Interested in learning more about the events depicted in the Tenochtitlan Trilogy? There are wealth of resources available to interested parties, and I have listed below the ones I found most helpful. Keep in mind that not all these sources agree with each other and it is important for readers to critically engage with numerous sources to gain a holistic understanding of any historical event. Every now and then I add new sources to the list so please don’t consider this list definitive or complete.
Primary Sources
Chimalpahin’s Conquest
Bernal Díaz’s True History of the Conquest of New Spain
Anthony Padgen’s annotated Letters from Mexico
Cabeza de Vaca’s La Relacion
Kevin Siepel’s Conquistador Voices
Bartolomé de Las Casas’ In Defense of the Indians
Miguel León-Portilla’s Broken Spears
Codex Azcatitlan
Codex Borgia
Codex Laud
Codex Mendoza
Florentine Codex
Amber Brian, Bradley Benton, and Pablo García Loaeza’s The Native Conquistador: Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s Account of the Conquest of New Spain
Lienzo de Tlaxcala
Codex Cozcatzin
Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
Tovar Codex
Cases’ A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies
Thomas Nicolas’ English translation “The Pleasant Historie of the Conquest of the Weast India, Now Called New Spayne”
Secondary Sources
Camilla Townsend’s Malintzin’s Choices
Matthew Restall’s Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest
Manuel Aguilar-Moreno’s Handbook to Life in the Aztec World
Angela Herren Rajagopalan’s Reading Between the Lines: An Indigenous Account of Conquest on the Missing Folios of Codex Azcatitlan
Buddy Levy’s Conquistador
Donald E. Chipman’s Moctezuma’s Children: Aztec Royalty under Spanish Rule, 1520–1700
Charles C. Mann’s 1493
Ronald Wright’s Stolen Continents: The New World Through Indian Eyes Since 1492
Hugh Thomas’ Conquest
José Luis Rojas’Tenochtitlan
2007 University of Oklahoma Press’ Indian Conquistadors
Stephen Greenblatt’s New World Encounters
Henry Kamen’s Empire
John Schwaller and Helen Nader’s The First Letter from New Spain
Ross Hassig’s Mexico and the Spanish Conquest
Inga Clendinnen’s Aztecs: An Interpretation
Matthew Wills The Mexica Didn’t Believe the Conquistadors Were Gods
Thelma D. Sullivan’s English translation of Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected By Sahagun
Marcy Norton’s Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European Internalization of Mesoamerican Aesthetics
Manuel Aguilar-Moreno’s Aztec Architecture – Part 1
Thelma D. Sullivan’s The Arms and Insignia of the Mexica
Agustín Palacios’ (Dis)Claiming Mestizofilia: Chicana/os Disarticulating Euromestizaje
Michael Lopez’s A History of the Women of Mexico and Their Agency: Goddesses, Queens, Translators, and Nuns
Frederick A. Ober’s Hernando Cortés, The Conqueror of Mexico
Kathleen Ann Myers’ In the Shadow of Cortés, Conversations Along the Route of Conquest
Camilla Townsend’s The Fifth Sun
C. Harvey Gardiner’s “Naval Power in the Conquest of Mexico”
Al Sandine’s Deadly Baggage: What Cortes Brought to Mexico and How It Destroyed the Aztec Civilization
Lane F. Fargher, Richard E. Blanton and Verenice Y. Heredia Espinoza’s “Egalitarian Ideology And Political Power In Prehispanic Central Mexico: The Case Of Tlaxcallan“
Short articles, podcasts, and videos
Flashpoint’s History “Reconquista Podcast,”
Our Fake History’s “Did the Aztecs Think Cortés Was a God, Part Two,”
“Weapon Masters – Atlatl vs Steel Armor,”
BBC’s “Mexico City’s Underground World”,
NPR’s Aztec ‘Tower Of Skulls’ Reveals Women, Children Were Sacrificed,
Reuter’s “Gold bar found beneath Mexico City street was part of Moctezuma’s treasure,”
NPR’s “500 Years Later, The Spanish Conquest Of Mexico Is Still Being Debated,”
Science Magazine’s “It wasn’t just Greece: Archaeologists Find Early Democratic Societies in the Americas,”
Erin Facer’s “Food fight: How a community in Mexico used food to resist the Aztec empire”
Gizmodo’s “Hear the Aztec ‘Death Whistle’ That Mystified Scientists | Sound Mysteries”
Archaeology’s “600-Year-Old Foundations Unearthed in Mexicapan”
Smithsonian Magazine’s “14th-Century Steam Bath Found in Mexico City”
Harvard Gazette’s “The archaeology of plaque (yes, plaque)”
Gonzalo M. Sanchez’s “Did Emperor Moctezuma II’s Head Injury and Subsequent Death Hasten the Fall of the Aztec Nation?”
Matthew Restall’s “The Murder of Moctezuma”
Pictures from Vera Cruz state
Pictures from CDMX
