BATTLE OF OTUMBA

In 1515, the Aztec tlatoani, the ‘speaker’ or emperor, Motecuhzoma II was warned that his empire was soon to be “ravaged and destroyed”. Soon after, a series of omens occurred: a foreboding comet, Huitzilopochtli’s temple spontaneously burned to the ground, another was struck by lightning and Lake Texcoco flooded its banks. When, in 1519, Motecuhzoma heard that a group of floating mountains had hit his shores, unloading enormous beasts with bearded white men atop, he assumed that the god Quetzalcoatl had returned to reclaim his realm from the Aztecs.

In truth, their leader was no god, but the Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés, who had spent vast sums of his own wealth on an unsanctioned mission to conquer Mexico. Joined by just 600 fellow Castilians, he