When the Spanish reached the mainland of the Americas, after having explored the Caribbean islands, the Aztec Empire was still intact. The Spanish explored the Panama region in Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula in the early 1500s. During these expeditions, they heard of the powerful Aztec Empire to the north, with a great city of towering pyramids, filled with gold and other riches, rising out of Lake Texcoco. In 1519, Hernan Cortes landed with about 400 soldiers and marched toward the city of Tenochtitlan.
Even with such a small army, Cortes managed to conquer the huge armies of the Aztec for a number of reasons. First of all, he managed to gain as allies other Mesoameri-can peoples who wanted to be free of Aztec rule—peoples such as the Totonac, Tlaxcalan, and Cholulan (from the ancient city of Cholula, site of the largest structure in the Americas, the Great Pyramid, 180 feet high and covering 25 acres). In order to accomplish these alliances, Cortes played various factions against one another. He also had the help of a talented Maya woman, originally a slave, named Malintzin (Malinche), called Lady Marina by the Spanish, who served as a translator and arbitrator among the different peoples. Moreover, the conquistadores were armed with guns, which frightened the Indians. Nor had the Aztec ever seen horses.
Still another factor played an important part in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec. Aztec legend told of the return of the god Quetzalcoatl. The Aztec thought that the white-skinned Cortes might be this god. The Aztec emperor Montezuma (also spelled Moctezuma) was indecisive in his actions when faced with this possibility. He lost his life during the period of political maneuvering, at the hands of either the Spanish or some Aztec who resented his indecisiveness. By the time the Aztec mounted a sizable defense against the invaders, the Spanish had thousands of Indian allies. The Spanish conquest, after fierce fighting in the streets of Tenochtitlan, was complete by 1521.
The Spanish worked to eradicate all traces of Aztec civilization. They destroyed temples and pyramids; they melted down sculptured objects into basic metals to be shipped back to Spain; they burned Aztec books. They also forced the Aztec to work for them as slaves. New Spain (Mexico) became the base from which the Spanish sent conquistadores northward to explore what is now the American Southwest and California, as well as southward into South America.
Many of the large population of Aztec descendants— referred to generally as Nahua—live in small villages around Mexico City; some 1.7 million people speak Nahuatl.
World History
