The Claim
There’s an entire Aztec cities worth of gold at the bottom of Lake Texcoco
During the early 1500’s the Spanish, along with the rest of Europe, sought to colonise as much of the newly discovered world as they could. The goal was to take territory and plunder as much gold and valuables as possibly for their home country.
In 1519 a Spanish conquistador named Hernan Cortes led an expedition into the heart of south America with close to 1000 men to find new riches and make himself a recognised name in his country, but there was a problem with grabbing all the valuables and claiming territory, and that problem was the Aztecs.
The conquistadors had actually landed next to the city of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital and center of their power. The city held thousands of warriors and since they had never seen European sailing ships before, it goes without saying they were very curious and immediately swarmed the landing site.
Since they were greatly outnumbered, the Spanish were glad to see that not only were the Aztecs friendly towards them, but they showered them in gifts. It turns out that the Aztecs thought the Spanish were some kind of gods and treated them as such, but it wouldn’t be long until the invaders showed their true colours.
The Spanish immediately started to take advantage of their new status amongst the Aztec people and plundered the whole city of its riches. The Aztecs stood back and let this happen, believing the Spanish were the heavenly people spoke about in their legends.
Eventually the Aztecs realised who these people really were and after an incident in May of 1520 began to revolt. The Spanish had pushed their luck to far and killed a group of Aztec nobles during a religious festival, an act which caused so much anger amongst the locals that from that point on it was all out war.
Since the conquistadors were in the heart of Tenochtitlan, they knew there was no chance they’d get out the city alive and so took the cities ruler, Montezuma as their hostage. They held him in a temple and forced him to speak to his people and convince them to let the Spanish leave peacefully.
Since Aztec records aren’t exactly great, its unclear how Montezuma died. It was either due to the Spanish executing him or one of the crowd throwing a rock which caused him to fall off the roof and die, but whatever happened the Spanish had lost their only shot at making it out alive.
The conquistadors held up in the temple and managed to keep the Aztecs out using their muskets. After some time the Spanish saw a chance to escape and on July 1, 1520 they managed to slip out the city along with all their plundered gold.
Sneaking several hundred men out of an Aztec capital city isn’t exactly going to end well, and the angry locals quickly put together a force to pursue the Spanish and caught them up on a battle that has come to be known as La Noche Triste (The Sad Night).
Hernán Cortés led the Spanish force of somewere between 600 and 1000 men who were joined by 20,000 native Mexican allies. At what point they joined the Spanish force is unclear, but its likely they came after one of Cortés men managed to send a message to them asking for help.
When the Aztecs caught them up they had a force of 50,000 warriors, and the battle was a crushing defeat for the Spanish and Mexicans. Between 400 and 800 Spanish were killed or captured, and between 2000 and 4000 Mexicans received the same fate, compared to a loss of no more than 1000 Aztecs.
Hernán Cortés managed to escape along with a handful of his men and returned to Spain, without his gold. As for the treasure its thought that the Spanish hid it whilst fleeing the city, with the most likely location being in Lake Texcoco.
There’s various stories about where the gold was stashed but the most widely believed place is in the lake, even though to this day no one has found a trace of it in there. There was even a Mexican president who had the lake dredged to find the gold, yet nothing turned up.
Countless treasure hunters have searched the route of the feeling Spanish army over the years and also found nothing, which suggests that the gold was either hidden somewhere else or all of it was found by the Aztecs and returned to their empire.
One story claims that the gold was sent ahead of the main Spanish army with the fastest horses and men, who successfully managed to load it on a ship which later sank somewhere in the sea between Mexico and Spain.
Another version claims how the Spanish knew they wouldn’t make it back with the gold and so hid it in the local hills, hoping to come back for it later. This story is also without merit as Hernán Cortés returned the following year and massacred the population of Tenochtitlan in revenge, which would have let him recover his buried treasure.
It seems that this story is just a wishful thinking treasure tale as there’s simply to many possibilities for the gold to have been found soon after it was hidden, and since no one ever, anywhere has found a single trace of it, i wouldn’t bother wasting your time to go and find it.
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