One of the most well known conquests of the all time is the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes. This is a puzzling conquest to historians because while the Spanish had the advantage of technology‚ it shouldn’t matter when compared to the Aztec’s superior numbers and home advantage. These factors should have allowed the Aztecs to surround Cortes’s small force and soundly defeat them yet we know that this isn’t what happened. The Spanish were the ones that actually prevailed
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Account of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico Miguel León-Portilla ’s book "The Broken Spears" Introduction Other resources: • Aztec Life • Mexica Culture • Mexica Medicine • Religion of the Modern Aztlan Movement • Religion of the Mexica & Bibliography • Major Deitites of the Mexica • Minor Deitites of the Mexica • Aztec Cannibalism: An Ecological Necessity? Path of the Conquest On November 8‚ 1519‚ the Spanish conquistadors first entered the great city of Mexico‚ the metropolis
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Conquest of Mexico In 1519 Hernán Cortés led a couple hundred other Spaniards inland to the impressive Empire of the Mexica ruled by the Great Montezuma. Many historians today tell how quickly and almost effortlessly these Spaniards conquered the Empire. They paint an image of ignorant‚ helpless Indians practically giving up their land out of fear of this group because certainly the Spaniards must be gods since they have powerful weapons and strange animals. We know neither Cortés nor any
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The Spanish Conquest of Mexico Christine Schoonover Grand Canyon University His103 September 11‚ 2009 Joyce Kievit The conquest of Mexico was started around March of 1519. The Spanish became greedy for gold and other precious metals. Cortes was friends with governor which gave him friends of great nobleness. Cortes was called upon to complete a mission to take over Mexico by the governor of Cuba. The governor came to the conclusion he could not trust Cortes and wanted him arrested
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The Nahua Interpretation of Spanish Conquest It is very difficult to explain defeat without seeming to make excuses. Such was the task of the Nahua chroniclers whom learned to write their language and produced the codices that were used in The Broken Spears. These accounts were put together by Native Americans roughly thirty years after the conquest based on Nahua oral history. These are not direct first hand accounts and cannot be accepted as specific historical evidence. What can be understood
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Some of the conquests of the Spanish on the Native Indians were brutal. While most conquistadors and Spanish people treated the Indians badly‚ one names Las Casas did not. He defended them. Why My Congressman/Congresswoman Matters to Me. Our congressmen and congresswomen are some of the most important parts of our government. Normally‚ when one thinks of members of congress‚ it seems as though the members are nothing but a group of people arguing from different political
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The Spanish had no idea how lucky they were that the Aztecs misunderstood who they were and why they were there. The Spanish conquistadors were looking for lands to conquer‚ gold to capture‚ and people to convert to the Catholic religion. The Spanish were amazed at what they found in the capital city of Tenochtitlan. Everything was clean. There were “eating houses” and hairdressers. You could buy medicines and herbs and all kinds of food. You could buy meat and game. There were streets that
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played a role in the Spanish Conquest of Mexico and Peru. Before 1942 there was about 50 million Native Americans in Mexico and Peru within 100 years such Native American population decline as much as 90% (45 million). This was mainly as a result of the diseases brought by the Europeans and the diseases that had existed then. Therefore‚ the natives believed that their God’s had deserted them. However‚ there were other factors which played a role in the Conquest of Peru and Mexico such as indecisiveness
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The Spanish conquest of Mexico started in February 14th in 1519 when Cortes arrived at Tenochtitlan in Mexico. The battle was between the Aztecs and Spanish. It started when Cortés and Montezuma were on the causeway giving gifts to each other. And because Montezuma was a naive leader‚ Cortes bribed him. Later the Spanish conquistadors and allies attacked every other Aztec city by a siege. Cortes and the Spanish conquistadors wanted to gain Montezuma’s trust so that they could get the land‚ power
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Conquest of Mexico and Peru “How did small groups of Spaniards‚ which initially numbered only a few hundred men‚ conquer the Aztec and the Incan empires that had populations in the millions‚ large armies‚ and militarist traditions of their own? (Keen and Haynes 68). Many modern day scholars express how easily the Spanish conquered both Mexico and Peru from great leaders such as the Aztec ruler Moctezuma and the Incan emperor Atahualpa. In order to understand how this conquest was accomplished
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