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Spanish explorer and Conquistador Hernan Cortez landed on the shore of Eastern Mexico with 11
ships and over 500 soldiers when they arrived at the Temple at Tenochtitlan. They witnessed
a priest rip out a living man's heart raise it in the air and then toss his corpse down
the temple stairs. This one event set in motion a series of cascading events that would forever
alter the course of world history and create controversies for Cortez, Spain and the Catholic
Church ever since. Who was Hernan Cortes? What was his mission? What did he accomplish? And
what was it about the native Aztecs that created a religious conversion movement?
Hello I'm Colin Heaton a veteran of the United States Army and Marine Corps former
history professor book author and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History [Music]
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Tenochtitlan,
the capital city of the Aztec Empire flourished between A.D. 1325 and 1521 and was the most
powerful indigenous group in North and Central America. They were the dominant Nahua group with
an empire that spanned from Central Mexico and extended as far down as modern-day Guatemala.
Cortez was not unlike his fellow conquistadors and that he wanted
wealth and fame and obtaining gold silver and precious gems were the way to wealth.
Cortez convinced the Cuban Governor Diego Velazquez to allow him to lead an expedition
to Mexico but Velazquez decided against it and denied his request for reasons unknown.
Cortes knew that he had to have a really good reason to launch his expedition especially
against orders and he found many men willing to share in the dangers and potential wealth.
His planned defense of his actions were written down where he stated that his ambition was to
"acquire new land for the Spanish Crown convert indigenous people to Christianity," but the real
reason was to plunder for gold and silver. Cortez managed to organize his crews of 100
sailors to outfit 11 ships bringing 508 soldiers and 16 horses. He left Cuba on February 18, 1519
without authorization and headed for modern-day Mexico. The Aztec King Montezuma II ruled over
his people from a city that was built on a man-made island in the middle of Lake Texcoco.
This allowed Tenochtitlan to be the nerve center controlling all of Aztec trade and politics.
The Aztec were also in contestation with the Mayan people who were on their decline and who like the
Aztec also performed human sacrifices and did raids on the Aztecs for slaves. The Christian
Spanish and pagan natives would become a clash of cultures. Cortez landed in Yucatan and learned
from the natives that others had been there before. These were shipwrecked sailors and others
who managed to survive but they were often taken by the Mayans or the Aztec and used as sacrifices.
Cortez learned of a Catholic Franciscan Friar who had been recently captured and Cortez's
men freed Father Geronimo de Aguilar from the Mayans. Aguilar had been there long enough to
learn the local Mayan language of Chontal which proved invaluable. The Spaniards moved Inland
and encountered several hostile Mayans as well as some rather compliant minor Aztec chiefs who were
at war with the Mayans. They provided Cortez and his men with around 20 Mayan women slaves.
One of these was named Malinalli, a Nahua woman from the Yucatan Coast who was baptized
into Christianity taking the name Marina or La Malinche. However the Spaniards learned that
there was a dark side to the Aztec and Maya which the Spanish found incomprehensible;
that was the practice of human sacrifice which was considered part of the tribute to be paid
to the Aztec from neighboring peoples. Often the Aztec would raid and capture slaves for labor but
also for human sacrifice to their gods. Marina became the most important person in Cortez's
entourage as she spoke both the Aztec language of Nahuatl and the Mayan Chontal allowing the
Spanish to communicate with any groups they encountered. They learned a lot from her.
Cortez and his men entered the capital on November 8, 15 19. The Spanish claimed that
it was the greatest city that they had ever seen as it was clean. It had gardens palaces temples
and raised stone roads and bridges that connected the city to the mainland. But it also had gold.
When Cortez arrived in Tenochtitlan they were welcomed by Montezuma but the citizens wanted the
Spaniards to leave the city. Cortez was concerned that Montezuma would not be able to control his
people so they placed him under house arrest. However as chronicled by Andres de Tapia who was
with Cortez. He wrote about the grizzly rituals of human sacrifice and the practice of cannibalism
that they witnessed the victims were held down and their chest ripped open their beating hearts
were then thrown into the flames and the bodies discarded and rolled down the steps to the altar.
