An Aztec poem rhetorically asked “Who could conquer Tenochtitlan?
Who could shake the foundation of heaven…?”.
The answer to this poem had always been “nobody could...”
But the Aztecs would soon find out that no city is impenetrable…
Cortes arrived on the lake Tetzcoco.
In the middle was the city of Tenochtitlan.
The city had changed a lot since we last talked about it.
The city suffered from floods, so the Aztecs had decided to go Dutch a few hundred years
early and build a dam to prevent these floods.
The city had grown so large it now held a quarter of a million people.
And the city had been connected to the mainland with giant causeways.
And it is on this causeway that Motecuhzoma II came out to greet Cortes.
And almost immediately the two sides suffered from massive communication problems.
Cortes tried to embrace the Aztec emperor…
But touching the emperor was illegal and so Cortes was restrained.
Motecuhzoma II handed Cortes valuable gifts…This was a normal custom where 2 equals would exchange
gifts…
But Cortes didn’t give anything in return, insulting the Aztecs.
Yet nonetheless, Motecuhzoma offered the Spanish to live in his father’s, emperor Axayacatl’s,
palace while they were in the city… inside this palace, the Spanish found a large amount
of treasure which was Axayacatl’s inheritance to Moctuhzoma.
While they couldn’t bring it back with them yet, the Spanish did plan on stealing the
inheritance as soon as possible.
Things escalated even further when the Spanish asked to put up a cross and a picture of the
Virgin Mary, two important Christian symbols, alongside the Aztec gods on top of the great
pyramid.
And just in case the significance of this is lost on you.
This would be like an Indian delegation asking to put a giant golden statue of Buddha in
the centre of Mecca or Vatican City.
As you can imagine, the priests were furious and the request denied.
Then some Aztecs killed several Spanish soldiers at Veracruz.
And the Spanish response?
Well, they held the emperor hostage to insure their own safety.
And this was just the first week in Tenochtitlan.
And while the Aztecs wanted to attack the Spanish and drive them from their soil, the
emperor was afraid the Spanish would kill or replace him.
So, for half a year, Motecuhzoma II was the puppet emperor of Cortes.
And while they stayed in the capital, they were getting a pretty good idea of how brutal
their hosts were.
So let’s take a closer look at how the Aztecs were brutal by selecting three random gods:
the rain god, fertility god, and fire god.
The rain god required tears.
So they would beat a child in front of their friends and family.
And only when the child and their loved ones had cried enough, the child would be drowned.
The tears would bring rain… obviously.
Or maybe a priest decided a woman looked like the fertility god.
Then they would first get you drunk, force you to dance your way to the nearest temple,
to then remove your head.
The blood that came out of the neck would bring fertility to the crops.
Try not to think about this next time you go to a bar.
Or perhaps the fire god needed another sacrifice.
Then you’d first get drugged to anesthetize you, then they will tie you up, and if you
think that isn’t hot enough they would throw you onto a fire.
When you’re nice and crispy, but still alive, they will take you out of the fire to finally
remove your heart...
While the Spanish probably didn’t witness all these type of sacrifices, It does beg
the question…
How could the Spanish see them as anything other than utter savages?
How could these ‘good Christians’ approve of such behaviour?!
How could they not think they were superior to the Aztecs?
But the Aztec thought they were given a holy duty.
They believed that if they did not provide enough blood to their gods then the world
would come to an end, the sun would stop rising, and the world would be covered in an endless
long night.
And it went deeper than that.
The Aztecs simply couldn't understand the Spanish obsession with gold.
They didn’t understand the very reason they were there.
This makes sense.
When you don't have a monetary system based on gold, then gold has no more value than
the jewellery you can make out of it…
The Aztecs didn’t understand the Spanish because they were stupid, they didn’t understand
the Spanish because they had never even conceived of the idea that something with little inherent
value could be used as currency.
The Aztecs had a currency based on cocoa beans… which you can make chocolate out of… and
chocolate has obvious value.
I mean, look at this.
Forget the gold standard, we need the chocolate standard!
But remember when I told you that if a Spaniard wanted to conquer territory in the Americas
then they would need a permit from their monarch?
Well Cortes never got that permit.
And by now Spain had sent an expedition to reign Cortes back in.
So Cortes left to solve this issue, taking his most disciplined soldiers with him while
leaving the least reliable ones back in Tenochtitlan…
Which resulted in the remaining Spanish soldiers deciding it was a good idea to massacre thousands
of unarmed Aztec nobles.
