Masters of the Land: Native Ship and Canal Building During the Spanish-Aztec War In February 1521, a massive caravan of some 30,000 Native people assembled in the province of Tlaxcala for an important mission.).
For four days, the caravan marched across forests and mountains until it reached Tetzcoco in late February. The artificial waterway was complete by the spring of 1521, and with this feat, the warships were ready for deployment.
Although the impact of the brigantines in the final siege of Tenochtitlan has figured prominently in histories of the Spanish-Aztec War (1591-21), little attention has been paid to the actual construction of the vessels or the canal that was needed to launch them into Lake Texcoco. Nonetheless, relatively little has been written about the nautical program in the historiography of the Spanish-Aztec War. Most notably omitted is the role of the Native peoples who constituted its backbone.
One reason for the paucity of scholarship on the naval episode is that the earliest sources on the conquest, principally the written accounts of the invaders, do not pay great heed to it. The two main conquistador-authors, Hernando Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo, were off in other provinces during much of the enterprise, and do not provide extensive details on the effort. With relatively meager documentation, the naval story—and particularly the construction of the canal—was glossed over in subsequent histories of the conquest, and remained largely undiscovered for the better part of four centuries.
It was not until the mid twentieth century that the US historian C. Harvey Gardiner issued a detailed account of the project, one of the first, which was derived in good measure from archival documents left by the master shipwright, Martín López.
By placing Native peoples front and center in the naval story, this article situates itself within the robust literature broadly characterized as New Conquest History (NCH). Of the themes that have emerged from the NCH, one of the more enlightening concerns the crucial ways that Indigenous allies helped to extend Spain's dominion in the Americas. For example, Camilla Townsend, in her study of Cortés's native interpreter, Marina (also known as Malintzin or La Malinche), illustrates how this liminal figure played a pivotal role in the Spanish-Aztec War as an esteemed translator, adviser, and strategist to Cortés. In a similar vein, Laura Matthew and Michel Oudijk edited an important volume on Indigenous auxiliaries that explored the different ways that Native allies (both combatants and non-combatants) contributed to Spanish conquest campaigns across Mesoamerica. This article seeks to further explore this aspect of the NCH, illuminating the pivotal contributions that diverse Indigenous collaborators—porters and artisans, guides and cooks, spies and scouts, translators and warriors—rendered to the lengthy naval project.
One of the most critical Native contributions to the project, aside from labor, came in the form of knowledge and expertise. For millennia, the Indigenous peoples who dwelled in the Basin of Mexico accumulated a dense store of knowledge on their milieu, learning not only how to adapt to the land, water, and ecosystems around them, but also modify them to their needs by constructing dams, aqueducts, bridges, sluice gates, and other impressive engineering projects. When the naval program commenced in 1520, Native peoples would channel this hydrological and ecological wisdom into the amphibious enterprise, helping to steer its direction and ultimately ensure its success.
This assertion of the importance of Native expertise rests in stark contrast to traditional histories of knowledge production in the Atlantic World, in which Indigenous epistemologies were discredited and cast aside as inferior or inconsequential. For a long time, Europeans were understood to be the bearers of scientific objectivity and modernity: knowledge flowed unidirectionally from European centers to non-European peripheries, and not vice versa. This article will contribute to the growing literature on Native knowledge production, emphasizing the importance of Indigenous epistemologies in applied and natural sciences, and ultimately demonstrating its pertinence to the success of the amphibious project.
The lengthy naval program required a considerable reserve of natural resources—timber, of course, to build the ships—but also cotton and pitch to caulk them, stone to fortify the walls of the canal, and nearby water sources to fill it. In the histories of the Spanish-Aztec War, the impact of the environment on the nature of the war in terms of logistics, planning, and execution is rarely discussed. For example, J. R. McNeill's Mosquito Empires illustrates rather compellingly how disease-transmitting mosquitoes for centuries shielded the West Indies from invaders, first thwarting Dutch, British, and French interlopers in the Spanish Caribbean, and later Napoleonic forces in Saint-Domingue.
Though perhaps not quite as paralyzing as mosquitoes, the lake system that surrounded the city of Tenochtitlan was a formidable natural force in its own right, protecting the metropolis on all sides from potential conquest. For this reason, one of the most important weapons for the final siege—on par with horses, gunpowder, or iron swords—was timber. Without this material the naval project would have been doomed, and the conquest itself seriously complicated. By emphasizing the importance of the natural world (trees, lakes, soil, rain), this article illustrates both subtle and profound ways in which the environment dictated decision-making, tilted the advantage of war, and shaped the direction of the conquest more broadly. This is not to suggest that the environment determined the course of the Spanish-Aztec War by itself. Rather, this article focuses on the actions of human agents within the environment—the Native peoples—who learned how to harness their local surroundings and wield it to their advantage.
