Cuitlahuac
Aztec/Mexica · mortal · conquest era · Recorded classification
Cuitlahuac won and then died of a disease he had no way to fight. He came to the throne with the Spanish inside his city and drove them out of it — a real defeat, with Spanish losses heavy enough that they remembered the night by name — and then smallpox, which had arrived in the same ships, went through Tenochtitlan and killed him inside four months. It is the single clearest instance of the pattern that decided the conquest: the Mexica could beat the Spanish in the field and could not beat what came with them.
Parentage
- parent: Axayacatl
Domains
- sovereignty
Relations
- sibling: Moctezuma IIBrother, and his predecessor.Reference treatment of Cuitláhuac as the brother and successor of Moctezuma II. (secondary)
Sources
- Cuitlahuac is the tenth tlatoani of Tenochtitlan, ruling about four months in 1520, who expelled the Spanish from the city and died of smallpox.: Reference treatment of Cuitláhuac, his expulsion of the Spanish and his death from smallpox. (secondary)