There are several explanations as to why Montezuma was hesitant during the conquest by Cortes. The primary one mentioned by Todorov was that there was virtually no resistance by Montezuma (Todorov, 1984, pg 55) to avoid war and bloodshed in his city. The Tlaxcaltecs, Todorov claims, saw Cortes and his conquest as the lesser evil compared to the Aztecs who conquered them once already. This was one of his answers to why the Indians did not offer more resistance. The conquistadors were to impose the same grievances on them as Montezuma. In the Florentine Codex it reports that “the chiefs of the neighboring tribes [came] to protest to Cortes the oppression imposed by the Aztecs” claiming that Montezuma and the Mexicans brought them “great grief”
