Summary Of King Montezuma And The Last Stand Of The Aztecs

How was Hernan Cortes able to conquer the Aztec empire? The fall of the Aztec Empire was led by an expedition by Hernan Cortes, a Spanish conquistador, in 1521. Cortes’ time was the era of Exploration. He became engrossed with the tales of Christopher Columbus and decided to join the exploration. Which led him to travel to the Americas and triumph of the Aztec empire. Such as a prophecy, weaponry, translators, disease and allies.

The Aztecs, part of modern day Mexico, were once the epitome of fine culture. They began their rule of southern and central Mexico during the 14th century and practiced an incredibly wealthy lifestyle. Nonetheless, this rule began to deteriorate when Spanish explorers disembarked at Tabasco and Vera Cruz on April 21st 1519. When the Spanish voyagers first arrived, they were welcomed warmly, respectfully and received Godlike treatment. Montezuma, the ruler at that time, believed that the Spanish military leader, Hernán Cortés, was the great god Quetzalcoatl. The Spanish took advantage of this Aztec belief and conquered Mexico within two years. By 1521, the Aztec culture was officially eradicated and a new culture, consisting of a

The reading “An Aztec account of the Spanish Conquest” is mainly about a story when Hernan Cortes came for the first time at Tenochtitlan (nowadays Mexico City). The Aztecs believes that when Hernan Cortes arrive they believe the he was Quetzalcoatl, the main god in the Aztec culture. Cortes were friendly invite to the Aztec city as the most important guest, the Aztec people made a big party to celebrate the return of their god, but the Aztec people did not know Cortes intentions of conquer the empire. Later the Aztecs were betrayed by Hernan Cortes. Cortes’s army began to attack the city and at the end they take over the city.

Throughout the book, writers mention that Aztec governments did everything that they could to give the Spanish everything that they needed, and that the Spanish took advantage of them. “…he took the Spaniards to be gods; he believed in them and worshiped them as deities.” The people of Mexico were loyal to those that they believed to be gods and “when they conquered the Mexica and all belonging to them, we never abandoned them or left them behind in it.” Under Spanish rule many men, women and children were exploited, tortured and murdered. The Broken Spears captured this in great detail while Traditions and Encounters skims over a lot of these details. This seems to create a gap between the two texts, making the differences between the authors more apparent.

Miguel Leon-Portilla author of Broken Spears- The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, tells the story of the Spanish conquest over the Aztecs from the Aztec point of view. It is more familiar in history that the Spanish led by Hernan Cortez defeated the Aztecs with a powerful army and established an easy victory all while having intentions to gain power and greed. However, Leon-Portilla focuses on the Aztec Empire and their story. Leon-Portilla does a great job giving readers the real occurrences and events from Aztec members. This paper argues that history must be told from all sides. It is more common to hear about the Spanish conquest

An important aspect of Todorov's thesis is his well-supported claim that it was precisely the claim to European racial superiority that Christianity strongly reinforced and provided justification for the actions of the Spanish, even in its most severe manifestation. In fact, Todorov invokes the unimaginably horrible image of Catholic priests bashing Indian baby's heads against rocks, allegedly to save them from damnation to hell, which their "savage" culture would have otherwise consigned them to. The logic of this deed and others like them illustrates the destructive influence of Christianity in the Colonial project, which lies at the root of the hegemonic self-image of Western experience--first defined from the perspective of Columbus and Cortes.

Maybe too much credit is given to Cortés as one of the greatest Spanish conquerors who developed effective strategy to defeat the Aztecs. Restall see this as somewhat of a myth accounting for the failure of historians to look at history before the 1519 (Restall, 19). Restall says “However, too often, without any direct evidence, the actions of Conquistadors after the 1519– 21 invasion of Mexico are taken as deliberately imitating Cortés, while pre-1519 patterns are ignored.” Whatever the case for whom should be given the credit for the strategy used to defeat the Aztecs; one must admit Cortés was able the win the trust of the people and use the Aztecs’ fear of him to control their empire. Cortés harbored fear of his own. Elliott says, “Cortés felt some uneasiness, when he reflected that it was in the power of the Indians, at any time, to cut off his communications with the surrounding country, and hold him a prisoner in the capital.” The Omens of the Aztecs betrayed them and caused them to see the arriving settlers as gods. They were not prepared to defend themselves against the advanced weapons of the Spanish. Much like the Aztecs, the Mayans faced hard times at the hands of the Spanish conquerors, but their defeat came much easier to the Spanish.

