Hernán Cortés’s defeat of the capital city Tenochtitlan was the result of three visits:
The first time he visited, Cortés came as an emissary, with the hope of luring the Aztecs into an “alliance” and subsequently overthrowing/converting them. Upon hearing of a new Spanish expedition led by Narváez - come to arrest him - Cortés left Tenochtitlan, but ordered Pedro de Alvarado to remain with 140 men.
After defeating Narváez and claiming many of his men and supplies for his own, Cortés returned to find that Alvarado had foolishly slaughtered many of the Aztec nobility during a festival, and turned the will of the city against the conquistadors. After hiding in a temple for a week, repelling arrows and missiles from the Aztecs, the remaining thousand or so men made a break for the city’s edge, using improvised portable bridges to cross the may causeways. The bridge failed them on the final causeway, however, and amid attacking canoes and footsoldiers, the Spanish crossed to safety on a bridge made of their own dead (some 600 of the men).
Using new lessons learned in the battle, Cortés was able to repel a following horde of Aztecs by targeting officers and using the resulting chaos to his advantage. He retreated to Tlaxcala, where he struck an alliance (based on lies) with the natives, and began the task of creating canoes and war transports for use on the lake of Tenochtitlan. During this period, nature helped his cause: A soldier from Cuba had brought smallpox, which ravaged the less hardy immune systems of the Aztecs within months.
After some fresh reinforcements from Cuba, Cortés was ready to return to the capital with a true European siege plan: Cut off the supplies, raze blocks to keep the area open for movement, and target the officers at every chance. The result was the brutal conquest of one of the world’s largest cities, completed by a small force of renegades who used tactics and strategic alliances to face overwhelming odds.
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