Not long after, the people gathered around the palace where the Spanish had been living
and put it to siege inside their own city.
And for the only time in history, the Aztecs chose a new emperor while the old one was
still alive.
They chose Cuitláhuac, the brother of Motecuhzoma II.
He was in strong opposition to letting Spaniards in their city.
So he seemed to be a good replacement.
The Spanish, who still held onto ex-emperor Motecuhzoma II, sent him to the balcony to
persuade the people that they should let the Spanish go back to the shore in peace.
But remember what the Aztecs thought were good emperors?
They believed an emperor should be a strong warrior, a brave leader, and the embodiment
of their sungod Huitzilopochtli.
Instead, they were spoken to by a man who let himself be captured, let himself become
a puppet, and now asked them to peacefully let the Spanish go… we don’t know exactly
what happened but Motecuhzoma was killed that night.
Both sides accusing the other of regicide.
But regicide or no, the Spanish had to escape… with all that gold of course.
While sneaking out of the city, they were spotted, and were forced to cut themselves
through the Aztecs to make it out of the city.
Many of them would drown in the canals as their armour and stolen gold dragged them
down.
But while they were alive, the new emperor wasn’t as diplomatic as Motecuhzoma had
been.
Cuitláhuac had the retreating Spanish forces attacked until they arrived in Tlaxcala.
And while they were seeking refuge in Tlaxcala, the Spanish began to prepare for an invasion
of Tenochtitlan.
They received reinforcements from Cuba after Cortes convinced everybody to join his side.
And he received an estimated 100.000 soldiers from Tlaxcala and various Aztec tributary
states.
And to top it off, Cortes managed to convince almost everybody else to remain neutral.
Meaning the Aztec couldn’t rely on their tributaries for support.
But while the Spanish had been preparing, they also began to wonder why the great armies
of Tenochtitlan didn’t they lay siege to Tlaxcala and do away with the Spanish once
and for all?
Well, a smallpox epidemic started ravaging the empire.
An empire that had never even conceived of the concept of a plague, was all of a sudden
dealing with one of the worst diseases humanity had ever seen…
The plague killed tens of thousands… including the emperor himself.
The ravaged Aztec elected a new emperor, a man named Cuauhtémoc, the eldest son of Emperor
Ahuitzotl.
The two sides would fight various battles.
Sometimes the Aztec would win and often the Spanish would win.
For the Spanish and their allies managed to get an army together that far outmatched that
of the Aztecs.
One by one the Spanish army managed to conquer the surrounding cities of Tenochtitlan, with
Cortes making the ancient city of Texcoco his base of operations.
It’s at Texcoco where the greatest works of Aztec literature were being held… and
it's at Tetzcoco that the Spanish would burn those libraries to the ground…
Which is why we know so little about the Aztecs and many of our sources come from after the
conquest.
The siege of Tenochtitlan lasted for nearly 8 months.
The first problem was the city was only approachable through the causeways.
That meant that only a few warriors could stand side-by-side and were vulnerable on
their flanks by attack from canoes.
After Spain lost the first battle on the causeway, they scuttled their ships, dragged the individual
pieces all the way to the lake, and then rebuilt the ships at the lake.
And spears and arrows were no match for bolts, bullets, and cannonballs.
They also destroyed the aquaduct, depriving the people of sufficient fresh water, and
they blocked all the causeways, depriving people of sufficient food.
And only when everything was against the Aztecs did the Spanish manage to push the Aztecs
back on their great causeway.
The Aztecs fought on to the end.
They fought in Texcoco and Tlacopan.
They fought from the long causeway to the narrow canals.
They defended their island city, whatever the cost.
They fought on the streets, they fought at their temples, they fought in their homes;
they never surrendered…
They were defeated.
Even after the Spanish and their allies entered the city, it would take another 3 weeks before
the last of the Aztec forces were defeated.
After which they sacked the city for 4 days.
It is estimated that 100k-240k people died…
Thousands of survivors were brought back to Tlaxcala for sacrifice.
But what happened to Mesoamerica after the conquest.
What happened to the Aztec?
Afterall, despite the 100.000s of deaths, there were still 10.000s Aztec people left.
Well, their city was to become the new capital of the new Spanish colony of New Spain, which
the Spanish renamed Mexico City…
Because the Aztecs referred to themselves as Mexica.
Their emperor was tortured and eventually executed.
