In 1518 the Aztec Empire ruled over millions of people.
It's central city, Tenochtitlan, was the Venice of the Americas, with beautiful canals and pyramids.
It's Emperor a near god that extracted immense tribute from conquered peoples. By 1522 it was a ruin. The city was gone, the Emperor dead.
How could a small group of Spaniards break so confident an Empire? In the Mexica's own words
"Who could conquer Tenochtitlan? Who could shake the foundation of the heavens?"
Let's Find Out!
INTRO
Moctezuma sat on his royal throne is a palace that housed 2 zoos, medicinal gardens, and an aquarium.
Whether a sick rollercoaster was there is still be debated by archaeologists.
Under his stern rule the Aztec Empire had reach unparalleled heights, but today he was stumped.
His agents had made contact with strange bearded white men off the coast. Who were these bizarre foreigners, what did they want.
Moctezuma could not know.
Over 2000km away in Santiago de Cuba,
Hernan Cortés has just been appointed "Caudillo" of another expedition to Mexico. Tasked with exploration and modest trading.
He quickly set about recruiting men, stockpiling ammunition, and buying ships with and energy and determination that hinted at larger plans.
This scared the Governor of Cuba, who then sent word to another man appointing him as the new Caudillo.
The messenger however seems to have mysteriously stabbed and then thrown himself
into a ravine and totally unrelated to this Cortés got the hell out of Cuba.
He set sail with 530 soldiers, a few hundred African and native slaves,
a handful of maids, and 1-2 conquistadoras.
Oh and about 16 horses, some war dogs, cannons, guns, swords and crossbows….they're kind of important.
Because you can't have modest trade without cannons!
He first landed in Maya territory and won his first major victory, which was not militaristic, but rather linguistic.
Cortés discovered a castaway Spanish priest that had been living among the Maya and learned the language.
Language was just as important as horse or cannon in this conflict.
Unlike conquistadors before him Cortés could now conduct diplomacy and make deals with the natives.
He could find out who liked who and use that to his advantage.
Things got even better when Cortés defeated a Maya group in battle...well they got better for Cortés the Maya got screwed.
After the battle he received a woman that spoke both Maya and the Aztec language, Nahuatl.
Dubbed La Malinche she became "the" essential translator in the weird telephone game that was early colonial communication.
She also has some funky songs written about her.
Leaving Maya territory Cortés moved on and landed in modern day Vera Cruz.
Over the next few days the diplomats of Moctezuma arrived. Cortés was given many golden gifts,
had hundreds of huts built for him and his men, and had thousands of servants made available to him.
Cortés informed them that he was a diplomat sent by the King of Spain...he wasn't.
But they were hardly going to Google search the guy and the Mexica were known to highly respect diplomats.
After some back and forth questioning Cortés asked the most important question. Did Moctezuma possess much gold.
The response was "Yes". I can't imagine a more dangerous answer.
Moctezuma was in the House of Serpents, a part of his Zoo when the messengers arrived.
These were the indeed same kind of men that arrived last year. They rode bizarre looking deer
and they had sticks that created lighting along with beasts that launched rocks from their bellies that could destroy hillsides.
Moctezuma the all powerful god emperor. Warlord of the Mexica. A man that cared for millions of people and was a
famously decisive ruler sank into a pit of despair.
This was the equivalent of Martians landing. How do you deal with that?
Some sources claim that Moctezuma thought the Spanish were gods coming to reclaim Mexico.
But all the evidence for this was written pre-conquest and is pretty shaky.
Moctezuma and the Mexica in general were incredibly superstitious. He may have thought these men were evil spirits of
some kind or just sent for some divine reason. But the idea of him giving up entirely because he thought Cortés was a god is unlikely.
But there were members of the royal household that had no doubts that the Spanish were simply men.
The emperor's brother Cuitláhuac continuously pushed the idea that these were raiders and shouldn't be trusted.
He advised Moctezuma "not to allow into your house someone who will put you out of it"
Moctezuma formulated a plan, he would do everything in his power to be nice to these visitors.
But he would not meet them and he would do his best to discourage them from coming to meet him.
