What the Textbooks Have To Say About the Conquest of Mexico: Some Suggestions for Questions to Ask of the Evidence
(Note All of the Passages Below Are Quoted Verbatim)
Goucher, Leguin, and Walton, In the Balance: Themes in Global History, Vol. II (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998), 502-503,
Soon after the Spanish colonization of Cuba in 1519, a small army led by Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) conquered Mexico from the Aztecs. Cortés first attacked and then made allies of towns. Particularly strategic were communities which had been subject to the Aztecs, who had heavily taxed the people and practiced human sacrifice.
Many within the Aztec Empire came to believe that Cortés was Quetzalcoatl the god who would return to overthrow the god Tezcatlipoca, who demanded human sacrifice. Cortés was aided by an Indian woman La Malinche or Malintzin, who became an invaluable interpreter for and mistress and confidant of Cortés. What happened next is unclear. The Spaniards claimed that the Aztec king Moctezuma was stoned to death by his own people and the Aztecs claimed that Cortés’s second in command attacked priests, chiefs, and warriors during a celebration and strangled Moctezuma. After heavy losses, Cortés was forced to flee. He returned with thousands of Indian allies, who opposed the Aztecs. After a four month siege, during which time Aztec defenders succumbed as much to disease and starvation as to the force of arms, the new Aztec king Cuautemoc surrendered. By 1535, most of central Mexico was integrated under Spanish control in the kingdom of New Spain.
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Last Updated: October 17, 2008