To reconstruct the contributions of Native peoples to the naval episode, an array of Indigenous and Spanish sources must be pieced together. With respect to published material, fragments appear in the writings of the conquistadors and in colonial histories of the conquest, chiefly in the accounts of Cortés, Díaz del Castillo, Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, Juan de Torquemada, and the two Native historians Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin and Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl. Collectively, these texts shed light on all the major aspects of the naval program, from the transportation of the timber to the assembly of the ships and the excavation of the canal. More important, they provide nuggets of information pertaining to the Native peoples’ involvement in those activities.
To supplement this information, and also buttress its veracity, this article draws on a handful of archival sources from the early to middle sixteenth century. Perhaps the most significant is the Interrogatorio (questionnaire) compiled by the inhabitants of Tlaxcala in 1565. At some point in 1565, those witnesses were summoned to court, where they swore an oath to provide truthful record of the events in question. While the oath may have elicited more forthright testimony, it does very little to redress the other flaws in this court case: it was conducted some four decades after the Spanish-Aztec War; all of the witnesses were handpicked by the Tlaxcalteca; the majority of the Spaniards testifying were over 65 years old (and far removed from the events); the questions ask only about the Tlaxcalteca, ignoring other Native allies.
Although the source is not without its defects, it would be wrong to say that it is of little value. Given that several of the witnesses discuss matters not treated in other sources, the Interrogatorio is crucial for filling the gaps in the record of the ship- and canal-building effort. Second, because the document contains statements from over a dozen witnesses, it can be juxtaposed with other accounts (for example, those of Cortés, Bernal Díaz, and Alva Ixtlilxochitl), providing us with a significant basis with which to validate, dispute, or confirm them. When read alongside the other sources, the interrogatory allows us to paint a richer, more balanced portrait of the nautical enterprise—one in which the Native peoples also played important roles. However, to render the naval story intelligible, it must first be contextualized within the broader contours of the Spanish invasion of central Mexico.
On February 10, 1519, the would-be conquistador Hernando Cortés sailed from Cuba to the coast of Mexico with 11 ships, 16 horses, and about 500 men..
Under strict orders from Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, the governor of Cuba, Cortés was not to conquer or settle the regions he reached, but merely to trade and reconnoiter the land. Whether or not Cortés ever intended to keep his word can be debated. What is certain is that the military commander, whether in pursuit of status, fame, or riches, eventually defied those orders. After making landfall in the Yucatán and traveling northwest along the coast, Cortés and the members of his company learned of a wealthy kingdom that lay in the heart of the Valley of Mexico, known as Tenochtitlan. Enticed by the allure of rich spoils, the expedition pressed forward into the interior, though not without the protest of a few Velázquez loyalists. During this inland incursion, as well as before it, the invaders managed to procure the support of a number of disgruntled tributary states under the dominion of the Aztec empire, along with other autonomous Native polities opposed to the rule of the Mexica (the residents of the sister cities of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco). Bolstered by these local forces, the Spanish company marched on the Aztec capital in late 1519, reaching the southern fringes of the city by November 8. With the armed invaders at the doorstep of Tenochtitlan, how was its huey tlahtoani (emperor), Montezuma, to receive them?
In a curious and often-scrutinized move, the Aztec ruler did not mobilize his armies to oust the intruders, but instead welcomed them into his island metropolis, offering them residence in one of his private palaces.
As the battered conquistadors collected themselves in friendly Tlaxcala, pondering their next steps, they must have recognized the grim prospects of a battle to conquer the island stronghold. Tenochtitlan's natural defenses would make the engagement a logistical nightmare. The Spanish cavalry would be virtually useless on the city's narrow land bridges, and the infantry would fare no better. The Mexica's fleet of canoes dominated the lake waters, and could easily pick off Spanish and Native foot soldiers with darts and arrows from the flanks. To stand any reasonable chance against the Mexica, and to otherwise tilt the war to their advantage, the attackers needed to establish control over the lake. In September 1520, Cortés ordered his experienced shipbuilder, Martín López, to begin the construction of a naval fleet that could increase striking power on Lake Texcoco. In the meantime, the rest of the forces underwent other preparations for the impending siege: stockpiling provisions, reconnoitering the valley, and eliminating resistance in the surrounding provinces.
