Moctezuma II
Motēuczōma Xōcoyōtzin
Tlatoani of Tenochtitlan · Huey Tlatoani
1466 – 1520
Biography
Ninth tlatoani and the ruler whose reign spanned the arrival of Hernán Cortés in 1519. Whether he believed Cortés to be the returning god Quetzalcoatl, as later sources insisted, remains contested. His decision to receive the Spanish in Tenochtitlan rather than oppose them at the coast proved fatal — within months he was Cortés's prisoner, and within a year, dead under disputed circumstances during the Mexica uprising of June 1520.
Events
A two-year campaign by Hernán Cortés and roughly six hundred Spaniards, aided by smallpox and tens of thousands of indigenous allies who hated Mexica rule, destroyed the Aztec Empire. Moctezuma II received Cortés peacefully in Tenochtitlan in November 1519 and was held captive there; he died in disputed circumstances during the Mexica uprising of 1520. The eighty-day Spanish siege ended on 13 August 1521 with the capture of the last tlatoani, Cuauhtémoc.
Also there: Cuitlahuac, Cuauhtémoc, Charles V
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