Be they gods or not. This wasn't like...a great plan.
While Moctezuma was discussing the Spanish with his council, Cortés was discussing Moctezuma with another council back at the coast.
The natives in the region were living under Aztec rule and paid tribute to them.
They were obviously not ecstatic about this situation. They informed Cortés that if he marched on Tenochtitlan,
he would have theirs and other unhappy vassals support.
Cortés knew he couldn't take down an empire like the Aztecs with his forces.
But if he could start a civil war, that might just give him a chance. So he marched on Tenochtitlan with an army
that was barely 5% Spanish. The biggest contributor to this multiethnic army were the Tlaxcala,
who we discussed in the previous video. Cortés made his way across Mexico, stopping to
commit a little massacre at Cholula before arriving at the main causeway leading to the Mexica's island city, on the 8th of November 1519.
Crossbowmen, Gunmen, Cavalry, and war painted native allies marched down the
causeway probably taking notice of the wooden sections that could be removed to cut off their retreat.
Moctezuma, accepting that his not really a plan plan had failed went out to greet Cortés.
What else could he do really the guy was at his doorstep..
And so on that causeway in Mexico, as Moctezuma descended from his litter and Cortés
dismounted his horse, an emperor and a conquistador met and the history of our world changed forever.
They were led into the city and given lodgings in a palace that once belong to Moctezuma's father.
Over the next few days they were given a tour of the city with awed both Cortés and his men.
However Cortés wanted to take this city to enrich himself and to impress the King back in Spain.
Even with his native allies he knew it was near impossible to take this metropolis
without a devastating battle that he wasn't sure if he could win.
What could he do…. It wasn't like he could just kidnap the Emperor of the Aztecs.
Moctezuma was taken to the Spaniards quarters and ruled his empire as a prisoner. Allowing Cortés to control the city and empire without a fight.
As the city was stripped for gold the initial welcoming spirit of the Mexica vanished and their curiosity turned to hate.
But little resistance could be organised as everything relied on the Emperor.
As the city turned against Cortés he got word that Spanish ships had been spotted off the coast,
an army had been sent from Cuba to arrest or kill Cortés and Moctezuma may have been secretly helping them.
This was obviously terribly inconvenient for him, but nevertheless he had to march out and meet this threat.
He left his second in command, Pedro de Alvarado behind with a small group of soldiers to hold the city and emperor.
While Cortés was gone there happened to be an important festival taking place in Tenochtitlan.
In the days leading up to the festival Alvarado seems to have gotten paranoid. The business of the festival preparations seems to have convinced him that an
anti-Spanish conspiracy was brewing. Left alone in a foreign city Alvarado seems to have felt
outnumbered, trapped, suffocated. He would need to throw the first punch.
The day of the festival arrived. Priests made offerings, the music of drums and flutes filled the air, feathered dancers put on magnificent shows.
Alvarado and his troops entered the temple grounds wearing armour. Little attention was paid to them.
His men blocked the exits and then Alvarado shouted "Mueran!"
Soon 3 thousand people lay dead in the temple grounds and the killing poured out on to the streets.
Most of the Aztec nobility lay dead with the dancers. Only Moctezuma and a lucky few survived.
Madness took the city as the Aztecs organised a counter-attack. It only settled down after Alvarado,
covered in blood and with a severe head wound, forced Moctezuma to address his people and beg them to stop fighting back.
Alvarado and his men hid in their quarters and the city mourned.
Cortés returned victorious from the coast. But noone came to greet him as he entered the city.
It was silent. He discovered Alvarado and his men near starving in their quarters. While he heard about what had
happened from Alvarado Cortés then found himself and his army besieged. Moctezuma's brother,
Cuitáhuac, had organised a resistance. Cortés hoping to regain some sort of control over the city sent
Moctezuma to the balcony of the besieged palace to speak to his people. This time however,
his people threw rocks at him. Moctezuma died shortly after and with him Cortés' hope of taking an empire without a fight.
I can't help but wonder if Moctezuma had heeded his brother's advice and confronted the Spanish
before they were inside the city rather than appeased them how things would have turned out.