After nearly nine months of preparation, the Native-Spanish coalition assembled at Lake Texcoco on April 28, 1521, poised to commence the final assault. For the next three months, these joint forces laid siege to Tenochtitlan with great fury, enveloping the aquatic city on all sides and eventually reducing it to submission by August 13. While much ink has been spilled on those final battles, the following sections are concerned with the crucial preparatory phase preceding it, chiefly between the autumn of 1520 and the spring of 1521.
At least formally, the naval project began in September of 1520, when Cortés instructed Martín López to travel to Tlaxcala to collect the timber for the ships.
Though undeniably bold, the idea to transport the ships overland does not appear to have stemmed from Cortés at all. In 1502, the Gran Capitán (“Great Captain”) Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba had resorted to similar tactics during his assault on the Italian lakeside city of Taranto, a locale bearing some resemblance to the city of Tenochtitlan.
When Martín López arrived in Tlaxcala, sometime in late September, the Natives of the province escorted him into the nearby wooded forest on the slopes of Matlalcueitl (known now as La Malinche) volcano.
For hundreds of years, local inhabitants had assiduously cultivated the wooded area, an effort that provided oak, evergreen oak, and pine trees large enough to support the construction of sizable crafts. Once the wood was sawed and trimmed, Indigenous tameme (porters) shouldered the timbers, bearing them out of the forests to the banks of the Río Zahuapan, located slightly upstream from Tlaxcala. Collectively, the presence of these scores of Native assistants indicates that Indigenous collaborators, both skilled and unskilled, occupied central and pivotal roles from the very outset of the project, namely in executing much of the laborious and backbreaking work for the Spanish.
While the timber was being prepared in Tlaxcala, Cortés dispatched several of his men to Veracruz for an important task. Prior to the Spanish foray into central Mexico, Cortés had scuttled his ships off the coast of Veracruz to prevent disgruntled Spaniards, namely those loyal to Governor Diego Velázquez, from sailing back to Cuba. Cortés had the vessels dismantled and the maritime gear removed, including the sails, rigging, nails, ironwork, and tackle. At some point in December of 1520, Cortés ordered his men to retrieve those materials from Veracruz and transport them to Tlaxcala for the construction of the ships.
Since it was winter, the dry season in that region, the Zahuapan was too shallow to float the brigantines, requiring the construction of an earthen dam to increase its depth. Gardiner indicates that the damming of the river took place several miles upstream from Tlaxcala, near the small community of Tizatlán, and that Martín López directed the operation.
What is certain is that the dam succeeded in its purpose. The waters of the Zahuapan swelled to new heights, allowing the nearly flat-bottomed vessels, which drew between two and two-and-one-half feet of water, to navigate the river without any complications.
Once tested, the ships were laboriously dismantled, bound, and readied for transport to Spanish headquarters in Tetzcoco (see Figure 3). The written accounts of the conquistadors do not expound on why Tetzcoco was selected as the main base of operations, but several factors likely converged to make it the pragmatic choice.
First, the besiegers clearly needed a lakeside base so that they could assault Tenochtitlan by both land and water. Among the communities along the eastern shore of the lake, Tetzcoco was appreciably larger than many, guaranteeing it could provide food and lodging to support Spanish forces for months at a time, as preparations proceeded toward the final siege. Third, and perhaps most vital, Tetzcoco was geographically more distant from Tenochtitlan than many of the other principal lakeshore communities, particularly those along the western and southern shores. The relative distance separating the two embattled sides could offer a greater buffer for shielding the Spanish camp as well as the improvised shipyard, which lay further inland. As will be seen, the insular position of the construction site proved a wise choice, for the Mexica made several audacious attempts to burn the unfinished vessels in the months leading up to the final siege.
With the end of winter approaching, the preliminary phase of the project was nearing its conclusion. For five months, Spanish and Native laborers had worked incessantly to ensure that all of the timber was cut, dressed, marked, and converted into appropriately sized pieces. Such activities were undoubtedly demanding and tedious, though it is worth emphasizing that the most herculean work of the naval enterprise still lay ahead. The Indigenous-Spanish coalition still had to haul the prefabricated vessels from Tlaxcala to Tetzcoco, which, together with the construction of the canal, would be one of the most remarkable exploits of the naval episode, if not the entire conquest.
