The Spanish conquest of the Mexica state, which took place between 1519 and 1521, is one of the most thoroughly documented and most fiercely debated events in world history. The conquest brought to an end the last independent state of Mesoamerica, and it inaugurated three centuries of Spanish colonial rule in Mexico. The conquest was carried out by a small band of Spaniards, perhaps 600 at the height of the campaign, led by Hernán Cortés. The Spanish were able to defeat the Mexica state because of a combination of factors, including the superior military technology of the Spanish, the introduction of European diseases, the political divisions of the Mexica state, the strategic alliances that Cortés formed with the enemies of the Mexica, and the religious and political appeal of the Spanish to the subject peoples of the empire. The fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521 was the formal end of the Mexica state, but the conquest was followed by decades of indigenous resistance and by a demographic collapse of catastrophic proportions.
The Arrival of the Spanish
The Spanish first made contact with the Mexica state in 1517, when a Spanish expedition under Francisco Hernández de Córdoba reached the coast of Yucatán. The expedition was repulsed by the Maya, and Hernández de Córdoba was wounded in the fighting, dying shortly after his return to Cuba. A second expedition, under Juan de Grijalva, reached the coast of Mexico in 1518 and made contact with several peoples of the Gulf Coast, including the Totonacs, who provided valuable information about the Mexica state to the west. The third expedition, under Hernán Cortés, left Cuba in February 1519 with eleven ships, about 600 men, 16 horses, and a small number of cannons.
Cortés landed on the coast of Mexico near modern Veracruz in April 1519. He founded a settlement, which he called Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, and he began to make alliances with the peoples of the region. The first major ally was the Totonacs of Cempoala, who had been recently conquered by the Mexica and who were eager to find allies against their new overlords. Cortés received a delegation from Moctezuma II, the Mexica Tlatoani, who had been informed of the Spanish arrival by his pochteca merchants. The delegation brought gifts of gold and feathers, and they urged Cortés to leave. Cortés, however, had no intention of leaving, and he continued to make alliances and to gather information about the Mexica state.
The March to Tenochtitlan
In August 1519, Cortés left the coast and began his march to Tenochtitlan. The march took him through the territory of the Tlaxcalans, a fiercely independent people who had resisted Mexica conquest and who were traditional enemies of the Mexica. The Tlaxcalans initially opposed the Spanish, and there were several fierce battles. Cortés, however, was able to negotiate a peace with the Tlaxcalans, and the Tlaxcalans became his most important allies in the conquest of the Mexica state. The Tlaxcalans provided thousands of warriors for the campaign against Tenochtitlan, and they were essential to the Spanish victory.
The march from Tlaxcala to Tenochtitlan took Cortés through the Valley of Mexico, where he was received by a series of peoples who were hostile to the Mexica, including the Otomi, the Totonacs, and the Acolhua of Texcoco. Cortés also made contact with the Mexica themselves, who sent increasingly elaborate delegations to greet him. The Mexica were divided about how to respond to the Spanish, with some counselors urging war and others urging peace. Moctezuma himself was increasingly anxious, and he continued to receive the Spanish with elaborate ceremony and gifts.
Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan in November 1519. He was received by Moctezuma in a series of elaborate ceremonies, and the Spanish were housed in the palace of Axayacatl, the father of Moctezuma. The subsequent months were marked by a series of misunderstandings, provocations, and outbreaks of violence. Cortés took Moctezuma hostage in November 1519, an act that disrupted Mexica government and provoked resistance. The Spanish used Moctezuma as a puppet ruler, and they extracted from him a series of concessions, including the surrender of gold and the acknowledgment of the Spanish king as overlord.
