Cortez And The Fall of the Aztecs
... Within three years of this time however, the entire Aztec empire had been brought to an end at the hand of a man named Hernan Cortez and only 600 his Spanish soldiers. ... Upon doing some investigating, one may find that it was not one thing that caused the Aztecs to perish, but a group of circumstances together that were responsible. ... When the Spaniards came to the new land to take over the Aztecs, they allied with other Native American clans in order to help them. ... A huge factor of why the Aztecs fell was because of the diseases that were brought along with the Spaniards. It is commonly known that there are two sides to each story and the story of the Aztecs is no exception. While the Spanish might have had intentions of colonizing and taking over the area, the Aztecs had a different view of this, and due to a case of coincidence they thought the Spanish were gods. Also, before the Spanish came, the Aztecs were accustomed to their way of life, but after Cortez landed, the Aztec people’s lives got changed around, commonly causing them to do labor for the Spaniards. ... When Cortes and his men arrived in the land of the Aztecs, they were very concerned about converting the native people to Christianity. They came and made the Aztecs feel unhappy and confused by telling them that everything they believed was wrong. The conquistadors went even further by toppling idols, burning temples and ending human sacrifice (all of which were sacred rituals to the Aztecs) (Marrin: 183-185). ... Eventually Aztecs began to lose faith in their old religion and switched. ... The appearance of Christianity proved to be quite a change for the Aztec people, which ultimately helped them to fall. In terms of gold, the Aztecs said they (the Spaniards) snatched it up like monkeys. ... The subhuman lust for gold that these men had made the Aztecs feel that everything they said was in a barbarous tongue (Leon-Portilla: 52). ... The Tlaxcaltecans (See Appendix 3) were a fierce tribe that hated the neighboring Aztecs because the Aztecs were responsible for the blockade of Tlaxecaltecan valleys, which in turn, isolated them from the outside world. ... The Tabascans however, had been trading with the Spaniards early on and were called cowards and women by neighboring tribes (including the Aztecs) (Marrin: 72, 73, 94). ... This ended up being the origin of spoken conversation between the Aztecs and the Spaniards, which helped the Spanish a great deal. ... Although it was not the fault of the native Aztecs that they did not have as advanced weapons, it did hurt them in the long run.