Montezuma

Montezuma, Emperor of Mexico in the 16th century at the time of the Spanish conquest. In 1519 he was cowed by an old prophecy, and received Cortes (q.v.) after the conquest of the Tlascalans as a divine being, but when he found the Spaniards to be but mortal, he plotted, and Cortes seized him, maile him acknowledge the king of Spain, and kept him in chains, forcing him to witness the torture of his subjects and friends. On the occasion of a rising, Montezuma in royal robes was brought forward to try to pacify the people, and was struck by a stone thrown by one of his indignant subjects. From the effects of this wound, or from a broken heart, he died in 1520. His children were converted, and one of them became the founder of a family of Spanish nobility, the last representative of which died at New Orleans in 1836.