Did Hernan Cortes Really Conquer The Aztec Empire

Did only a handful of Spaniards led by Hernan Cortes really conquer the great Aztec empire? One might get that idea from reading certain history books but there may be some jokesters who will answer no in order to evoke a good laugh from their audience. Surprisingly the jokesters may be shocked that their “joke” is seriously closer to the truth than they could imagine. The “Spanish” conquest of the Aztec empire was accomplished through a series of “lucky” events and such a large number of allies that will cause us to question whether or not we should call it a Spanish conquest in the first place. One “lucky” event that aided the Spanish to conquer the Aztec empire was the epidemic that spread through Tenochtitlan. After Tenochtitlan was claimed for the Spanish crown, and the resistance had ended, Diaz informs us that there were a multitude of corpses piled throughout the city. Not once does he indicate how that state of affairs came to be …show more content…
The Spanish ships that landed in Central America for the conquest of the Aztec empire contained not only Spaniards but also many Africans as noted by Restall. Diaz himself admits that were at least 15,000 Tlaxcaltecas and 20,000 Huexotzincas that fought alongside the Spanish. In talking about large numbers it might be easy to forget the valuable services of Dona Marina, who also on various occasions saved the Spaniards from various critical mishaps. Restall quotes several sources to strengthen the point that the Spaniards were very outnumbered by their allies. He adds that the real reason that the Spaniards could so easily collect allies was that there was so much disunity among the indigenous peoples. With so much participation by the Tlaxcaltecas and the Huexotzincas it might be more correct to say that those two peoples were real conquerors of the Mexicas and that the arrival of the Spaniards was only a stimulus to move them in the “right”