Life Story: Tecuichpotzin “Isabel” Moctezuma (ca. 1509 - 1551)

Tecuichpotzin was born in 1509 or 1510 in the Aztec capital city Tenochtitlán. She was the daughter of the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II and his wife Teotlalco. The Aztec Empire controlled a large territory in what is today called central and south Mexico. As emperor, Tecuichpotzin’s father ruled over an estimated five to six million people in four to five hundred states.  

During Tecuichpotzin’s childhood, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés landed on the Yucatán Peninsula in 1519 with one hundred sailors and 500 soldiers. His mission was to conquer the Aztec Empire. But Hernán had no idea how large the empire truly was. He set up a base in current-day Veracruz, Mexico, so he could begin planning his conquest of Tenochtitlán.

When Moctezuma II learned of Hernán’s mission he sent envoys with gifts, hoping to keep the Spanish from attacking his empire. But Hernán was able to form alliances with Aztec states that were unhappy with Moctezuma II’s rule. With their support, he created an army large enough to march on Tenochtitlán.

After several bloody confrontations, Hernán’s army reached Tenochtitlán in November 1519. Moctezuma ordered his army not to attack, still hoping to resolve the situation with diplomacy. Hernán attacked, seized control of the city, and imprisoned Moctezuma. Spanish soldiers took over the palace. Historians do not know what happened to Tecuichpotzin and the rest of her family during this turbulent time. However, it seems that her family was eager to consolidate their power. Her parents arranged for Tecuichpotzin to marry her cousin, Moctezuma II’s heir, though they were both still children. Only ten or eleven years old, Tecuichpotzin had no say in the matter. She married her cousin in 1520, but he died shortly after their wedding.

In June Spanish soldiers attacked the Aztec people during a religious festival and broader fighting for control of the city broke out. Moctezuma II was killed during the chaos. His brother Cuitláhuac became the new emperor. He took charge of the revolt, and successfully pushed the Spanish out of Tenochtitlán on June 30. Tecuichpotzin was soon married to the new emperor, despite the fact that he was her uncle and she was only around eleven years old. Only three months later Cuitláhuac died from smallpox, a devastating disease introduced to the city by Spanish soldiers. After Cuitláhuac’s death, Tecuichpotzin was married to her cousin Cuauhtémoc, who became the next emperor of the Aztec Empire.

Hernán sought to reclaim Tenochtitlán and launched a series of attacks in May of 1521. The Aztecs resisted for several months, but they were greatly debilitated by the smallpox epidemic sweeping their city. The Spanish conquered the city on August 13, 1521. When Cuauhtémoc and Tecuichpotzin tried to escape, they were captured by the Spanish. Cuauhtémoc begged their captors to spare Tecuichpotzin and her ladies-in-waiting. Tecuichpotzin was spared, but Cuauhtémoc was executed in 1625.

Hernán took Tecuichpotzin into his custody. By this point, Tecuichpotzin was a teenager who had lived through the violent death of her father, witnessed the invasion of her childhood home twice, and been married and widowed three times. Now, she was the captive of the man who had caused all of these tragedies. 

While living with Hernán, Tecuichpotzin and her sisters converted to Christianity and took Spanish names. As in all parts of Tecuichpotzin’s life, it is impossible to know how much agency she had in this decision. But regardless of her personal feelings, from this point on Tecuichpotzin went by the name Isabel.

Hernán married Isabel to a Spanish soldier named Alonso de Grado on June 27, 1526. Hernán granted Isabel the encomienda of Tacuba as her dowry. It was a generous gift. As one of the largest encomiendas in New Spain, Tacuba would provide Isabel and her descendants with vast wealth. The grant of the encomienda territory included forced labor and tributes from Indigenous people. Isabel was given this wealth because of her status as a member of the Aztec royal family. Her fortune was built on the enslavement of other Indigenous people, both by the Aztecs and the Spanish. 