When the time came to transport the crafts, in late February of 1521, at least 8,000 Indigenous tameme from Tlaxcala, Huejotzingo, and Cholula loaded the timbers, the anchors, the ironwork, the sails, and the rigging onto their shoulders, while another 2,000 Native people carried foodstuffs for the massive convoy (see Figure 4).
To defend the caravan, a force of 20,000 Native combatants, consisting of some of Tlaxcala's finest warriors, would accompany the tameme.
The Native-Spanish force that marched toward Tetzcoco comprised over 30,000 persons in an enormous column that stretched more than six miles in length.
When the caravan at last crossed over into Tetzcoco, the company poured forth through the city in brilliant display. Of particular note was the entry of the Tlaxcalteca, as observed by Díaz del Castillo: garbed in their finest attire, they “marched in good order to the sound of drums and trumpets, . . . and in an unbroken line they were half a day marching into the City, shouting, whistling, and crying out ‘Viva! Viva! for the Emperor our Lord and Castile! Castile and Tlaxcala! Tlaxcala!’”
According to Cortés, the immense convoy continued its procession through the city of Tetzcoco for another six hours, until the tail end of the column had at last reached the main base of operations.
One of the more conspicuous aspects of the above image (Figure 5) is that the Indigenous laborers, seen felling timbers, outnumber their Spanish counterparts by four to one. While this by no means represents a precise ratio of Native to Spanish workers, it nonetheless illustrates that Indigenous people constituted the bulk of the brigantine labor force, and would have outnumbered the Spaniards in the shipyard many times over. Further, and additionally revealing, is that the Native people, and not the Spanish, are situated at the center of the illustration. This may very well have been a symbolic placement, signifying the centrality of Native peoples to the shipbuilding enterprise, and how they formed (at least from the perspective of the Indigenous artist) the nucleus of the amphibious operation.
As the shipbuilding project entered its final phases, Native products local to the region, especially some found in the surrounding forests, became critical to its completion. One important material still needed was pitch, a sticky resinous substance used for the caulking, or waterproofing, of the vessels.
Though cotton was plentiful, obtaining it quickly and in sufficient quantity required Indigenous knowledge of Mesoamerican trade networks and the main provinces that produced the soft, fibrous substance. With time of the essence, and the Indigenous-Spanish laborers busy assembling the brigantines, the proficiency of the Native peoples in collecting the materials, and doing so in a timely fashion, ensured that the operations progressed smoothly and along the projected timeline.
As the Spanish and Indigenous people worked to assemble the brigantines, an even more onerous project was simultaneously underway, the construction of a 9,100-foot canal (zanja) needed to launch the landlocked crafts into the lake. The execution and supervision of the project was entrusted to Ixtlilxochitl, tlahtoani of Tetzcoco, who had recently forged an alliance with Cortés to help solidify his claim to the Tetzcocan throne (see Figure 6).
The fact that we have no testimonies from Spaniards claiming that they labored on the canal, or helped to engineer it in any way, suggests that Ixtlilxochitl and his advisers presumably executed all of its construction, including conceptualizing the plan, determining the physical location, supervising the excavation process, and directing the engineering feats. While extensive, such work should not have troubled the Tetzcocan ruler.
Ixtlilxochitl came from a lakeshore region of Mexico renowned for its mastery in civil engineering, and particularly in hydrological affairs. His neighbors, the Mexica, were especially esteemed for their expertise in water management, having performed a number of impressive hydrological works over the course of the fifteenth century such as the construction of canals, aqueducts, causeways, dikes, ditches, and sluice gates.).
The map, oriented with West at the top, is an aerial view of Mexico City and its environs a few decades after the Spanish-Aztec War, and displays in colorful detail the numerous water channels (dark blue lines) that crisscross the lacustrine region. Thus, when the moment came in 1521 to engineer a canal for the launch of the brigantines, the residents of Tetzcoco would not have been baffled; they would have been supremely equipped to carry out the task.
Since we have to surmise, the first phase of the canal enterprise would most likely have been deciding where to build it.
The main objective was to deepen the stream bed, not an easy task. The composition of the land, comprised of innumerable rocks and stones, would create no shortage of obstacles for the diggers. There was no way to circumvent the larger stones and keep to the intended course, so they would need to be extracted from the earth or broken into smaller pieces using picks and mallets. Given these obstacles, and the length of the canal, the excavation would be an unenviable task.
