THE CONQUEST

OF THE AZTECS

1520
Once upon a
time…
◦ 1492

◦ Taino

◦ Hispaniola (island)

◦ Spain vs. Portugal:

fighting for domination
through acquisition of new
lands
 TREATY OF
TORTESILLAS
(1494)
What next?
◦ Flood of Spanish explorers

◦ „Conquistadores“

◦ Hernán Cortés
◦ 1504 on Hispaniola
◦ Yucatán Peninsula
◦ 1519: Cortés entered Tenoctitlán, the capital of
Aztec / Mexica Empire
AT THAT
TIME…
MESOAMERICAN EMPIRES
◦ Cortés took Moctezuma hostage
◦ Spanish murdered high-ranking Mexica during a
religious festival And here‘s what
◦ Mexica retaliated and Cortés had to flee the Europeans
◦ Cortés created alliances and recruited Natives who
resented the Aztec Empire, using disunity of diverse
did…
groups
The Conquest
of
Tenochtitlán
◦ August 1521

◦ Claimed as Spanish
territory

◦ Renamed „Mexico City“

The Conquest in
Numbers
◦ Cortés: 500 Spanish soldiers and horses

◦ Aztec Empire: 16 million total, around 200,000

living in Tenochtitlán
◦ A smallpox epidemic in 1520

◦ 40% of Tenochtitlán‘s inhabitants died due to smallpox

in one year The Spanish
◦ Some more died due to famine (people were too sick to
brought with
work in the fields) them…
◦ Natives had ZERO immunity to smallpox / no pre-
exposure to the virus or a virus similiar to variola major
Native American Aztec
people of Mexico dying of
smallpox introduced by the
Spaniards, copied from the
Codex Florentine
Quotes from the epidemic
◦ The plague lasted for 70 days, striking everywhere in the city and killing a vast number of our people.
Sores erupted on our faces, our breasts, our bellies; we were covered with agonizing sores from head to
foot.” (a victim of smallpox)

◦ As the Indians did not know the remedy of the disease, they died in heaps, like bedbugs. In many places it
happened that everyone in a house died, and as it was impossible to bury the great number of dead, they
pulled down the houses over them, so that their homes became their tombs.” (a Franciscan monk who
accompanied Cortés)
Outcome?
◦ Here‘s an overview of the demographic situation in NM in 2019:
https://datausa.io/profile/geo/aztec-nm

◦ How might the development of Aztec culture and population be different if smallpox hadn‘t factored in
the conquest of the Spanish? Discuss this question with a partner.