Alonso passed away within the year, leaving Isabel widowed for the fourth time. Hernán brought Isabel back to his home. Soon Isabel was pregnant with Hernán’s child. We have no way of knowing whether their sexual relationship was consensual. Isabel gave birth to a daughter named Leonor Cortés Moctezuma in 1528. Hernán did not formally legitimize Leonor, but he did recognize her as his child. Isabel did not get to raise her daughter. Hernán placed Leonor in the home of one of his aides, Juan Gutiérrez de Altamirano. This same man raised Hernán’s son with Malintzin, the Nahua woman who served as Hernán’s primary interpreter during the conquest. 

While Isabel was pregnant with their child, Hernán arranged for her to marry another Spanish colonist, Pedro Gallego de Andrade. She gave birth to Leonor while married to Pedro. In 1530 Isabel had a son with Pedro. They celebrated the birth of Juan de Andrade Moctezuma with an elaborate party that was attended by all the most important people in New Spain. Two months later, Pedro died of unknown causes.

Isabel was now a twenty-one-year-old five-time widow raising a son on her own. But for the first time, it appears that she was able to exert some agency in her life. She was no longer under the control of her family, and Hernán had returned to Spain in 1528. Between her prosperous encomienda and her royal lineage, she had a lot to offer as a potential bride. 

In 1532 Isabel married for the sixth and last time. Her new husband, Juan Cano de Saavedra, was a Spanish conquistador who had sailed to Mexico in 1520. They had five children together: Pedro, Gonzalo, Juan, Isabel, and Catalina. Isabel died in 1551. Her will is a testament to how much power she accrued in the second half of her life, and how well she understood the colonial life she was forced to adopt. In the will she instructed that all of the Indigenous people she enslaved should be freed. She stipulated that her precious textiles and linens be divided between the two daughters she had with Juan Cano. She also stated that these daughters should receive a third of the profits of the sale from her other possessions. This suggests that she wanted to provide her daughters with more freedom than she had as a young girl. While Leonor was not mentioned in the will, on her deathbed Isabel requested that she receive a fifth of the estate as a dowry. Finally, Isabel left the majority of her encomienda to her eldest son Juan de Andrade and divided the remaining portions between the three sons she had with Juan Cano.

• alliance: An agreement between countries or communities to work together.
• Aztec: One of the two dominant communities of the Yucatán Peninsula at the time of European contact. Most Aztec people spoke the Nahuatl language.
• conquistador: The name for the Spanish or Portuguese military leaders who conquered Central and South America in the 1500s.
• dowry: Property a woman brought with her to a marriage.
• encomienda: A grant by the Spanish king or queen that allowed a person to demand tribute and forced labor from the Indigenous people in a defined territory.
• smallpox: A deadly disease that caused fever and blisters in those who caught it, and left scars on survivors.
• Tenochtitlán: Capital of the Aztec Empire. Today the ruins of Tenochtitlán are in the Historic Center of Mexico City.
• Yucatán Peninsula: A land mass in Central America that extends into the Gulf of Mexico between the Caribbean Sea and the Bay of Campeche.
• tribute: Payment made to a ruler.

• APUSH Connection: 1.5 Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System
• Include this life story in a lesson about the conquest of the Aztec Empire to include the perspective of an Aztec woman under Aztec and Spanish rule.
• Examine the realities of the encomienda system by teaching this life story alongside Life in Encomienda. 
• Pair this life story with Life Story: Malintzin (La Malinche). What side was each woman on in the conquest? Why? How did Hernán Cortés affect both women’s lives? What are the differences and similarities between their life stories? What accounts for these similarities and differences?
• Indigenous people across the Americas had a variety of responses to the arrival of European colonizers. Combine this life story with any of the following for a broader view of Indigenous women during colonization:
  • Life Story: Marie Rouensa
  • Life Story: Cockacoeske
  • Life Story: Quashawam

POWER AND POLITICS