August 13 - An Empire Is Conquered

nPosted on August 13, 2019

Key Points

nIn the 1400s, Europeans wanted a quicker, surer way to trade with the Indies. There were spices on the line – and to the people of the Middle Ages, spices were super important.

Spices were used for medicines, to preserve food, to make perfumes and cosmetics, and of course to add flavor to food.

nThe fact that spices were expensive and exotic, that they came from vague, far-away places, just added to their desirability.

nSo part of the reason that Europeans kept daring to sail away into the unknown, in sea voyages of exploration, was that they really-really-really wanted a way to get those spices without having to rely on Arab traders (who traveled over land) – and without having to pay the huge prices demanded by those traders.

nOf course you know that Christopher Columbus was a navigator who sailed west while trying to reach the East – by which I mean Asia, specifically India and the “Indies” – but instead he bumped into islands and entire continents pretty much unknown to Europeans. (Of course, the islands and continents were very much known to the many and diverse peoples who lived on them!)

Having sailed for the Spanish king and queen, Columbus went around “claiming” the new lands for Spain. Soon after Columbus, a Spanish man named Hernán Cortés decided to seek wealth in the New World. He sailed to Hispaniola and later to Cuba. The Spaniards who settled the Caribbean islands wanted to explore the mainland, and in 1518, Cortés was chosen to be the captain of one of these expeditions.

nCortés discovered a bunch of different peoples living in what we now call Mexico – and he quickly realized that some of these indigenous peoples had been conquered by a group called the Aztecs, and were none too happy about it.

nCortés was lucky enough to run into a Spanish priest who had been shipwrecked on the Yucatán Peninsula and had learned the Chontal Maya language. He became Cortés’s interpreter. Cortés found a woman who spoke both Chontal and the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs, and with these two interpreters, horses, and Spanish weapons, Cortés gathered an army to march on the Aztecs.

The Aztec emperor, Moctezuma II, peaceably allowed Cortés and his army into the capital city, Tenochtitlán. (It is thought that he hoped to learn the Spaniards’ weaknesses so that he could later beat them.) Moctezuma even gave Cortés some gifts made out of precious gold. If he thought those gifts were going to earn him some good will, he was sadly mistaken, because the Spaniards realized that the Aztecs had gold! – and of course the Spaniards really, really wanted gold! More and more gold! All of the gold!

nThere were many different events during the conquest of the Aztec Empire. It was a long, violent conquest of a people who had themselves inflicted a lot of violence on other peoples as they conquered the region. Here are a few highlights: Moctezuma ended up under house arrest – in his own palace! – in his own capital city! Cortés battled Spaniards sent by the Governor of Cuba to arrest him. While Cortés was away from Tenochtitlán, Spaniards enacted a shocking massacre of men, women, and children of the noble class – unarmed people who were celebrating a religious holiday. Moctezuma was killed, perhaps deliberately or perhaps on accident, perhaps by the Spaniards or perhaps by his own people in revolt as he tried to appease Cortés. The Spaniards and their Native allies tried to leave Tenochtitlán, and almost all of them – hundreds of Spaniards, thousands of Native allies – died as they did so. Smallpox – a disease unknown in the New World until Europeans arrived – began to spread throughout the Aztec Empire. Cortés finally conquered the Aztecs after a loooooooong siege of Tenochtitlán.

Tenoctitlán was built on Lake Texcoco.
The Aztecs were able to kill most of Cortés’s
army as they tried to cross one of the causeways –
so the location helped defend the city –
but Cortés was able to cut the city off from
the rest of the Empire with his siege – so the location
worked to defeat the city as well!

nIt was on this date in 1521 that the last Aztec Emperor, Cuauhtémoc, was captured fleeing the city and the conquest of the Aztecs was considered complete.