When did Hernán Cortés meet Moctezuma in Mexico?

Cortés meets Moctezuma

Cortés y Moctezuma se encuentran

8 November 1519. Hernán Cortés landed on the coast of Mexico in March 1519 with eleven ships and about 600 men, founded Veracruz to give himself legal cover against the…

Where: Mexico, Mexico City

What happened

Hernán Cortés landed on the coast of Mexico in March 1519 with eleven ships and about 600 men, founded Veracruz to give himself legal cover against the governor of Cuba, and marched inland. At Potonchán he had been given twenty women, among them Malintzin, later Doña Marina, who spoke Nahuatl and Maya and became his interpreter; with her he made an alliance with Tlaxcala, the Mexica's enemy. On 8 November 1519 the Spaniards walked along the causeway into Tenochtitlan, a city on a lake larger than any in Spain, and were received by the tlatoani Moctezuma II. Within a week Cortés had seized him. Moctezuma died in June 1520 during the uprising that drove the Spaniards out on the Noche Triste; how he died is told differently by Spanish and Indigenous sources.

Say it

Malintzin hablaba náhuatl y maya, y aprendió español.

Malintzin spoke Nahuatl and Maya, and learned Spanish.

Why it matters

The meeting is the founding scene of Mexican history, and Malintzin, 'la Malinche', remains a disputed figure: traitor to some, survivor and mother of the mestizo nation to others.

Read about it

• Hernán Cortés y la Conquista — Hernán Cortés and the Conquest
• Bernal Díaz y la Conquista — Bernal Díaz and the Conquest
• El cacao de los aztecas — The Aztecs' Cacao

Connected

• Mestizaje and the castas (c. 1519–1821)
• The fall of Tenochtitlan (13 August 1521)
• The fall of Tenochtitlan (13 August 1521)
• Bernal Díaz writes his True History (c. 1568)
• Bernal Díaz writes his True History (c. 1568)

• Before: The Aztec Triple Alliance
• After: The fall of Tenochtitlan

Sources

1. Hernán Cortés — World History Encyclopedia
2. Montezuma — World History Encyclopedia
3. La Malinche — World History Encyclopedia