Hernan Cortes Truly Conquered Mexico

I chose prompt 2 for my essay which says, “Respond to this statement: "Due to their superior weapons and tactics, the Spanish conquered Mexico remarkably quickly, and within a century of their arrival on the mainland they had complete control over Mesoamerica”. This statement is true due to the intelligence of leader Hernan Cortes. Using his own wit and military superiority he was able to conquer Mexico fairly easily, but he was not able to gain control of all Mesoamerica in one century.

To claim that Hernan Cortes truly conquered Mexico we have to know what conquering really is. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary to conquer is to “gain or acquire by force of arms” (Merriam-Webster). Hernan Cortes did use an armed military to take

control of Tenochtitlan when he conquered Mexico, which does indeed align with the definition of conquer.

Central Mexico was dominated by the Aztec empire, a confederation of city states that united and expanded over the past century and most of southern Mexico was controlled by the Maya.

It was 2 years after Mexico was discovered that Hernan Cortes landed in Mexico. The first expedition of Mexico in 1517 failed due to the men dying from attacks of the Mayans. The second expedition was more successful with the natives gifting the men with gold masks and gold pieces. The third expedition took place in April of 1519 lead by Hernan Cortes went much better. He landed on the island of Cozumel where he met with a white ship wrecked survivor, A Franciscan priest who became his translator they captured the capital of the small Mayan state Teotihuacan and were rewarded with women .Cortez then landed on the island of Veracruz in April and created a new settlement. Moctezuma the ruler of the Aztec Empire agreed to send representatives to go meet Cortes but did not want to meet with him personally. Cortes burned his fleet to avoid his men trying to leave and formed alliances with the Totonac and Tlaxcalans, who were enemies of the Aztecs. Cortes then decided to march to Tenochtitlan in, which was the capital of the Aztec empire with the Totonac and Tlaxcalans since they all had a common

enemy.

Along the way Cortes took control of the holy city of Cholula with no resistance.

Then, Cortes got word of a plot to murder the Spanish in their sleep, so he killed 3000 people and burned their city to the ground. Fearing a similar fate Moctezuma chose the path of diplomacy and invited the conquistadors to the capital. November 8, 1519 Cortes and his men arrived into Tenochtitlan. According to Cortes upon his arrival Moctezuma pledged loyalty to the king of Spain however, this is unlikely due to the fact that Cortes planned to place an image of the Virgin Mary and a cross at the top of the main temple pyramid. Moctezuma responded by killing seven Spaniards and Cortes quickly arrested him. Cortez left to deal with an army sent against him and when he came back he found the city in open rebellion when he commanded Moctezuma to speak to his people they threw stones at him, Moctezuma either died from these wounds or was killed by the Spanish before they left the city. He fled Tenochtitlan once the Aztecs attacked and killed a third of his men, he regrouped with the Tlaxcalans to fight the remaining Aztecs and after 3 months of fighting Cortes won and took control of not only the city but also Mexico. Whatever remaining Aztec people were left he banished them from living in the ruins of their city. He began to build a new city on top of the ruins of Tenochtitlan, which we now know as Mexico City. It took the Spanish 170 years later to completely gain control of the Mayan empire.

Disease was their strongest ally killing 75% of the indigenous people.

In conclusion, Hernan Cortes was able to capture the Aztec Empire using his own military experience and his ability to make allies with other nations. He captured the city 2 years after first arriving in April of 1519. Unfortunately, he was not able to gain complete control of Mesoamerica for a whole 170 years due to trying to gain control of the Mayan Empire.