Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. World War One Centenary. Settings Sign out. He traveled to the island of Santo Domingo, or Hispaniola. In February , the expedition reached the Mexican coast. This brazen decision eliminated the possibility of any retreat. He fought Tlaxacan and Cholula warriors and then set his sights on taking over the Aztec empire.
He traveled to Honduras in to stop a rebellion against him in the area. The answers to these questions lie in the fact that at the time of the Spanish arrival, the Aztec and Inca Empires faced grave internal difficulties brought on by their religious ideologies; by the Spaniards' boldness, timing, and technology; and by Aztec and Inca psychology and attitudes toward war.
The Spaniards arrived in late summer, when the Aztecs were preoccupied with harvesting their crops and not thinking of war.
From the Spaniards' perspective, their timing was ideal. A series of natural phenomena, signs, and portents seemed to augur disaster for the Aztecs. A comet was seen in daytime, a column of fire had appeared every midnight for a year, and two temples were suddenly destroyed, one by lightning unaccompanied by thunder.
These and other apparently inexplicable events seemed to presage the return of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl and had an unnerving effect on the Aztecs. They looked on the Europeans riding "wild beasts" as extraterrestrial forces coming to establish a new social order.
Defeatism swept the nation and paralyzed its will. The Aztec state religion, the sacred cult of Huitzilopochtli, necessitated constant warfare against neighboring peoples to secure captives for religious sacrifice and laborers for agricultural and infrastructure work. Lacking an effective method of governing subject peoples, the Aztecs controlled thirty-eight provinces in central Mexico through terror.
When the Spaniards appeared, the Totonacs greeted them as liberators, and other subject peoples joined them against the Aztecs. Montezuma faced terrible external and internal difficulties.
Historians have often condemned the Aztec ruler for vacillation and weakness. But he relied on the advice of his state council, itself divided, and on the dubious loyalty of tributary communities. The major explanation for the collapse of the Aztec Empire to six hundred Spaniards lies in the Aztecs' notion of warfare and their level of technology.
But for the Aztecs, warfare was a ceremonial act in which "divide and conquer" had no place. The Aztecs killed many Spaniards. In retaliation, the Spaniards executed Montezuma.
By the time he arrived in Mexico, the Aztecs had come to rule over small states and some 5 to 6 million people. He used deadly force to conquer Mexico, fighting Tlaxacan and Cholula warriors before turning his attention on the ultimate prize: taking over the Aztec Empire. He left 80 Spanish soldiers and a few hundred Tlaxcaltecs under the command of Pedro de Alvarado to hold Tenochtitlan until he returned. The enraged Aztec forces eventually drove his forces from the city. During the Spanish retreat , Montezuma was killed and much of the plunder the Spanish had taken was lost.
His forces defeated the Aztecs in Battle of Otumba on July 7, , and he regained control of Tenochtitlan by August 13, The Aztec Empire had fallen.
He sent more expeditions out into new areas, including what is present-day Honduras. He died in Spain in But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.
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