This is the second in a series of posts about the history of Mexico written by my friend, Mike Ashe. For those who would like to learn more about Cortes and his alliances with the surrounding tribes as well as his fascinating dealings with Montezuma, I recommend John Eidsmoe’s Columbus and Cortes: Conquerors for Christ. Did Hernando Cortes subjugate the people of Mexico — or did he liberate them? Mike touches upon this in the previous post and he will be writing more about Spain’s role in future posts. I look forward to them.
To give context, I’ve reprinted Mike’s concluding paragraphs from the prior post.
From Human Migration — Mike Ashe
“We cannot leave the ancient world without looking at the Aztecs’ polytheistic religion and its demands on its people, including human sacrifices to satisfy their hundreds of gods but primarily four main gods: 1) Tlaloc (god of rain) 2) Huitzilopochtli (god of war and sun 3) Quetzalcoatl (most famous Aztec god means feathered serpent) god of civilization and 4) Tezcatlipoca (god of destiny).
All four gods were the children of Ometecuhtli. Some of these gods like Tlaloc can be traced back to the Olmec and Mayan civilization. The child god Quetzalcoatl represents the good and his brother Tezcatlipoca not so good, as some scholars believe….
…. Tlamacazqui were the Aztec priests; they were responsible to please the gods in ceremonies, offerings, and sacrifices. Many scholars believe that during troubled times sacrifices were performed to honor the gods. Priests would open the chest of the victim/volunteer and offer the beating heart to the gods. Men women and children were all sacrificed based on which gods needed to be pleased. Their skulls were displayed in the temples as trophies to the gods. Recent DNA testing shows that the majority of those sacrificed were enemy soldiers or slaves. There are some wild estimates of the number of sacrifices per year which cannot be confirmed. The Spanish accounts served as the basis for many estimates but most seem exaggerated to many scholars.”
The Conquest of Mexico — Mike Ashe
In the conquest of the Aztecs Hernando Cortes only had 450 men when he initially faced off against them. In order for him to conquer the Aztecs he created an alliance with the Tlaxcala and other enemies of the Aztecs in the region, which eventually provided him with 250,000 warriors to command. The Aztecs had lived off their weaker neighbors for centuries creating this opportunity for Cortes.
Montezuma (leader of the Aztecs at that time) fell out of favor when there was a food shortage and smallpox had killed about half the population.
Cortes’ advantage over their enemy was some of his men were on horseback (which terrified the enemy), they had guns, armor, having steel weapons, disease and an ally in the region.
Three millenniums of Mesoamerican civilization came to an abrupt end when Hernando Cortes conquered and killed thousands of Aztecs and ushered in centuries of Spanish Rule in 1521. As a frame of reference, the Mayflower arrived in New England in 1620 a hundred years after the conquest of the Aztecs.
Next: Colonial Times
