Battle of Otumba (1520): Cortés Survives the Retreat to Tlaxcala

The Battle of Otumba was fought on 7 July 1520 in the plain near Otumba, northeast of Lake Texcoco in central Mexico. A Mexica army caught Hernán Cortés’s exhausted Spanish force and its Tlaxcalan allies as they retreated after the disastrous flight from Tenochtitlan. Against expectations, the Spaniards broke the attack, and the survival of Cortés’s army made the later siege of the Aztec capital possible.

Background: the flight from Tenochtitlan

Cortés had entered Tenochtitlan in November 1519 and soon took the ruler Moctezuma II into custody. In May 1520 his lieutenant Pedro de Alvarado massacred Mexica nobles during the festival of Toxcatl, and the city rose against the Spaniards. Moctezuma died in Spanish custody at the end of June, in circumstances still disputed.

On the night of 30 June to 1 July 1520, Cortés tried to escape along the western causeway to Tlacopan. The Mexica attacked from canoes and broke the column. This was La Noche Triste, the “Sad Night”. Estimates vary widely, but several hundred Spaniards and probably more than a thousand Tlaxcalan and other allies died, and most of the horses, guns and gold were lost.

The march north

The survivors could not go directly east to Tlaxcala, their main ally, because the route around the southern lakes ran through hostile towns. They made a long detour north around the lakes, harassed every day by Mexica and allied warriors. Many were wounded, food was scarce, and the Spaniards ate one of their dead horses. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a soldier on the march, later recalled the hunger and the constant skirmishing. The wounded who could not walk were carried by their comrades or tied onto the surviving horses, and Tlaxcalan warriors guided the column through unfamiliar country.

Meanwhile the Mexica had a new ruler, Cuitláhuac, Moctezuma’s brother. He gathered troops from the cities of the Valley of Mexico to finish off the invaders before they could reach safety.

The battle

On 7 July, as the column came down into the plain near Otumba (Otompan), it found a large Mexica army drawn up across its path. Spanish chroniclers gave huge figures for its size, which historians treat as exaggerations, but it greatly outnumbered Cortés’s few hundred Spaniards, about two dozen horses and the remaining Tlaxcalans.

The fighting lasted several hours. The Spaniards formed a tight mass, with their remaining horsemen charging out in small groups to break up the Mexica ranks. Mexica warfare placed great weight on capturing enemies alive for sacrifice, which may have limited Spanish losses in close combat.

The turning point came when Cortés spotted the Mexica commander, carried on a litter or standing with his feathered banner among his officers. Cortés, Gonzalo de Sandoval and other horsemen charged straight at this group. According to Spanish accounts, the soldier Juan de Salamanca killed the commander and seized his standard. Spanish sources describe him as the cihuacoatl, a very senior Mexica officer, though his name is given differently in different accounts. With their commander fallen and the standard lost, the Mexica forces fell back and the Spaniards pressed on.

Reaching Tlaxcala

Within a day or two the survivors reached Hueyotlipan, on Tlaxcalan territory. The rulers of Tlaxcala, among them Maxixcatzin and Xicotencatl the Elder, chose to stand by the alliance, despite opposition from some Tlaxcalans, including the younger Xicotencatl, who wished to abandon the Spaniards. The decision was decisive: Tlaxcala fed, sheltered and reinforced the invaders (see Tlaxcala’s Alliance with Cortés).

Cortés himself had been wounded in the head. In Tlaxcala his men recovered, and over the following months reinforcements arrived from the Caribbean. At the same time a smallpox epidemic spread through central Mexico, killing Cuitláhuac late in 1520 and weakening the defenders.

Myths and facts

• Myth: a few Spaniards defeated an army of 200,000. The figures in Spanish chronicles cannot be checked and are almost certainly inflated. The Tlaxcalans also fought, and the Spanish victory owed much to the collapse of the Mexica command.
• Myth: Otumba ended the war. It only saved Cortés’s force. The decisive struggle came a year later at Tenochtitlan.

Timeline

• 1520, 30 June – 1 July: La Noche Triste; the Spaniards flee Tenochtitlan with heavy losses.
• 1520, early July: The survivors march north around the lakes under constant attack.
• 1520, 7 July: Battle of Otumba; the Mexica army withdraws after its commander falls.
• 1520, c. 8–9 July: The column reaches Hueyotlipan in Tlaxcalan territory.
• 1520, late: Smallpox kills Cuitláhuac; Cuauhtémoc later becomes ruler.
• 1521, May – August: The siege and fall of Tenochtitlan.

Why it matters

Otumba was the moment at which the Spanish invasion of Mexico could most easily have ended. The survival of Cortés’s force, and Tlaxcala’s decision to keep faith with it, allowed the Spaniards and their Indigenous allies to return in 1521 and destroy the Mexica capital, a turning point in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.