In terms of labor, the actual digging of the canal may have been the most impressive Native accomplishment of the entire war. The proposed dimensions of the 9,100-foot canal were 12 feet (3.7 meters) wide and equally deep. This plan would have required the excavation of roughly 1,310,400 cubic feet of earth (37,106 cubic meters).
The sources generally agree that Native diggers worked in relays of 8,000 to 10,000 each day, for 50 days consecutively. This is not to say, however, that Ixtlilxochitl is to receive all of the credit for the enterprise. The Native sovereign dealt with all the broader affairs of his province, and could not be present at all times to manage the canal enterprise. For this reason, supervision of the ongoing labor would have fallen to trusted supervisors and overseers. From the edges of the canal, Native foremen would convey the engineering scheme to the excavators, and otherwise ensure that the work was carried out correctly. The diggers in turn worked diligently to extract the earth, understanding the gravity of the task at hand and the need to execute it in speedy fashion. In this manner the excavation process became a completely collaborative affair, with various echelons of Native society (the tlahtoani, the overseers, and the diggers) all playing crucial roles.
In the end, the key to the canal project may well not have been the huge labor force but rather the engineering feats of the Native people. Once excavated, all the extracted soil had to be relocated. Most of it would have been used to build lateral embankments along the canals to prevent the outflow of water. In addition, the inner walls of the canal had to be reinforced with wood stakes and stone to prevent water seepage. Given the lengthy history of managing water in the region, it is plausible that Ixtlilxochitl—or one of the other Indigenous lords supervising the project—had more to do with the selection and placement of these structures than did any of the Spaniards who came from arid regions of Spain, such as Extremadura, New Castile, or southeastern Andalusia.
As Native laborers dug the canal and others assembled the brigantines, Indigenous auxiliaries played important roles. For approximately seven weeks, cooks had to feed the 8,000 to 10,000 workers who labored on the excavation each day. Although Indigenous women seldom appear in the historical record from this period, large numbers of women would have been busy cooking to feed the workforce so that operations ran efficiently and on schedule. Also needed were interpreters: language barriers between Spanish workers and their Native colleagues at the shipyard meant that Indigenous translators had to be present to communicate and relay instructions, such as how to join the planks, fashion the oars, and help mount the guns.
On at least one occasion, this responsibility would have fallen into the hands of the Castilians’ Native interpreter and adviser Malintzin, a significant figure in the conquest. Without the presence of these Native combatants, it is plausible that the ships might have been burned or otherwise destroyed. At the very least, the unbridled/continued harrassment of Mexica saboteurs would have delayed the completion of the ships and pushed back the timetable of the final siege. In the end, no significant calamity befell the program, and by late April 1521, the ships were ready for launch.
With the brigantines finished, and the ditch excavated, there remained one final task: to raise the water levels of the gigantic canal. It was April, the end of the dry season, and the rivulet on which the canal was built would at that time have been quite shallow. Given that there was not enough water to float the vessels to the lakeshore, a series of dams (presas), 12 in all, were constructed at strategic points along the 1.73 mile stretch to impound more water into the ditch. As those dams were released, the water that rushed into the channel would not only raise its level but also generate a faster-moving current, thereby facilitating the movement of the ships into the lake.
We can reasonably assume that the construction of the dams fell into the hands of the Tetzcocans. The residents of the lakeshore altepetl, having grown up in and around the small pools and lakes within the Valley of Mexico, made up a highly sophisticated lacustrine community that knew how to harness and modify the watery landscape. The Tetzcocans were also familiar with the water sources nearest to where the dams had to be built. The Spanish, by contrast, had little knowledge, if any, of the surrounding topography. They were also occupied with other preparations for the final siege, and were otherwise far too few in number to erect a single dam, let alone a dozen of them.
After the 12 embankments were raised, the brigantines were docked in one of the dammed reservoirs and tethered in place by a series of ropes. When the time was ready to launch them, the dam was to be released, allowing the vessels to drop one by one into the canal, where they would eventually float into the lake. Based on the account of Cervantes de Salazar, the trickiest part of the brigantine launch did not appear to be impounding water into the canal, but the actual release of the armada into the artificial waterway. Given the considerable force of the current generated by the release of the dam, there was genuine concern that the ships might break upon impact with the water, or equally worrisome, collide into one another. Eight long months had been consumed in the construction of the ships. If they were to be damaged, or destroyed, the conquest of Tenochtitlan would be immeasurably more difficult, if not implausible. Therefore, when the much-anticipated time came to release the vessels, on April 28, 1521, the entire Spanish and Indigenous force assembled on the lakeshore to bear witness.
