Event
Toxcatl massacre
In May 1520, while Cortés was on the coast, Alvarado's men attacked Mexica gathered for the feast of Toxcatl in Tenochtitlan; the Spanish and Nahua accounts disagree about why.
- Dates
- May 1520
- Place
- Tenochtitlan
According to Pedro de Alvarado
- interventions Pedro de Alvarado May 1520
- involved Pedro de Alvarado
According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo
- involved Moctezuma II
According to Florentine Codex
- appears in Florentine Codex
According to Hernán Cortés
- appears in Letters of relation of Hernán Cortés
In May 1520, while Cortés was on the coast, Alvarado’s men attacked Mexica gathered for the feast of Toxcatl in Tenochtitlan; the Spanish and Nahua accounts disagree about why.
Connections 5
interventions
-
Pedro de Alvarado
May 1520
commanded the Spaniards in the city
According to Pedro de Alvarado
Scholarship & press
1
MacNutt reports what Alvarado alleged in his own defence at a later inquiry; the story gives it as his account.
involved
-
Pedro de Alvarado
According to Pedro de Alvarado
Scholarship & press
1
Alvarado's later defence, as MacNutt reports it, and MacNutt's account of Tlaxcalan suspicion beforehand. MacNutt adds his own judgment that Alvarado's conduct 'seems destitute of any reasonable excuse'.
-
Moctezuma II
According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Primary record
2
Bernal Díaz reports that envoys sent by Moctezuma brought this complaint to Cortés.
appears in
- Florentine Codex According to Florentine Codex Primary record 3
-
Letters of relation of Hernán Cortés
According to Hernán Cortés
Primary record
4
The second quote is why Cortés went to the coast; the first is how his letter reports the news from the capital.
Timeline 2 dates
- May 1520 Toxcatl massacre
- May 1520 Pedro de Alvarado intervened in Toxcatl massacre According to Pedro de Alvarado
Proof 4 sources
-
Letters of Cortés, volume 1: MacNutt's introduction and appendices (1908), G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London (scan on the Internet Archive), 1908.
Scholarship & press
it was common report in the city that, during Cortes's absence, the reduced garrison would be crushed
The Tlascalans next excited his suspicions that the festival was merely a pretext to collect a large multitude in the city
Cortes had consented, before he left Mexico, to the usual celebration, with the proviso that there should be no human sacrifices
-
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
he had, without any provocation, sallied out with the whole of his troops, and fallen unawares upon their chiefs and caziques while they were celebrating a feast in honour of their gods
-
Florentine Codex, Book 12: The Conquest of Mexico (Nahuatl text gathered under Bernardino de Sahagún in the 1500s; English translation by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, second edition, 1975), School of American Research and the University of Utah; the manuscript is on the Getty Research Institute's Digital Florentine Codex, 1975.
Primary record
Thereupon they surrounded the dancers. Thereupon they went among the drums.
without warning them they had slain them by treachery
-
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
Indians had assaulted the fort on all sides, and set fire to it in many parts
the armada and people in the port belonged to Diego Velasquez, and had come by his orders
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