Ixtlilxochitl II
Ixtlilxochitl II (c. 1500–c. 1550) was the son of
On the arrival of the Spaniards, the young leader sent an embassy to Hernán Cortés while he was at Tlaxcala, offering him his services and asking his aid in return. A joint army marched on the eastern side of the lake. Cacamatzin fled and was eventually deposed. Ixtlilxochitl eventually took the throne of all of Tetzcoco, but was now allied with Tlaxcala and the Spaniards against Tenochtitlan, its former ally. Ixtlilxochitl led Tetzcocan armies throughout the remaining the Spanish-Aztec Wars. His important services have been commemorated by the historians, who have given him significant credit in the conquest of Tenochtitlan.
After the defeat of Tenochtitlan, he was baptised and took the name of Hernan Cortés, after that of the conquistador, who was his godfather on this occasion. Afterward he took great interest in the propagation of Christianity, and supposedly brought in a bag the first stones to build the church of the convent of San Francisco in the city of Mexico. He accompanied Cortés on his expedition to Honduras in 1525 on which Cuauhtémoc was hanged for an alleged plot against Cortés. Ixtlilxochitl survived the expedition and probably returned overland to Central Mexico.
He threatened the people of
In the 17th century, Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl, his great-great-grandson, penned a history of Tetzcoco called the 13th relation of the Historical Compendium of the Kingdom of Texcoco, which defended Ixtlilxochitl and his actions. This history provides one of the most important indigenous views of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The source presents Ixtlilxochitl as a central player in the war. In order to gain rights and privileges from the Spanish monarch, whose power had grown much over the previous century, is careful to depict Ixtlilxochitl as one of the first converts to Christianity in the Americas.
References
- ^ Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
- ^ Townsend, Camilla (2019). Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Restall, Matthew (2018). When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History. New York: HarperCollins.
- ISBN 978-0-8070-5500-7.