave.

With things set up like this, they immediately enter the Sacred Patio to kill the people. They come on foot, they carry their wooden shields, and some carry metal shields and their swords.

They immediately surround the dancers; they throw themselves upon where the drums are: they slashed the drummer and cut off both of his arms. Then they decapitated him; his cut-off head landed far away.

At once they stab everyone, they lance the people and slash them, they wound them with their swords. Some of them they attacked from behind; immediately their entrails spilled out on the ground. Others they ripped off their heads; they sliced up the head, their heads were entirely torn to shreds.

But on others they slash their shoulders: severed, their bodies were torn up. Some they wound in the thigh, others in the calves, still others right in the abdomen. All their entrails fell to the ground. And there were some that ran in vain: they ran dragging their intestines and seemed to get their feet tangled in them. Anxious to save themselves, they couldn’t find anywhere to run.

For some tried to leave: there in the entrance [the Spaniards] wounded them, they stabbed them. Others scaled the walls; but they could not save themselves. Others went into the common house; there they did find safety. Others intermingled with the dead; they pretended to be dead in order to escape. Seeming to be dead, they were saved. But if one stood up, they saw him and stabbed him.

The blood of the warriors ran like water; like water made into puddles, and the stench of blood rose in the air, and that of the entrails that seemed to be dragged.

And the Spaniards were going every which way looking for the community houses; every which way they stabbed with their swords, they looked for things: to see if something was hidden there; everywhere they went, they searched. In the communal houses they searched every part thoroughly.

The Mexicans’ Response

 And when the news was heard outside, a cry went up:

--Captains, Mexicans…come here! Let everyone come armed: with insignias, shields, darts!...Come here quickly, run: the captains are dead, our warriors have died!...They have been annihilated, oh Mexican captains!

Then the uproar was heard, shouts were raised, and the ululating of people striking their lips. At once the crowd formed, all the captains, just as if they had been summoned: they bring their darts, their shields.

Then the battle begins: they throw darts, arrows, and even javelins, with harpoons for hunting birds. And their furious and hurried javelins fly. The canes unfurl over the Spaniards like a yellow cape.

The People from Castile Take Refuge in the Royal Houses

For their part, the people from Castile immediately return to their quarters. And they too begin to shoot at the Mexicans with their iron arrows. And they fire the cannon and the harquebus.

They immediately put Motecuhzoma in shackles.

The Mexican captains, those who had succumbed in the massacre, were removed one after another. They were carried out, taken out, inquiries were carried out to recognize who each one was.

Weeping for the Dead

 And the fathers and mothers of the families began to weep. [The dead] were mourned; the lamentation for the dead was carried out. Each one was taken to his house, but afterwards they took them to the Sacred Patio. There they brought together all the dead; there they burned all of them, in a specific place, a place called Cuauhxicalco (Eagle Urn). But they burned others in the House of the Youth.

[Informants of Sahagún, Códice Florentino, book XII, chapter 20. Version by Ángel Ma. Garibay K, reproduced in Miguel León Portilla, El reverso de la conquista (México DF: Joaquín Motriz, 1964). Translattion ©2005, Elissa Rashkin.]

• TOP

• CONQUEST OF MEXICO — home
• Cortés and La Malinche — March 1519
• La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz — April-July 1519
• The march inland and war with Tlaxcala — August-September 1519
• Massacre at Cholula — October 1519
• La Gran Tenochtitlan — November 1519
• Desperate return to Cempoala — May 1520
• La noche triste — July 1520
• Tlatelolco — August 1521

NOTE: Quotes from Díaz and Cortés are from the following sources:
The Conquest of New Spain, Bernal Díaz del Castillo. Translated by J. M. Cohen. Penguin Books, 1963.
Letters from Mexico, Hernán Cortés. Translated by Anthony Pagden. Yale University Press, 1986.