Cuauhtemoc

Cuauhtemoc inherited a city with smallpox in it and a siege coming, and held it for nearly three months — no food, no fresh water once the aqueduct was cut, fighting street by street across a lake. He was taken in a canoe on the last day. Then the Spanish burned his feet to make him say where the gold was, and there was no gold, because most of it had gone into the lake the year before. Cortés hanged him four years later on the road to Honduras on a charge of conspiracy that nobody has ever been able to substantiate. He is the figure modern Mexico chose to put in its public squares rather than either Moctezuma or Cortés.

Parentage

• Ahuitzotl

Domains

• sovereignty

Sources

• Reference treatments of Cuauhtémoc, the siege of Tenochtitlan and his death.