The image of "The Progress of an Aztec Warrior" taken from the Codex Mendoza gives us some idea of the highly ritualized, even religious, character of Aztec warfare (Austin 209). The dress adopted by Aztec warriors was hardly protective: from the depictions in the Codex Mendoza it appears that they fought mostly naked. Although protected by a shield, otherwise they were adorned with feathers, flowers, and animal skins, indicating that the warrior's identity was in some way dedicated to the totemic animal-gods of the Aztec religion. But the ideology of warfare was practically inculcated in the Aztecs from birth. Inga Clendinnen notes that

For thousands of years mankind has felt an insatiable desire to explore. Many people groups from around the world have discovered and conquered new lands. The Spanish Conquistadors are among these. In the 1500s, there were many compelling incentives luring them to gain control of the Aztec Empire in New Spain (Mexico). What impelled the Conquistadors to conquer the Aztecs was a desire to spread the teachings of the Christian church, to gain wealth allowing them to establish roots in New Spain, and to develop relationships between the Aztecs and the continental Spaniards.

The capital of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlan, and what is known today as Mexico City was conquered in 1521 by the Spanish explorer named Hernando Cortez. Cortez was born Medellin, Spain in 1485. He was the only son of a noble family and his father was a captain in the Spanish army. He was fascinated with Christopher Columbus’ journeys in the new world. This was a far cry from his parents wish for him to be lawyer. Before reaching the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, Cortes along with Diego Velazquez, were powerful figures in the island of Cuba. Their partnership soon ended when Cortes went against Velasquez’s wishes to marry his sister and sailed to the mainland of Mexico against his orders. On 1519 Cortez reached the harbor of central Veracruz (“True Cross”). He arrived with 11 ships, 15 horses and a fleet of 500 men in search for gold. Cortes soon learned that the land was ruled by the great Aztec lord in the city of Tenochtitlán: King Monezuma II.

that were very intricate and important to the culture as a whole. The Aztecs, at the height of their greatness, ruled 5-6 million people and over 500 city-states. However every great civilization in history, including the Aztecs, have a rise and have a fall. The Aztec Empire fell to the Spaniard’s conquest because of the Aztec’s religion, disease, Spanish weaponry, and native alliances.

The Spanish Conquer The conquer of the Aztec Empire is viewed as a bloody battle. The Aztec Empire had placed trust in the Spaniards, but were overthrown by their allies. The thought of greed and disbelief created the distrust. The three ways of success that contributed to the Spanish conquest of Aztec Empire in the early 1500s began with the trustworthy relationship between the two leaders Moctezuma and Cortez, the trust began to falter with the Spanish due to the thought of losing everything if the alliance diminishes, and then the defeat of the Aztec Empire was very brutal and savage.

The religion of the Aztec, including their beliefs, customs and religions, acted as a tremendous influence on their government, economy, and culture. Religion was the foundation for the infamous culture of the Aztec Civilization. Through ceremonies of sacrifice, and the infusion of cosmology into their religion, the Aztecs sculpted a culture unlike that of any other civilization, and left behind a legacy to be studied and admired for generations to come. Religion ultimately shaped the unique civilization of the Aztecs, through cultivating the general outlook and values of the Aztecs, expanding the empire, and influencing the architecture and layout of their city.

The Aztec civilization during its peak was the strongest civilization in the western hemisphere. When the Spaniards first set foot in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, they could not believe that a civilization so primitive in their minds could have been so culturally developed and powerful. However, before making it to Tenochtitlan, they had discovered that all was not well in the Aztec empire. From many native Indians that had tension with the Aztecs, they learned of internal and pre-existing problems that existed. This investigation examines to what extent where those internal and pre-existing factors to blame for the downfall of the Aztec Empire. The investigation was undertaken using some of the only primary

To begin, the video I watched was titled The Fall of the Aztecs. An interesting fact that I know of the Aztec culture was that schooling was of grave importance to the future. Thus, a scholastic education system was mandatory. Oddly enough, gender separations dictated the type of education received. Despite this schooling, the Aztecs were eventually conquered by the Spaniards due to being outwitted by Cortez.