{"id":2471,"date":"2018-08-21T22:21:07","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T22:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/?p=2471"},"modified":"2026-02-25T07:25:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T07:25:57","slug":"massacre-of-the-aztec-in-the-great-temple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/massacre-of-the-aztec-in-the-great-temple\/","title":{"rendered":"Massacre of the Aztec in the Great Temple: A Detailed Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The massacre of the Aztec in the Great Temple was an important event in the history of the Age of Exploration<\/a> and the Aztec Empire<\/a>.\u00a0 As part of the conquest the Spanish conquistadors, who were led by\u00a0Hernan\u00a0Cort\u00e9s<\/a>, took the Aztec leader Moctezuma II<\/a>\u00a0captive.\u00a0 Soon after, occurred the massacre of unarmed Aztec citizens by the Spanish. The violent massacre, carried out in the sacred Templo Mayor<\/a>, sparked outrage and led to a massive Aztec uprising against the Spanish conquistadors. With that said, it also eventually led to the Final Battle of Tenochtitlan and the fall of the Aztec Empire<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

BEFORE THE MASSACRE OF THE AZTEC IN THE GREAT TEMPLE<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Cort\u00e9s and the Spanish arrived at the Aztec capital city of\u00a0Tenochtitlan<\/a>\u00a0in November of 1519.\u00a0 While they were accompanied by their new allies, the Tlaxcala, only Cort\u00e9s and the Spanish were invited into the city.\u00a0 Still believing that Cort\u00e9s might be\u00a0Quetzalcoatl<\/a>, Moctezuma II gave the Spanish many gifts and allowed them to stay as guests in the Aztec capital.\u00a0 During the next week or so the Spanish toured the city and saw the many Aztec temples, markets and palaces.\u00a0 However, soon after, Cort\u00e9s learned of the death of several of his men from an Aztec attack on the Gulf Coast.\u00a0 The Aztec had attacked one of their rivals, and since the Spanish had allied with many of the Aztecs enemies, they were caught up in the battle.\u00a0 At this point Cort\u00e9s became fearful that Moctezuma II<\/a> may order his death and in response he took the Aztec leader captive in the palace that Moctezuma II had prepared for the Spanish in Tenochtitlan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Spanish
Entrance of Hernan Cortes into the Aztec Empire. It shows the meeting between Hernan Cortes and Moctezuma II.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

MASSACRE OF THE AZTEC IN THE GREAT TEMPLE – SUMMARY<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

During the months after Moctezuma II was imprisoned in Tenochtitlan, Cort\u00e9s was forced to leave to handle a different situation.\u00a0 Cort\u00e9s had been made aware that Diego Velasquez, the Spanish governor of Cuba, had ordered his arrest for disobeying orders in regards to his expedition to Mexico.\u00a0 As such, Cort\u00e9s left that spring to stop P\u00e1nfilo de Narv\u00e1ez and other Spanish men that were sent to arrest him.\u00a0 While he was gone, Pedro de Alvarado was left in charge of the Spanish\u2019s mission in Tenochtitlan.\u00a0 Alvarado was a Spanish conquistador and is famous for participating in expeditions throughout the Caribbean and Central America, including places such as: Cuba, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.\u00a0 Several historians have noted the brutality he displayed in these conquests, particularly against the indigenous people of the different regions.\u00a0 Anyways, soon after Cort\u00e9s left, Moctezuma II requested that his people be allowed to celebrate the festival of Toxcatl.\u00a0 The festival occurred every May and was carried out to honor the\u00a0Aztec god\u00a0of\u00a0Tezcatlipoca.\u00a0 This god was important in Aztec culture and religion and was related to many different concepts, including: the\u00a0night sky,\u00a0hurricanes, the earth, obsidian, jaguars, and\u00a0war.\u00a0 Alvarado agreed, but soon after the Aztec began the celebration he ordered and carried out an attack against the Aztec men, women and children that were participating.\u00a0 This event is referred to as the \u2018Massacre of Aztec in the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tenochtitlan
Tenochtitlan (Templo Mayor can be seen in the center)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Essentially, the Spanish conquistadors attacked the Aztec and killed most of the people, who were unarmed and did not actively fight back.  There are differing accounts of why Alvarado carried out the attack, such as: he attacked the Aztec after seeing the gold religious items they brought to the festival or he attacked in an attempt to stop a human sacrifice that was part of the ceremony.  Regardless, in both accounts, Alvarado massacred unarmed Aztecs.  The massacre led to an increase in hostilities between the Spanish and the Aztec and caused the Spanish to hide in the palace that Moctezuma II provided them with following retaliation by the Aztec warriors. Cort\u00e9s returned from his victory over P\u00e1nfilo de Narv\u00e1ez to find Tenochtitlan in full upheaval and revolt.  The Spanish were essentially held captive by the Aztec nobility and warriors in Tenochtitlan following the massacre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after, Moctezuma II was killed and the Spanish carried out their daring escape from the Aztec capital which the Spanish refer to as Noche Triste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Hernan
‘Portrait of Hernan Cortes’ by an unknown artist. (1525)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The massacre of the Aztec in the Great Temple is an important event from the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521 CE. This article details the history and significance of the massacre of the Aztec by Spanish conquistadors in the Great Aztec Temple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":54,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,80],"tags":[77,15,79],"class_list":["post-2471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aztec-empire","category-mesoamerica","tag-aztec-empire","tag-history","tag-mesoamerica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2471"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5731,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions\/5731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}