‘FOR THE KILLING OF ONE ANOTHER’

In the early hours of 30 June 1520, Hernán Cortés rode furiously back down the gutted causeway leading westward from the Mexica capital of Tenochtitlan. He rode as if bound on a journey to hell, in search of the man who had damned them all.

Conor Robison

Cortés found Pedro de Alvarado, his second-in-command, fighting desperately beside those who had deceived him into committing an atrocity so heinous it brought the wrath of the Aztecs down upon them. But by their mutual effusion of blood this night the Spaniards forged anew their alliance with the warriors of Tlaxcala – a relationship destined to topple the might of an empire and reshape the world as they knew it. Forging an alliance That reshaping was decades in the making, but almost never came to pass. Upon first encountering the Spaniards, the Tlaxcallans did everything in their power to destroy them. Cortés was just another intruder in those early days of September 1519. He was in company with people subject to Montezuma, ruler of the vast Aztec empire. The decades…

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Medieval World Culture & Conflict (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 16 - 2025

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