The Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire
Hernán Cortés, a few hundred Spaniards and tens of thousands of Indigenous allies bring down Tenochtitlan, while smallpox devastates its people; the city falls on 13 August 1521.
- Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest — Matthew Restall, Oxford University Press (2003)
- When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History — Matthew Restall, Ecco (2018)
- Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs — Camilla Townsend, Oxford University Press (2019)
- Malintzin's Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico — Camilla Townsend, University of New Mexico Press (2006)
- The Course of Mexican History — Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman and Susan M. Deeds, Oxford University Press (2014)
In February 1519 Hernán Cortés sailed from Cuba with about 500 men, a few horses and cannon, in defiance of the governor who had sent him. On the coast he acquired two interpreters: Gerónimo de Aguilar, a Spaniard who had lived among the Maya, and a young Nahua woman given to the Spaniards as a slave, Malintzin, whom they called Doña Marina and Mexicans call La Malinche. Speaking both Maya and Nahuatl, she became the voice of the conquest.
- Malintzin's Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico — Camilla Townsend, University of New Mexico Press (2006)
- Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest — Matthew Restall, Oxford University Press (2003)
Allies
The Spaniards’ decisive advantage was not guns but allies. After fighting the Spaniards, the Tlaxcalans, long-time enemies of the Mexica, joined them, along with other peoples tired of paying tribute. Throughout the campaign Indigenous soldiers outnumbered Spaniards many times over.
- Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest — Matthew Restall, Oxford University Press (2003)
- Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs — Camilla Townsend, Oxford University Press (2019)
Moctezuma and the fall of the city
On 8 November 1519 the emperor Moctezuma II received Cortés in Tenochtitlan. The old story that Moctezuma took Cortés for the returning god Quetzalcoatl comes from sources written decades later, and most historians now doubt it; his welcome was more likely diplomacy, or a show of power. The Spaniards soon took him hostage.
- When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History — Matthew Restall, Ecco (2018)
- Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs — Camilla Townsend, Oxford University Press (2019)
In May 1520 Spaniards massacred Mexica nobles at a festival in the Templo Mayor, and the city rose. Moctezuma was killed (by whom is disputed) and on the night of 30 June the Spaniards fled with heavy losses, a night Spanish chronicles call the Noche Triste. Then smallpox, brought by a member of a Spanish expedition, swept through central Mexico, killing perhaps a third or more of the city’s people, including the new emperor Cuitláhuac.
- Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs — Camilla Townsend, Oxford University Press (2019)
- The Course of Mexican History — Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman and Susan M. Deeds, Oxford University Press (2014)
Cortés returned with thousands of allies and boats built for the lake, and besieged Tenochtitlan for nearly three months. Its young ruler Cuauhtémoc led a desperate defence amid starvation and disease. The city fell on 13 August 1521. Cuauhtémoc was captured, later tortured for treasure and hanged in 1525.
- Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs — Camilla Townsend, Oxford University Press (2019)
- Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest — Matthew Restall, Oxford University Press (2003)
Catastrophe
The demographic disaster that followed is one of the worst in human history. Waves of smallpox, measles and other epidemics, combined with war, forced labour and dislocation, devastated central Mexico. Estimates of the region’s population before 1519 vary hugely, from around 5–10 million to the 25 million proposed by Woodrow Borah and Sherburne Cook; most agree that by about 1600 it had fallen by roughly 80–90%.
- The Course of Mexican History — Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman and Susan M. Deeds, Oxford University Press (2014)
- Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs — Michael D. Coe and Rex Koontz, Thames & Hudson (2013)
Legacy
On the ruins of Tenochtitlan the Spaniards built Mexico City, its cathedral beside the excavated Templo Mayor. A plaque at Tlatelolco, where the last battle was fought, reads in part that it was “neither a triumph nor a defeat: it was the painful birth of the mestizo people that is the Mexico of today”, a summary many Mexicans recognise, even as Indigenous Mexicans point out that their peoples did not simply dissolve into a mixed nation.
- Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 — Enrique Krauze, HarperCollins (1997)
- El laberinto de la soledad — Octavio Paz, Cuadernos Americanos (1950)
A violent invasion that destroyed a great civilisation, enslaved its people and began three centuries of colonial domination. The heroes are the defenders, above all Cuauhtémoc; Malinche, the Indigenous interpreter, long stood for betrayal.
- Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 — Enrique Krauze, HarperCollins (1997)
- El laberinto de la soledad — Octavio Paz, Cuadernos Americanos (1950)
A daring feat in which a handful of Spaniards, by courage, faith and Cortés's genius, overthrew a cruel empire, ended human sacrifice and brought Christianity, laying the foundations of a Hispanic nation in the Americas.
- Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest — Matthew Restall, Oxford University Press (2003)
It was less a Spanish triumph than an Indigenous civil war: Tlaxcala and other peoples who hated Mexica rule supplied most of the fighters, and epidemic disease did much of the killing. Matthew Restall and Camilla Townsend show the conquest was messier, longer and more Indigenous-led than the heroic legend.
- Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest — Matthew Restall, Oxford University Press (2003)
- When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History — Matthew Restall, Ecco (2018)
- Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs — Camilla Townsend, Oxford University Press (2019)
Why it matters today
The conquest is Mexico's founding trauma and its birth at once. Mexicans are, as many say, children of both sides, and feelings about it are complicated: few honour Cortés, and public monuments to him are almost nonexistent, while the last Aztec ruler Cuauhtémoc is a national hero. In 2019 President López Obrador asked Spain and the Vatican to apologise; Spain refused, and the exchange caused a diplomatic chill.