The Blood Of Moctezuma Lives On

The story of Isabel Moctezuma and where her descendants are today.

Did you know that there are an estimated 2000 descendants of Moctezuma living today?
Many people assume that after the fall of the Aztec Empire, the entire bloodline would have been killed off and replaced by Spaniards. Instead, the Aztec bloodline became highly sought after as a noble lineage and has been spread around Europe to this day. Many royals and high-standing members of Europe have connections to this bloodline.

Let's start at the beginning with Isabel Moctezuma (born Tecuichpoch Ichcaxochitzin in the year 1510). She was married off multiple times and became an important figure in this legacy.

As a child under the age of 10, Isabel was first married to a man named Atlixcatzin, likely a noble in Montezuma court who was killed during the siege of Tenochtitlan. After the fall of the Aztec Empire and the death of her father, Isabel was briefly married off to the successive emperor Cuitláhuac, who shortly died of smallpox. The Aztec leaders then made her cousin, Cuauhtémoc, the next emperor, and she was married to him.

As the Aztecs' numbers and morale depleted by war and sickness, Cuauhtémoc and his court attempted to flee Tenochtitlan by boat but were captured by the Spanish. Upon his eventual surrender, he was executed, leaving Isabel a 3-time widow at the age of about 15.

This is where the story turns... Cortes understood the value of the Moctezuma lineage in securing loyalty to this new land. Upon converting to Christianity, the leaders of those conquered by Spain were often given the same noble titles as those in Europe. Isabel was granted the largest plot of land/estate in the Mexican valley. Similar to her royal family, she was also given slaves to work the land and was politically married to one of Cortes's friends, Alonso de Grado, a Spanish nobleman. After his death 2 years later, Cortes married her to another man named Pedro Gallego de Andrade, but not before raping her and leaving her pregnant with a daughter later named Leonor Cortés Moctezuma.

Isabel went on to have 5 more children in her lifetime, dying a wealthy woman and passing much of her wealth and legacy to her children.

But where is that bloodline now?

Those 6 children married into Spanish noble families, many of them relocating to Spain and further intermixing.

The Palacio de Toledo-Moctezuma located in Cáceres, Spain still exists as the home of Isabel's Grandson, Juan de Toledo Moctezuma, who married the Spanish/Jewish Toledo Family

Oher descendants married into families of the Extremadura region who we the richest in Spain at that time.

Of the more famous descendants living today is Princess Rosario , who is not only of Spanish royalty but married into the Bulgarian Royal family and has multiple children.

Connection to Mexico: While hundreds of years have passed, this lineage is not unknown to the royals. With her background in art, Rosaria teamed up with the sole heir of the Jumex fortune, Eugenio López Alonso, to help launch the Jumex Museum in Mexico City.

Other descendants are Carlos Fitz-James Stuart y Martínez de Irujo - Spanish Aristcrat under the House of Alba - with his multiple sons

Ignacio Medina y Fernández de Córdoba - Spanish Duke and Architect

Through marriage, the bloodline has also spread to members of both the French and Yugoslav/Serbian Royal Courts. I won't post any additional names, but if you choose to do some digging, you can find that many of the younger living children are engaged in multiple business ventures.

One thing I will say is that despite the brutality of the Spanish, it is recorded on many occasions that they were lenient in the treatment of slaves in comparison. With the blood of that nobility still flowing today, I wonder what their feelings are toward the commoners that they continue to oversee.