The Aztec people were nearly wiped out, as mostly children and the elderly survived the
carnage.
But parts of their civilization still endure to this day in modern Mexican society, even
though their empire was destroyed with their capital.
With Tenochtitlan defeated there wasn’t really anyone left to pay tribute to…
That was until the Spanish visited these tributary states demanding they pay tribute.
Having just faced down plagues, there was no other alternative but to capitulate.
They became part of the colony of New Spain.
And over time this colony would conquer all the surrounding civilizations…
Mayan, Tarascan, and many more.
On one hand, people weren’t being sacrificed anymore, Cortes made this practise illegal.
But the Spanish would slowly implement a system of centralisation to make New Spain’s governmental
structure similar to Europe’s.
It would take away power from the individual states and incorporate it into a single unified
state, eroding many of the individual cultures inhabiting Mesoamerica at the time.
For example, The Aztecs had universal education.
The Spanish replaced this system with church teachings, limiting the amount of people with
an education down to a handful.
And that great pyramid in Tenochtitlan was taken down to build a cathedral.
This temple wasn’t rediscovered until the 20th century.
And when silver was discovered, thousands were sent to work to death.
Their deaths would drive the economy of New Spain and would, eventually, cause the Spanish
inflation that would end Spain as a superpower.
The Spanish would send missionaries to convert the local peoples… with varying degrees
of success.
The locals and Spanish didn’t understand each other’s religions due to the same communication
issues mentioned earlier.
With the locals creating hybrid religions incorporating parts from both their own religion
and christinity.
Christianity was as incomprehensible to the local population as the Aztec religion is
incomprehensible to us today…
At least…
I hope nobody in my audience sacrifices their neighbours to the sun.
But that is not to say that all the civilizations were worse off, not at all.
Particularly the Tlaxcala were given a higher status and were often given more prestigious
roles.
They supported the Spanish in various wars and intermarried with the new Spanish colonists,
creating an ethnically mixed nobility in New Spain.
And Afro-Eurasia gained access to chocolate… for thousands of years people had to live
without chocolate!
But… we also got tobacco and tomatoes, so it’s not all good.
After the Spanish conquered the Aztec Empire, the Spanish would soon forget their native
allies when they would write the history books.
The Spanish conquistadors would attribute their victories mostly to Spanish might, Spanish
Steel, and God’s will.
They would in fact believe that their conquest of the natives, their brutal treatment, and
their forced conversions to Christianity were a great benefit to the Native Americans.
And this is somewhat understandable: when you have been taught that your entire life
that people who aren’t Christians will be sent to eternal hellfire, if you are taught
that your Christian civilization is the greatest civilization to have ever existed, then it’s
understandable that you think you’re spreading goodness.
Then you believe you’re spreading the greatest way of life and saving their souls.
And who could argue against that?
And so for centuries the narrative of the righteous Spanish was propagated throughout
the world.
But the greatest lesson of all is that the Aztec Empire didn't fall because they were
invaded nor was it disease.
Plague killed the people and the Spanish merely gave the rebellious subjects a leader to unite
behind.
No, it was the Aztec who killed the Empire.
It was their failed political system that doomed them in the end.
If they had centralised, if they had answered problems not with weapons but with benevolent
policy, if they had created a unifying culture then the Spanish wouldn’t have found any
allies and disease wouldn’t have been their undoing.
True, it is unlikely a colonial European country would live in peace with a technologically
inferior country.
But while it’s likely the Aztec Empire would have fallen anyway, their dawn did not need
to come so soon, so suddenly, or so savagely if the Aztec had put better leaders on the
empire’s throne, a better culture in peoples’ minds, and a better political system as their
government.
But this did not happen.
Instead, the Aztec gave the most convincing argument against feudalism, brutality, and
rule through fear.
Because one day, your vassal will rebel, one day your people will revolt, one day a government
will no longer be feared.
And when that happens, governments fall.
From the earliest civilizations all the way into the 21st century, governments failed
to learn this lesson, thinking that THEY will be different.
But they’re not.
Look at any government which rules through these methods and they will follow a similar
collapse as the Aztecs.
Did you like this series and want MORE OF IT?
Then let me know in the comments whether you want me to cover a Mayan City state, or the
history of Teotihuacan, or perhaps you’d like to learn more about other Mesoamerican
states such as the Tarascan State?
Tell me down below about that because otherwise I'll find other topics to cover if people
don't REALLY like videos like these.