Cortés and Moctezuma met on a causeway into Tenochtitlan
On this day · 8 November 1519
Two empires' fates turned on a single afternoon in 1519, with an enslaved interpreter standing between the emperor and the conquistador.
On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés marched along the Great Causeway into Tenochtitlan, the island capital of the Aztec empire, and met its ruler Moctezuma II face to face. Between them stood La Malinche (Doña Marina), the multilingual Nahua woman whose translation made the encounter possible.
The meeting was lavish. Moctezuma welcomed his guests with flowers and gifts, seated Cortés beside him, and lodged the Spaniards in a royal palace. Cortés tried to embrace the emperor and was politely restrained by a courtier.
The most consequential afternoon in the hemisphere’s history began as an exchange of courtesies.
The pleasantries did not last. Within a week the outnumbered Spaniards took Moctezuma hostage, and within two years Tenochtitlan had fallen, ending the Aztec empire and reshaping the lives of millions across the Americas.
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