Xicotencatl I

Xicotencatl I or Xicotencatl the Elder (c. 11 House (1425) – c. 4 Rabbit (1522) ) was a long-lived teuctli (elected official) of Tizatlan, a Nahua altepetl (city-state) within the Confederacy of Tlaxcala, in what is now Mexico. According to one source, Xicotencatl was instrumental in allying the Tlaxcaltecs with the Spanish to overthrow the Aztec Empire.

Etymology
His Nahuatl name, pronounced, is sometimes spelled Xicohtencatl. In 1519 he was baptized as Lorenzo Xicotencatl or Don Lorenzo de Vargas.

Biography
At the time of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire he was very old and of poor health. He was instrumental in aligning the Tlaxcala with Hernán Cortés' Spaniards.

Tlaxcalan historian Diego Muñoz Camargo wrote of him that he was more than 120 years old and that he could only see Cortés if he had someone lift his eyelids for him. He also writes that he had more than 500 wives and concubines and consequently a large number of children, including Xicotencatl II and the wife of Jorge de Alvarado - Doña Lucía. His great-grandson Captain Don Joaquin Buenaventura de la Paz was the founder of the Tlaxcalan settlement of San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala near Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico in the year 1591.

According to Bernal Castillo, when his son plotted to seize Tlaxcala in Chichimecatecle's absence during the Siege of Tenochtitlan, Xicontencatl I told Cortés that "his son was wicked and he would not vouch for him, and begging Cortés to kill him." This Cortés ordered and Xicotencatl II was hanged.

However, Francisco Cervantes de Salazar (writing decades before Camargo or Diaz) records an alternate and more detailed version of the Tlaxcalan council's deliberations on the question of how to deal with Cortés and the Spaniards. In his telling, Xicotencatl the Elder argued against allying with Cortéz, as Maxixcatzin and others had proposed, instead saying:

"...does Maxixcatzin deem these people gods, who seem more like ravenous monsters thrown up by the intemperate sea to blight us, gorging themselves on gold, silver, stones, and pearls; sleeping in their own clothes; and generally acting in the manner of those who would one day make cruel masters … There are barely enough chickens, rabbits, or corn-fields in the entire land to feed their bottomless appetites, or those of their ravenous ‘deer’ [the Spanish horses]. Why would we – who live without servitude, and never acknowledged a king – spill our blood, only to make ourselves into slaves?"

After this speech, members of the council were divided on how to proceed, and Temilotecutl suggested a synthesized plan of allowing Xicotencatl the Younger and some Otomí troops to ambush Cortés, the outcome of the attack to determine the course of action.

The Tlaxcaltec-Spanish alliance succeeded in overthrowing the Aztec Empire in 1521, and Xicotencatl passed away the following year. Following his death, noblemen from the rival city-state of Ocotelolco took control of Tlaxcala.

Poetry
One song or poem attributed to Xicotencatl is known. It is recorded in the Cantares mexicanos (fols. 57v.–58r.), a collection of Nahuatl songs probably compiled in the last third of the 16th century for Bernardino de Sahagún, and concerns the flower wars conducted between Tlaxcala and the states of the Aztec Triple Alliance.