Bryan Wachter

La NocheTriste, the event during the Conquest of Mexico in which Cortés and his men fled from the city of Tenochtitlan, is Spanish for “The Sad Night”. Though it was a sad event for BernalDíazand the other foot soldiers, as well as for the natives from the perspective of The Florentine Codex, Cortés seems to argue in his letters that perhaps it wasn’t such a sad event after all. When looking at these three sources, it is difficult to know exactly how sad it actually was, but it is clear what the basic sequence of events were: After riots began erupting in the city of Tenochtitlan and Montezuma had been killed,Cortés and his foot soldiers made an escape from the city under the cover of night along with Tlaxcalan soldiers.

The death of Montezuma is still quite unclear, but what is clear is the riot that began following the death of their leader. BernalDíaztook note of how the riot was becoming more and more deadly and dangerous for the Spaniards when he stated that, “Now we saw our forces diminishing every day and those of the Mexicans increasing, and many of our men were dead and all the rest wounded, and although we fought like brave men we could not drive back nor even get free from the many squadrons which attacked us both by day and night…”1Logically, Cortés came to the decision that they must leave the city in order to avoid their immediate demise2.

Throughout both The

Florentine Codex and BernalDíaz’ account,

the sadness of this event is well illustrated.

BernalDíazstates that “within a matter of

five days over eight hundred and sixty

soldiers were killed and sacrificed, as well

as seventy-two who were killed in a town

named Tustepec, together with five

Spanish women and over a thousand

Tlaxcalans were slain”3. The native

account has a similar sadness in its account

when it states that, “There all fell, those of

Tlaxcala, those of Tliliuhquitepec, and the

Spaniards, and the horses, and some

women. The canal was completely full of

them, full, clear to the banks. But those

who came last just passed and crossed over

on men, on bodies.”4

Cortés’ account of this

same event, however, is not quite as

“sad” as the others; it doesn’t seem to

live up to the name, NocheTriste, that it

is given. For in Cortés’ letters, he

recounts the event as being a daring and

impressive escape, rather than a horrible

massacre that they barely survived. He

wrote how even “[w]ith great danger and

difficulty [he] led all [his] men to the city

of Tacuba, without a single Indian or

Spaniard being killed or wounded…”5So

this event became yet another moment of

glory for Cortés, rather than being a “sad

night”.

With that being said, it is still quite clear what occurred during the event; none of the sources disagree about the basic sequence of events. Cortés had his men gather up as much of the gold that they had taken from the city of Tenochtitlan as possible, and they left in the darkness of night6. They used a portable bridge that they had fashioned in order to move out of the city, and they fought their way past canoes filled with Mexicawarriors7. The Spaniards, assisted by Tlaxcalan warriors managed to escape the city on the tenth of July in 1520, and four days later they fought a great battle in Otumba on their way to Tlaxcala8. When they finally made it to Tlaxcala, they rested and ate and tended to their wounds at last9. Itwasin this sequence of events that La NocheTriste occurred during the great conquest of Mexico.

1. Díaz, 312.

2. Cortés, 137.

3. Díaz, 321.

4. Sahagún, Book 12, Chapter 24.

5. Cortés, 138.

6. Cortés, 138.

7. Sahagún, Book 12, Chapter 24.

8. Díaz, 321.

9. Díaz, 323.

Notes