The reasons why a handful of Spaniards were able to conquer millions of Aztecs include the following:
¦ The Spanish incited the Aztecs’ subjects to rebel against their imperial masters. Rather than speaking of a Spanish victory, it would be more accurate to state that the Spanish led a successful rebellion. As noted above, 200,000 Indian allies supported the Spanish in the siege of Tenochtitlan. Other Indians fought with the Spanish elsewhere.
¦ The smallpox epidemic decimated the Aztecs and left them leaderless. Both Aztec defenders of Tenochtitlan and the Spaniards’ Indian allies fell victim to the disease. However, the Spanish were largely immune, and their command structure remained intact. In contrast, Montezuma’s successor, Cuitlahuac, died of the disease, thus plunging the Aztecs into a succession crisis during the siege.
¦ The Spanish used a variety of weapons unavailable to the Aztecs, including the crossbow, the notoriously inaccurate matchlock guns known as harquebuses, thundering cannons, and, especially, the long, sharp Castilian sword. After fighting in Tlaxcala, Diaz del Castillo commented, “It was only by a miracle of sword play that we could make them give way so that our ranks could be reformed.”42 Aztec swords, which were made of sharp stones slotted into wooden shafts, were intended to wound, but not to kill, so as to provide victims for sacrifice. Meso-americans made little use of metal aside from bells and ornaments.43
¦ Spanish battle tactics, based on experience in European wars, allowed the Spaniards to successfully integrate infantry, artillery, and cavalry. In combat, the Aztecs, rather than attempting to destroy the enemy, would isolate and capture as many prisoners as possible for transport to the rear and eventual sacrifice in their capital.44
¦ Two animals contributed to the Spanish victory. The horse intimidated, provided a platform to impale and hack at natives, and allowed swift transportation. In addition, war dogs, probably mastiffs or Irish wolfhounds, felled many an Indian.45
¦ Cortes’s talent for flattery, courtesy, eloquence, swift decision, improvisation, deviousness, and sudden changes of plan, as well as his will and courage in adversity, determined that he should lead the Conquest.46
¦ Cortes could draw on a variety of tactics that had been perfected during the Spanish Reconquest and the occupation of the Caribbean. These tactics included: 1) the wanton use of violence, as at Cholula; 2) kidnapping native rulers, a tactic that was also used in the Caribbean; and 3) allying with one non-Spanish group to conquer another, as was done both in the Caribbean and during the Reconquest of Andalucia. This third tactic was especially effective since Native American identity was highly localized. Native peoples saw themselves as members of a particular community or city-state and very seldom as members of a larger ethnic group. They certainly did not feel themselves to be anything even approaching the category of “Indians” or “natives.”47
¦ Sixteenth-century European culture facilitated the Conquest. Writing allowed leaders of various Spanish forces to effectively communicate and for Cortes to request help from the rest of the Spanish realm. The wheel allowed the transport of the cannons used in the Conquest.
Improvements in the safety, price, and capacity of sea travel enabled the Spanish in Mexico to remain in communication with Europe and receive reinforcements.48 As a result of their relative modernity, more than a year before the Conquest was complete, the Spanish were already exhibiting booty from Mexico and spreading information about Mexico thorough Europe.49 ¦ Traditional accounts of the Conquest, such as William Prescott’s classic History of the Conquest of Mexico, stressed that Montezuma was under the influence of strange portents that supposedly appeared during the last years of his reign. Rather than responding to portents, Montezuma appears to have accepted Cortes as what he said he was—an ambassador from a distant and unknown ruler. As such, Cortes had to be treated with respect and hospitality. After the Conquest, the Spanish had a vested interest in claiming that portents influenced the Aztecs, since that would establish their opponents as primitives in need of enlightenment by the Spanish. Indigenous informants who later spoke to the Spanish may have used portents to explain their humiliating defeat. Another possible explanation for Montezuma’s call for the Aztecs to lay down their arms was that he recognized that resistance against Spanish technology was hopeless.50
World History
