It has often been pointed out that the institutional reverence accorded Cuauhtemoc, the last Mexica (Aztec) emperor, is the result of Emperor Moctezuma II’s poor showing against the Spanish.
Numbed by the ancient religious prophecy that the banished god Quetzalcoatl — fair-haired and fair-featured — would return to Mexico from the east in One Reed, the year (1519) that Hernan Cortez showed up in what is today Veracruz, Moctezuma vacillated in deciding whether the conquistador was a deity coming back to claim what was rightfully his, or simply a strange and awesome invader. By the time he made up his mind, it was too late.
Birth and other confusions
Both Cuauhtemoc’s birth and death have been the subject of much tugging and hauling among Mexico’s anthropologists, historians and scholars. There seems little doubt that he was the son of Ahuizotl, the eighth king of the Mexica Empire. However, the year of his birth has come in for some pushing and pulling. Most Mexican authorities seem settled on 1496, though one has put the date at 10 Tochtli, or 1502. There also has been fencing among scholars concerning who Cuauhtemoc’s mother was. Many historians have chosen Cuauyatitlali, a Chontal princess from Guerrero, as Cuauhtemoc’s mother. However, others claim his mother was Princess Tilalcapatl of Tlatelolco.
What seems clear is that his father died in 1502, and at 15 Cuauhtemoc entered Tenochtitlan’s Calmecac, an academy noted for its severe military discipline and rigorous religious and scientific training.
Shortly after Moctezuma was killed, March 1, 1521, while pleading with his people to put down their arms and promising that the Spanish would leave Tenochtitlan (today’s Mexico City), Cuauhtemoc was crowned emperor. The new monarch conducted a gallant and stubborn, if ragged, defense of the Empire’s capital. But Cortez’s men, equipped with horses and swords, shields, muskets and artillery and aided by a vengeful force of Indian allies, overwhelmed the Tenochtitlan defenders. The last Mexica emperor was 26 years old when he was captured while trying to escape. Cortez had him tortured in a vain effort to find Mexica stores of gold.
It is Cuauhtemoc’s death that has stirred a lot of patriotic dust. Cortez took Cuauhtemoc on what turned out to be a brutal march to las Hibueras (Honduras), to put down a rebellion by Cristobal de Olid, one of his lieutenants. During the appalling 13-month journey through swamps, jungles and over mountains, Cortez was told by his Indian allies that Cuauhtemoc was planning to kill the conquistadores. Cortez had Cuauhtemoc and Teplepanquetzal, his cousin, hanged and buried. At the time the Spaniards, frightened and desperate, had just barely escaped starving to death, had been lost several times and were facing more menacing heat, hunger, marshes, rivers, jungle and mountains. To cross just 40 miles took them 12 days and they lost 63 horses. After locating the Olid expedition, which had put down rebellion among its ranks, Cortez took nearly a year to get back to Mexico City.In 1946, Cortez’s bones were found in Mexico City’s Hospital de Jesus. Then in 1949, bones discovered in a tomb at Ixcateopan, Guerrero, were said to be the remains of Cuauhtemoc.
Using the claim by some historians that Cuauhtemoc had been killed in the village of Tzancanac, Tabasco — others reckon he died on the shores of Lake Peten, in Guatemala — a backer of the Ixcateopan discovery said that the Mexica monarch’s comrades had carried his body back to his birthplace in Guerrero. This argument refuted the generally accepted concept that Cuauhtemoc’s place of birth was Tenochtitlan — Mexico City. It also assumed that the Mexica accompanying Cortez to Honduras, lost, hungry, exhausted and shedding as much baggage as they could, carried Cuauhtemoc’s decaying body the long distance through the jungles of Tabasco — or Guatemala — to Guerrero.
Gov’t investigations
Three government commissions were installed over the years to study the evidence at Ixcateopan. The first, a one-woman commission, history teacher Eulalia Guzman, said the bones were those of Cuauhtemoc. In 1951 a second commission, made up of some of the most respected anthropologists and scientists in Mexico, voted no, 10 to one. In 1976, President (1970-1976) Luis Echeverria ordered a new study. Because the president plainly wanted a positive conclusion, this group of investigators waited until Echeverria left office to announce that the Ixcateopan bones cold not be identified.
At the time, journalist Guillermo Jordan wrote in the Mexico City daily, Excelsior, “Cuauhtemoc will be truly honored when no inhabitant of this country suffers misery or is exploited ... Until then, it doesn’t matter whether the bones discovered are authentic or not.”