She was the heiress of the powerful Mexica emperor but, after the arrival of the Spanish, she saw her entire world fall apart and the imminent risk of losing her privileges. Even her name.
I’m going to Tecuichpoeldest daughter of Moctezuma Xocoyotzin or Moctezuma II and Tecalco, she was baptized as Isabel Moctezuma when the conquistadors led by Hernan Cortes they seized power.
And it is precisely his ability to adapt intelligently and astutely to this new reality that the Spanish brought the one that the experts of its exciting history highlight.
“She is a figure that symbolizes the transition between these two worlds, who had to seek advice and learn to request her privileged place in the new colonial regime,” highlights the Mexican historian. Raquel Urroz.
In other words, he not only knew how to adapt to the way of life of that new society, but also knew how to take full advantage of the new Spanish legal system by proclaiming herself Moctezuma’s legitimate heir to claim her privileges and continue increasing her heritage.
Born at the beginning of the 16th century, the girl Tecuichpo witnessed firsthand the greatness of Tenochtitlan, the spectacular and fascinating Mexica capital predecessor of Mexico City and governed by his father Moctezuma.
Since the concepts of royalty were brought from the Western world, that the daughter of the highest ruler or tlatoani It is popularly known as the last Mexica “princess” is not entirely correct.
“Yes it would be like a kind of princess, but I think that the term to use is something secondary. The main thing is to understand that his level in the social stratum was as high as it could have been”, explains Urroz in an interview with BBC Mundo.
Marriages and deaths
It was her father Moctezuma who received Cortés in the famous and historic meeting of 1519. But after the emperor was captured by the Spanish, little Tecuichpo experienced the first of the many tragedies that would mark her life.
“Seeing how the Spanish humiliate her father and how her people confront him and die with the stones thrown at her by her own people… I think that must have been the hardest thing for a girl like her,” she says. Maria Castañeda de la Paz, Spanish historian and researcher at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
In their life was united in marriage with various leaders of the upper class both in the pre-Hispanic and in the colonial phase, since the marriage alliance It was then the way to extend and expand the power in both eras of elite women like her.
Still in the Mexican stage she was married to her uncle Cuitláhuacwho replaced as tlatoani his brother Moctezuma, but who died from smallpox brought by the Spanish. Shortly after, it was united to Cuauhtémoc, who would be the last ruler of Tenochtitlan before being defeated by the Spanish in 1521 and assassinated years later.
After the conquest, Tecuichpo was left in charge of Hernán Cortés and was baptized with the name of Doña (title that recognized her nobility) Isabel, in honor of the ruler of Castile. With her adaptation, Moctezuma’s daughter made sure she lived in peace as part of the new group in power in New Spain society.
Once again, marriage alliances continued to contribute to this. Cortés arranged the union of him with up to three of his trusted Spanish representatives, after the first two died for different reasons.
Also, both Cortés and the Spanish King Carlos V respected the lineage of the heiress of the Emperor of the Mexicas by granting her one of the most important parcels of the time as a privilege. This, together with her noble ancestry contributed to many conquerors wanting to marry her.
His relationship with Cortes
But, in between their Spanish marriages, Isabel became pregnant by Cortés after a relationship that is considered forced and abusive. And this is surely the reason why he always disowned the little girl, called Leonor, and why some sources say that she was not included in her mother’s will.
When he finds out that she is pregnant, Cortés marries Isabel with one of his conquistador friends, but he did accept and recognized his daughter. As for Isabel, the sources and wills vary, but in some version of the documents it does make it clear that he left her money and benefited her. He didn’t give up on her.” rebuts Castañeda de la Paz in conversation with BBC Mundo.
But why didn’t the Spanish conquistador decide to marry Moctezuma’s heiress if this could have facilitated the union between two worlds as representatives of both cultures?
“Cortes’ vision was much broader, he didn’t want to stay with a wife to manage land, he was an explorer and his ambition was to continue expanding the domains of the Spanish Crown,” Urroz replies.
“This could have been the best marriage he could have established in Mexico, but Cortés had a very clear agenda. Although he loved Mexico, he wanted to return to Spain. And he succeeded, because the king scheduled a marriage for him with a lady from the Spanish Court, which is what he aspired to”, points out Castañeda de la Paz.
Historical documentation ensures that Isabel Moctezuma was a pious and generous woman with the servants and all the people who worked on her lands. What is not in dispute about her will is that she granted freedom to all the “Indians” who lived under her charge and she entrusted the payment of their debts and salaries to her workers.
“This way of being so Christian, so moral and generous was the way to gain prestige and successfully integrate into that new colonial regime,” Urroz points out. At the same time, this generosity also served him to maintain the respect of his former Mexica people, now subjugated by the Spanish.
“Example of Resistance”
However, as is the case with a good number of historical figures, the assessment of Isabel Moctezuma varies depending on the prism from which she is analyzed.
Thus, during the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the fall of Tenochtitlan in 2021, the current Mexican government highlighted it in publications as an example that “represents a symbol of indigenous resistance” that “He was always loyal to his people and origin.”
Other voices, on the other hand, wonder why her resistance is praised if she ended up converting to Catholicism, married to Spaniards and had a daughter with the leader of the conquistadors.
“That is a good synthesis of the contradictions”, Urroz says. “She knew how to handle very Christian ways, but probably the world of hers that she lived in her childhood carried him in privacy.”
“They arrived and told her ‘You are baptized here and you are a lady like the Spanish. So what are you doing there? I think you pretend something to survive in a new social order (…). There is an invasion and you take the path of survival and you adapt intelligently,” she adds.
Given his origin and his relationship with Cortés, it is inevitable to also think of the figure of “the Malinche”, who she went from being the heiress of a powerful father to a slave and later a translator, adviser and mother of another son of the conqueror.
According to Castañeda de la Paz, “the lives of both would have been very different if the Spanish had not arrived. But what they did was act according to their time, they had children and established marriage alliances to consolidate political positions. But we can never see them as traitors: they simply followed the dictates of their parents or husbands, as has happened in history for a long time”.
What no one doubts Tecuichpo or Isabel Moctezuma was her ability to adapt and cunning to be able to survive and that symbolizes as few characters the miscegenation between two worlds that followed the conquest of present-day Mexico.
BBC Mundo