In the anxious moments leading up to the launch, the Christians celebrated mass on the waterfront, saying “many prayers” for the safe passage of the vessels into the lake. The Spanish priest, Friar Bartolomé de Olmedo, went over to the dam where the brigantines lay, sanctifying the ships with holy water and invoking the favor of the Virgin Mary to protect them. Once these Christian rituals were complete, “a signal was made to release the dam,” writes Cervantes de Salazar, upon which “the brigantines left with great fury.” With the aid of an improvised slide (deslizadero), as well as other mysterious “inventions and ingenuities” to which the chronicler makes reference, the ships dropped into the canal one by one, and moved into the lake without any reported damage.).
Broadly speaking, the ships accomplished three important goals of the Spanish war effort: they increased Spanish mobility on the lake, allowing their forces to land at strategic points in the Basin of Mexico; they augmented and amplified one of the Spaniards’ greatest tactical advantages, artillery, by affording its placement on the decks of the ships; and they enabled the Indigenous-Spanish coalition to effect a naval blockade of the city, cutting the island off from food and water supplies. For these reasons, among others, the writings of colonial and modern historians are filled with references to the powerful effect of the brigantines, but it is worth emphasizing that the main participants in the war (the Spanish and the Native peoples themselves) also recognized their significance.
In the 1565 interrogatory compiled by the Tlaxcalteca, every witness concluded their testimony by asserting that the ships were one of the principal reasons for the toppling of the city of Tenochtitlan. In the words of one witness: “los dichos vergantines fue una de las mas principales caussas por donde se gano la ciudad.” That participants on both sides of the struggle called attention to the impact of the brigantines is revealing: it suggests that they perceived the vessels, and by extension, the shipbuilding program, to be one of the most noteworthy—if not the most critical—aspects of the entire war.
In 1875, the municipal authorities of Texcoco unveiled a commemorative obelisk standing over 15 feet tall, to commemorate the launching of the brigantines in 1521. The obelisk is referred to as “Puente de los Bergantines” (see Figure 9).
Constructed on the supposed launching grounds of the vessels, the monument bears a small expository plaque at the top: “Bridge of the Brigantines, where Cortés launched the ships for the capture of the Aztec Capital, April 5, 1521.” Here, thousands of Native people assembled in the winter and spring of 1521 to construct 13 ships and an enormous canal with which to conquer the city of Tenochtitlan. While the commemorative tablet captures the culmination of the enterprise, it fails to acknowledge that it was Native people, and not Cortés, who largely made it possible. With that said, we cannot fault the municipal authorities of Texcoco for missing this information. The monument was erected at a time when Indigenous sources were still largely undiscovered, and the full extent of Native participation in the Spanish-Aztec War was far from recognized. Even to this day, little is known about the great naval project of 1520-21, and particularly little about the roles of the Native peoples who stood at its vanguard.
This article has sought to recover this long-neglected story. Credit for the success of the naval program tends to go mostly, if not completely, to the Spanish. I have attempted to demonstrate how the main drivers of the project were the Spaniards’ Native allies. Over the course of eight months, scores of Indigenous people from Culhuacan, Chalco, Cholula, Huejotzingo, Tetzcoco, and Tlaxcala came together to cut trees, saw timbers, carve wood, transport logs, assemble planks, and dig out the massive canal.
Such labor was critical to the enterprise. However, I argue that its success hinged not only on Native muscle, but also on Indigenous knowledge of the local environment and Native concepts of hydraulic engineering. Through generations of living in and around the Basin of Mexico, the Native peoples had built a rich repository of ecological and hydrological knowledge about their surroundings. When the ship and canal building program unfolded in their backyards, the Indigenous peoples drew on this reservoir of knowledge to help ensure its success in every phase, from collecting local materials to build the ships, determining the precise location of where to place the canal, and executing some of the project's finer engineering aspects, such as lining the walls of the ditch or erecting lateral embankments. It was this knowledge and expertise, together with extensive labor services, that made the Native people the true masters of the naval enterprise.
As for the commemorative monument in Texcoco, erected nearly 150 years ago, it would be remiss not to report that to this day it stands on Calle Juárez Sur in the southern part of the city, largely overlooked amid the urban sprawl (see Figure 10).