All about the ancient tribes
Conquistador from Spain who was responsible for the conquest of Mexico, Hernándo Cortés, shown here with Moctezuma II, the final emperor of the Aztec empire, in 1519.
The Spanish were able to take control of Tenochtitlan because to their superior armament as well as a terrible outbreak of smallpox that occurred during the 93 days that Cortés’ army laid siege to the city. The triumph of Cortés brought to the fall of the Aztec empire, and the Spanish then started to cement their dominance over what would eventually become the province of New Spain.
In 1521, a group of foreign invaders headed by the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés successfully destroyed the Aztec Empire and took control of Tenochtitlan, bringing an end to Mesoamerica’s last great indigenous civilisation.
Hernán Cortés was a Spanish conqueror and explorer who was born around the year 1485. He is most known for his victory against the Aztecs and the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish. When he was 19 years old, he made his maiden voyage to the New World. In subsequent years, Cortés participated in an expedition to Cuba. In the year 1518, he started out on an expedition to Mexico.
The fragile nature of the Aztec Empire, the strategic advantages offered by Spanish technology, and the presence of smallpox all contributed to Cortez and his expedition’s successful fall of the Aztec Empire.
After the triumph, a Triple Alliance was created between the cities of Texcoco, Tenochtitlan, and Tlacopan, a Tepanec city that was rebelling against Tenochtitlan. These three powerful cities embarked on a campaign of territorial expansion, during which they agreed to divide the gains of war, which often took the form of tributes paid by the people they subjugated, among themselves.
By the 1500s, they had not only survived, but even triumphed over their adversaries, and they were making every effort to ensure that they would not be forced to regress. They conquered their neighbors, at first the various ethnic groups that lived in the central core of Mexico, and subsequently far further away, by employing both their intelligence and their physical might.
Aztecs did not had any protection to the illnesses brought by Europeans. The indigenous people were ravaged by a smallpox epidemic that greatly reduced their capacity for resistance against the Spanish. The epidemic decimated the Aztec people, causing a significant drop in their population and causing an estimated fifty percent of the people living in Tenochtitlan to perish.
More than three million Aztecs perished as a result of the smallpox epidemic; with such a severely depleted population, it was very simple for the Spanish to conquer Tenochtitlán.
In the year 1532, at the Battle of Cajamarca, 168 Spanish soldiers under the command of the explorer Francisco Pizarro, his brothers, and their indigenous allies successfully captured the Sapa Inca Atahualpa. This victory came after years of preceding exploration and military engagements. The invasion of the Inca Empire by the Spanish.
Date | 1532–1572 |
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Location | Western South America |
On the Maya boundary, the Aztecs had garrisons, and it is most likely that they had offensive intentions. But soon the Aztecs too came under attack, this time at the hands of the Spaniards. However, if we may include surviving warriors from parts of Mexico that were formerly a part of the Aztec Empire in our definition of ″the Aztecs,″ then the answer is yes.
Hernán Cortés and a small band of soldiers were able to bring down the Aztec empire in Mexico between the years 1519 and 1521. Francisco Pizarro and his troops were able to bring down the Inca empire in Peru between the years 1532 and 1533. These victories created the groundwork for the colonial governments that would go on to radically alter the American continent.
The peoples who had been subjugated by the Aztecs disliked the Aztecs for demanding payment and victims for their religious sacrifices, but the Aztec military managed to keep any uprisings under control.
At that time, it is thought that the Spanish had accumulated somewhere in the neighborhood of eight thousand pounds of gold and silver, in addition to a substantial amount of feathers, cotton, gems, and other items.
When European settlers came in North America, they brought with them infectious diseases to which the indigenous peoples had no immunity.Shortly after the arrival of the Spanish in Mexico in 1519, smallpox wiped off anywhere from 5 million to 8 million Aztecs.It is now believed that an altogether other sickness was responsible for the death of 15 million Aztecs and the collapse of their civilisation.