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Mexico City - Cortez in a Ditch - Defeat at San Hipolito Church
Cortez's forces tried to escape to Tacuba with their looted treasures on 30 June 1520. He did not know that the Aztecs had dug a deep ditch at the entrance to the causeway here (now the site of San Hipolito church), where he was ambushed and lost 400 men and most of the treasure. The remaining forces, all injured, continued a few miles futher to Popotla where Cortez cried under the "tree of the sad night".
No two sources give the same details of these events; Cortez's "official" account was lost in the battle. The only surviving "eye witness" report was written much later by Bernal Diaz when he was old and blind. He finished writing his history in 1568, almost fifty years after the events described, a work he had begun (probably in the mid-1550s) in response to an alternative history written by Cortés's chaplain, who had not actually participated in the campaign. He called his book the Historia Verdadera ("True History"), in response to the claims made in the earlier work. Díaz died in 1585, without seeing his book published. A manuscript was found in a Madrid library in 1632 and published, providing an eye-witness account of the events, told from the perspective of a common soldier. Examination of the original manuscript, much later, showed that most printings of Diaz's account were heavily sanitized to protect the guilty.
At the busy 6-way intersection above the Metro Line 2 and 3 Hidalgo station. Metro Line 2 follows Cortez's invasion route from the south to the Zocalo and then turns west and follows his escape route to Tacuba by way of Popotla.
In 2013 went into the church late on a Sunday afternoon - it was packed way beyond capacity. Outside, in a protective enclosure, is the "Virgin of the Subway" - an image of the Virgin of Guadelupe formed on the wall of the Hidalgo Line 2 station by water seepage.
Mexico City - Cortez in a Ditch - Defeat at San Hipolito Church
Cortez's forces tried to escape to Tacuba with their looted treasures on 30 June 1520. He did not know that the Aztecs had dug a deep ditch at the entrance to the causeway here (now the site of San Hipolito church), where he was ambushed and lost 400 men and most of the treasure. The remaining forces, all injured, continued a few miles futher to Popotla where Cortez cried under the "tree of the sad night".
No two sources give the same details of these events; Cortez's "official" account was lost in the battle. The only surviving "eye witness" report was written much later by Bernal Diaz when he was old and blind. He finished writing his history in 1568, almost fifty years after the events described, a work he had begun (probably in the mid-1550s) in response to an alternative history written by Cortés's chaplain, who had not actually participated in the campaign. He called his book the Historia Verdadera ("True History"), in response to the claims made in the earlier work. Díaz died in 1585, without seeing his book published. A manuscript was found in a Madrid library in 1632 and published, providing an eye-witness account of the events, told from the perspective of a common soldier. Examination of the original manuscript, much later, showed that most printings of Diaz's account were heavily sanitized to protect the guilty.
At the busy 6-way intersection above the Metro Line 2 and 3 Hidalgo station. Metro Line 2 follows Cortez's invasion route from the south to the Zocalo and then turns west and follows his escape route to Tacuba by way of Popotla.
In 2013 went into the church late on a Sunday afternoon - it was packed way beyond capacity. Outside, in a protective enclosure, is the "Virgin of the Subway" - an image of the Virgin of Guadelupe formed on the wall of the Hidalgo Line 2 station by water seepage.