He also wrote about the Temple of Skulls which contained the skulls of thousands
of sacrificial victims. These sacrifices to the god Huitziloppochtli who demanded human
sacrifice to keep the sun from being removed by the darkness forever may have been the primary
catalyst for Cortez and his men to try and enforce Christianity which was resented by the people.
Having a population estimated to be around a quarter million within the city alone the Aztec
did rise up and the Montezuma was killed either in battle or killed by Cortez's men depending upon
the account you believe. The Spaniards had all the advantages as they had arrived with steel swords,
muskets, gunpowder, cannons, pikes, crossbows, dogs and horses. All of these were unknown on
the battlefields and to the peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The Aztecs could only
respond with wooden broadswords clubs and spears tipped with obsidian blades which did a little
against their enemies metal armor and shields. The Spaniards also had the great benefits of a long
military tradition fighting wars in Europe and in Africa using not only their advanced weapons
but they were also well trained and seasoned in battle tactics and combined arms applications.
Heavily outnumbered despite having muzzle loading firearms the Spaniards had to retreat
from the capitol but Cortez outflanked the Aztecs and returned with a few ships
through the efforts of Marina and Aguilar. Cortez was able to forge an alliance with two
hundred thousand Warriors from other locations such as the Tlaxcala and the Cempoala who had
been subjugated by the Aztecs for centuries and were their mortal enemies. The combined force
surrounded Tenochtitlan and sealed it off keeping it under siege from May 22nd through August 13.
1521 and the Aztec began to weaken. But disease began to take its toll among both Cortez's allies
and the Aztec. Historians have long believed that smallpox contracted by the Spaniards
spread along possibly with measles and mumps for which the natives had no natural immunity.
Cortez's men also suffered from malaria and yellow fever as well as other diseases so both sides
suffered. But as the Aztec bodies began to collect in large piles in the streets of the capital other
diseases soon arrived due to the rotting corpses. However cut off from food and dying in massive
numbers the Aztecs including the remaining royal family finally accepted defeat and thus started
the long history of Spanish rule over Mexico and later Central and most of South America.
Then in an effort to enforce the fact that they were there to stay he burned 10 of his
ships sending the remaining vessel to Spain with the news of their Conquest.
There would be no retreat for the Spanish. Cortez and his men are estimated to have killed as many
as one hundred thousand people either by combat or disease. King Charles I of Spain who was also
the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V appointed Cortez as the governor of New Spain in 1522. The Spanish
Empire was also to include future expeditions into the current United States from Florida to the Gulf
Coast and to Louisiana and Texas all the way west to the coast of California. They even went
to modern Colorado and the Dakotas where they left an impact. In 1536 Cortez led expeditions
into northern Mexico. He put down rebellions and explored what is today known as Baja, California.
Cortez became wealthy but fell into disfavor as his men questioned his methods,
his abuses and motives and he was removed as governor. In 1541 he returned home,
his pleas for reinstatement to Charles V were rejected and he died wealthy in 1547.
Historians for centuries disavowed the stories of the atrocities the Spanish claimed to have
witnessed claiming that it was propaganda just to justify wholesale slaughter and conquest. But
the archaeological expeditions of 2015 and 2018 discovered exactly what had been described 500
years ago. 16th century illustrations depicted body parts being cooked and archaeologists have
identified telltale butcher marks on the bones of human remains in Aztec sites around Mexico City
so the proof was there. DNA tests were conducted on the skulls from the Temple Mayor site which
proves that the vast majority of those sacrificed were not Aztecs and most likely enemy soldiers or
captured slaves. Spanish historian Fray Diego de Duran reported that 80,400 men women and children
were sacrificed for the inauguration of the Temple Mayor under a previous Aztec Emperor predating
Montezuma. John Verano an anthropology professor at Tulane University stated. "It was a deeply
serious and important thing to them," says Verano. "Large and small human sacrifices would be made
throughout the year to coincide with important calendar events end dates," and he explains "to
dedicate temples to reverse drought and famine and more." Historians may argue for or against
Cortez's ambition was a wealth power prestige all are probably correct. Your argument now is whether
or not the level of violence used against the Aztec was as much a method of conquest or used to
end the pagan practices that the Catholic Spanish found deplorable. We leave it to you to decide.
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