Event
Retreat from Tenochtitlan, 1520
In 1520 the Spaniards and their allies fought their way out of the capital. Cortés counts the Spanish and allied dead and the lost gold; Bernal Díaz counts far more Spanish dead.
- Dates
- 1520
- Place
- Tenochtitlan
- Also known as
- La Noche Triste
According to Hernán Cortés
- involved Hernán Cortés
According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo
- involved Bernal Díaz del Castillo
- involved Charles V
In 1520 the Spaniards and their allies fought their way out of the capital. Cortés counts the Spanish and allied dead and the lost gold; Bernal Díaz counts far more Spanish dead.
Connections 4
involved
-
Hernán Cortés
According to Hernán Cortés
Primary record
1
The figures and the loss of the gold are Cortés's account.
-
Bernal Díaz del Castillo
According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Primary record
2
Bernal Díaz gives this count while faulting another chronicler for treating the defeat as a mere nothing; it is far higher than Cortés's.
-
Charles V
According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Primary record
2
Bernal Díaz says the treasure of Moctezuma that Avila was taking to the emperor was seized by a French pirate.
appears in
- Letters of relation of Hernán Cortés Primary record 1
Timeline 1 date
- 1520 Retreat from Tenochtitlan, 1520
Proof 2 sources
-
Letters of Cortés: the five letters of relation to the Emperor Charles V, volume 1 (English translation by Francis Augustus MacNutt, 1908; the Second Letter is dated 30 October 1520), G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London (scan on the Internet Archive), 1908.
Primary record
We found that over one hundred and fifty Spaniards were killed in this fight, forty-five mares and horses, and more than two thousand of the Indians who had aided the Spaniards
many of the Spaniards and horses were killed, likewise, and all the gold, and jewels, and many other things which we carried, and all the artillery, were lost
-
The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, volume 1 (English translation by John Ingram Lockhart, 1844; text via Project Gutenberg #32474), Project Gutenberg (from the translation published in London, 1844), 1844.
Primary record
where above 860 of our men were killed, for out of 1300 soldiers who had marched into the town to the relief of Pedro de Alvarado, which made out the united forces of Narvaez and Cortes, only 440 escaped
Avila, with the whole of those treasures, was captured by the redoubted French pirate Jean Florin
Page history 1 change
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