The Noche Triste and the Retreat
The situation in Tenochtitlan deteriorated in the spring of 1520, when Cortés was forced to leave the city to deal with a Spanish expedition that had been sent from Cuba to arrest him. Cortés left Pedro de Alvarado in charge of the Spanish forces in Tenochtitlan. Alvarado was an aggressive and impetuous commander, and he committed one of the great atrocities of the conquest when he ordered the massacre of Mexica nobles during the festival of Toxcatl in May 1520. The massacre provoked a Mexica uprising, and the Spanish were besieged in the palace of Axayacatl. Cortés returned to Tenochtitlan in June 1520, and he found the situation desperate. The Spanish were exhausted and short of supplies, and the Mexica were resisting fiercely. Cortés tried to use Moctezuma to calm the situation, but Moctezuma was killed in the fighting, either by the Spanish or by the Mexica. On the night of June 30, 1520, the Spanish attempted to break out of the city, an event known as La Noche Triste. Hundreds of Spanish and thousands of their Tlaxcalan allies were cut down as they fought across the causeways, and the gold and silver they had amassed disappeared into the waters of Lake Texcoco.
The Siege of Tenochtitlan
After the disaster of La Noche Triste, Cortés fell back to Tlaxcala to rebuild his expedition. New recruits arrived from Cuba and from Spain, and at Tlaxcala the brigantines he had ordered built on the coast were dragged over the mountains in pieces and reassembled on the lake. From the deck of a brigantine the Spanish would at last be able to challenge the canoes that had so far controlled the waters around Tenochtitlan. Cortés returned to the siege of Tenochtitlan in May 1521. The siege lasted for several months and was marked by house-to-house fighting, starvation, and a devastating smallpox epidemic that killed much of the Mexica leadership — including the emperor Cuitláhuac, who had replaced Moctezuma after his death in 1520.
The young emperor Cuauhtémoc, who had been raised to the throne after Cuitláhuac’s death from smallpox, refused to surrender even as the city fell around him. Captured in August 1521 while trying to escape by canoe across the lake, he was brought before Cortés, who treated him with respect but kept him in captivity. The Mexica hoped for some years that Cuauhtémoc would be allowed to return and rule as a vassal of the Spanish king, but in 1525 Cortés had him hanged on charges of conspiracy, putting an end to the line of independent Mexica tlatoque.
The Demographic Catastrophe
The fall of Tenochtitlan was followed by a demographic catastrophe of rare proportions. The indigenous population of central Mexico, which had been perhaps 25 million on the eve of the conquest, had fallen to perhaps 2 million by the mid-seventeenth century. The collapse was due to a combination of factors, including the introduction of European diseases, particularly smallpox, to which the indigenous population had no immunity. The first major epidemic struck in 1520, killing perhaps 40 percent of the population of Tenochtitlan, including many of the leaders. Subsequent epidemics struck in 1521, 1526, 1545, 1559, and 1576, and each took a heavy toll on the surviving population.
The demographic collapse was compounded by the disruption of the agricultural and economic systems, the brutalities of the Spanish conquest, and the harsh conditions of the colonial period. The Spanish forced the indigenous population to labor in the mines, in the fields, and in the cities, and the conditions of this labor were often brutal. The collapse of the population was one of the great catastrophes of world history, and it fundamentally altered the social and cultural landscape of the Americas.
The Aftermath of Conquest
The fall of Tenochtitlan did not bring the Spanish conquest to an end, and there was widespread indigenous resistance to Spanish rule in the decades that followed. The most serious of the post-conquest revolts was the Mixton War of 1540-1542, a large-scale uprising of the peoples of the northern frontier that required the personal intervention of the Viceroy of New Spain. There were also numerous smaller revolts, including uprisings in Oaxaca, in the Huasteca, and in the Tarascan territory.
The Spanish conquest also brought with it a campaign to convert the indigenous population to Christianity. The great temples of Tenochtitlan were destroyed, and churches were built on or near the same sites. The Templo Mayor was replaced by the Cathedral of Mexico City, although the original site is still visible in the archaeological zone today. The traditional priesthood was abolished, and the old religious specialists were persecuted. Yet many elements of the indigenous religion survived, often in disguised form, in the folk Catholicism of modern Mexico.
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See also:
- When did the Spanish conquer Tenochtitlan? — the chronology of the conquest
- What role did disease play in the fall of the Aztec Empire? — the biological factor
- Who was Cuitláhuac and how did he lead the resistance? — the Mexica emperor who resisted
- The Spanish Conquest and Hernán Cortés — the military campaign
- Indigenous Resistance After the Fall of Tenochtitlan — the revolts that followed
- The Triple Alliance and Imperial Expansion — the state that fell
- History of the Aztec Civilization — the broader historical context