Factors Causing the Spanish Conquest

Factors Causing 2 Many different factors ultimately led to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Many of the factors could be considered luck and it can be mind boggling how the Spanish took on the largest empire of the day with only a handful of soldiers and weapons. The reasons the Spanish were able to control and systematically destroy the Aztecs was because of their alliances with neighboring cultures, their advanced weapons, their domesticated animals, disease, and the luckiest part of all: the Aztecs referred to the Europeans as gods. The Aztec and Tlaxcala had been continuously fighting for more than a century in the flower wars. The Tlaxcala resented the Aztecs and knew that eventually the Aztecs would conquer their main city. Already the Aztecs had been conquering much of the territory surrounding Tlaxcala. When the Spanish entered Tlaxcala the city was poor as a result of the commercial blockade of the Aztec. Cortes seems to have won the friendship of old Tlaxcala leaders namely, Maxixcatzin and Xícotencatl the elder. However, not all the Tlaxcala approved of this friendship with the Spaniards namely Xicotencatl the younger. Cortes reportedly preached Christianity to the Tlaxcala leaders and they were baptised and "Maxixcatzin, Xicotecatl the old, Citalpopocatzin and Temiloltecutl received the names of Don Lorenzo, Don Vicente, Don Bartolomé and Don Gonzalo." The Tlaxcala reportedly had no qualms adding the Spanish god "Dios" to their polytheistic religion. The Tlaxcala as an ally to the Spaniards offered food, women, and later soldiers and porters versus the Aztec. By allying with the Mesoamerican culture the Spaniards were able to better plan their exploitation of the real political heavyweight in

Factors Causing 3 the area: the Aztec. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_Mexico#Alliance_with_Tlaxcalteca) The sophisticated weapons the Spaniards utilized against the Aztec also resulted in the

Cited: Factors Causing 6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Wars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#The_Americas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_Mexico#Cort.C3.A9s_as_Quetzalcoatl http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/show/episode2.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_Mexico#Alliance_with_Tlaxcalteca