Siege of Tenochtitlan

In 1521 Hernán Cortés returned to the Basin of Mexico with Spanish troops, brigantines and a very large coalition of Indigenous allies. They cut the causeways and water supply and fought their way into Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco.

The defenders under Cuauhtémoc endured hunger, disease and repeated assaults before the city fell on 13 August. Fighting and destruction transformed the capital and ended independent Mexica imperial rule.

This context supports fiction about the last defence of Tenochtitlan, the role of Indigenous allies and the human consequences of the Spanish conquest.