While a great leader for most of his reign, his final decisions during this profound event sealed the doom of his people.
The Spanish attempted to flee the city at night. Using a portable bridge to cross the sections of the causeway the Aztecs had removed.
This bridge got stuck however and the Spanish were soon spotted. The war drums sounded atop the great pyramid.
War canoes swarmed the Spanish position and warriors poured down the causeway. Soon half the Spanish army
was thrashing in the water, guns, cannons, and horses were useless.
Men weighed down by gold drowned in the lake. The chaos was unimaginable.
Cortés himself was captured, only to be saved in the nick of time. An fatal example of the Aztec's preference for capturing over killing.
Bodies began to fill the gaps in the causeway and the Spanish escaped by running over there comrades.
They managed to escape to the mainland. On this Noche Triste as it is remembered the Spanish
lost between 400-1000 soldiers along with thousands of more native allies. But he still had La Malinche,
he still had Pedro de Alvarado, and most importantly he still had the support of the Tlaxcala. Whose lands he retreated to to lick his wounds.
While triumphant the Mexica could hardly celebrate. Tenochtitlan was badly burned, 2 kings of the
Triple Alliance were dead, and the nobility was wiped out. Cuitáhuac, now Emperor seemed capable of turning things around.
He just might save the Empire, it appears that there is hope yet….oh he's dead now. Smallpox has just arrived.
Within a year 40% of Tenochtitlan is dead. Farmers lay dead in their fields and famine hits.
One by one the smallpox weakened cities around Tenochtitlan fall to Spanish-
Tlaxcalan forces. Why resist, disease and famine are tearing you apart and you don't even like the Aztecs anyway.
Soon Tenochtitlan and it's neighbour Tlatelolco stand alone. Surrounded.
A year after fleeing the city Cortés returns. With tens of thousands of native allies.
12 European warships were launched onto Lake Texcoco were they clashed with thousands of Aztec canoes.
This was naval warfare at 2250 meters above sea level.
The warships stopped supplies entering the city. Alvarado cut the aqueducts. Cortés was going to
introduce the Americas to a new kind of warfare, a European style siege. There would be no
glorious battle in an open field between Eagle and Jaguar warriors. Instead just a slow withering of resolve.
The siege went on for 80 days. Each day the citizens would rain rocks down on their invaders from the roofs
of their homes and so each day the Spanish would enter the city burning and breaking as much as possible.
So there'd, you know...be less roofs. Each night the Spanish retreated and the citizens repaired what they could.
This was a bitter slogfest. At one point it appeared the Mexica were going to win.
They had captured a large amount of Spaniards and sacrificed them in full view of the besieging army
and their allies. Some allies even deserted the Spanish cause, seeing it as hopeless. But it didn't last.
As they starved away and withered from disease, trapped in their city the Mexica hardly gave the Spanish an inch.
Every street was a last stand and every day Cortés' dream of taking the city intact slipped away.
In the Mexica's own words
"It is better that we should all die fighting in the city than see ourselves in the power of those who would enslave us and torture us for gold."
Eventually, slowly, painfully the city was erased. Moctezuma's cousin and the final Emperor,
Cuauhtémoc was captured and the Aztec Empire was forced to surrendered on 13 August 1521.
Broken spears lie in the roads; We have torn our hair in our grief The houses are roofless now, and their walls Are red with blood.
Our inheritance, our city, is lost and dead The shields of our warriors were its defense. But they could not save it.
A great city lay in ashes and the Aztec Empire was at an end but modern Mexico had just been born.
Mexico city rose from the ashes of Tenochtitlan and today in Mexico more than one million people
still speak Nahuatl. Mexican Spanish contains more than three thousand "Nahuatlisms,"
and a number of English words come from Nahuatl such tomato, chocolate, and coyote.
The Spanish soon after their conquest of Mexico and then more of the Americas became the
greatest power in Europe. Gold and Silver flowed back into Spain along with what are now modern food staples.
Such as corn, chocolate, vanilla, and chilli.
This story is one where both sides displayed the very heights of human bravery and brutality.
The conquest of Mexico is both a tragic and fundamental event in world history and one that will need to be studied forever.
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