The massacre of Cholula was an attack carried out by the military forces of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés on his way to the city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan in 1519.

Francisco López de Gómara[1] indicates that the massacre of Cholula began after Cortés captured and killed Cholulteca leaders, unleashing with this act the slaughter of 6000 people in less than two hours.

[3] However, the accounts collected by Bernardino de Sahagún[4] contradict this version since it is narrated that only unarmed Cholultec civilians were killed.

[5]: 193  Finally, La Malinche informed Cortés, after talking to the wife of one of the lords of Cholula, that the locals planned to murder the Spanish in their sleep.

In letters to his King, Cortés claimed that in three hours time his troops (helped by the Tlaxcalans) killed 3,000 people and had burned the city.

[5]: 204 In one of his responses to Cortés, Moctezuma blamed the commanders of the local Aztec garrison for the resistance in Cholula, and recognizing that his long-standing attempts to dissuade Cortés from coming to Tenochtitlan with gifts of gold and silver had failed, Moctezuma finally invited the conquistadors to visit his capital city, according to Spanish sources, after feeling as though nothing else could be done.