Moctezuma II

When Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés entered the Valley of Mexico in 1519, the Aztec Empire was governed by Moctezuma II, the ninth tlatoani of Tenochtitlan. Born around 1466 into the ruling dynasty, he was a son of the former ruler Axayacatl and had served as a military commander and priest before the council of nobles elected him in 1502 to succeed his uncle Ahuitzotl. Much of what is recorded of his early reign derives from post-conquest codices and chronicles, composed decades after the events they describe, and details of chronology and motive should be read with that in mind.

As ruler, Moctezuma extended the tribute empire of the Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan toward its greatest extent, campaigning in Oaxaca and against other southern polities, though the neighboring state of Tlaxcala was never subdued. Colonial sources describe him as centralizing power, replacing officials of common birth with members of the nobility and elaborating court ceremonial, a portrait that may owe something to later judgments of his reign.

The arrival of the Spanish expedition in 1519 defined his place in history. After a series of embassies and gifts, Moctezuma admitted Cortés and his men, together with their Tlaxcalan allies, into Tenochtitlan in November of that year. Within weeks the Spaniards seized him and held him in their quarters, ruling for a period through his captive authority. The arrangement collapsed in 1520 after a Spanish massacre of celebrants at a religious festival provoked a general uprising. Moctezuma died at the end of June 1520, during the fighting that preceded the Spanish flight from the city. Spanish accounts state that he was struck by stones thrown by his own people while appealing for calm; some indigenous traditions instead hold that the Spaniards killed him. The question remains unresolved.

He was succeeded briefly by his brother Cuitláhuac, who died of smallpox within months, and then by Cuauhtémoc, the last independent ruler of the empire. Several of Moctezuma's children survived the conquest and were incorporated into colonial society; through his daughter Isabel Moctezuma and other descendants, his line entered the Spanish nobility, where titles derived from his name persisted into the modern era.