The Depredations of Spanish Conquistadors in Mexico
In February of 1519, Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes landed with a small force on Mexico’s eastern coast. After subduing the region surrounding today’s Vera Cruz, he proceeded to march inland towards the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, defeating and allying with natives en route. Natives who refused to join Cortes were massacred, as occurred in the city of Cholula. As Cortes described it in his letters, after capturing the city, he destroyed it and burned it to the ground, while the conquistadors ran riot, killing about 3000 Cholulans in a few hours. Another Spanish eyewitness put the actual number of massacred Cholulans as high as 30,000. By the time he reached Tenochtitlan, Cortes had a large native army, surrounding a core of Spaniards.
The Aztec ruler Montezuma II grew indecisive upon learning of the Spaniards’ landing. He invited Cortes and his conquistadors into Tenochtitlan in November of 1519, in the hopes of better understanding them and their weaknesses. He then foolishly plied his guests with lavish gifts of gold, which only excited their lust for plunder. Cortes treacherously seized Montezuma in his own palace, and keeping him a hostage, ruled Tenochtitlan and the Aztec Empire through the captive emperor.
In April of 1520, Cortes had to speed back to Mexico’s east coast in order to ward off another Spanish expedition sent to oust him. He left behind a Spanish garrison of 200 men under a trusted deputy. In Cortes absence, however, his deputy massacred thousands of Aztecs in Tenochtitlan’s Great Temple, triggering an uprising. Cortes rushed back to Tenochtitlan and trotted out the captive Montezuma in hopes that he would placate the natives, but the livid Aztecs stoned the Spaniards’ puppet ruler to death.
Cortes fled Tenochtitlan, then returned with a powerful native army to subdue the city. After vicious street by street fighting that wrecked much of the Aztec capital, Cortes finally subdued the city, whose population had been decimated by Old World diseases against which the natives had no immunity. According to sources: “On the day that Tenochtitlán was taken, the Spaniards committed some of the most brutal acts ever inflicted upon the unfortunate people of this land. The cries of the helpless women and children were heart-rending“.
The Spanish built Mexico City and their colony of New Spain atop the ruins of Tenochtitlan and the Aztec Empire. The Natives – former allies and enemies alike – were reduced to de facto serfs, working the large estates, or haciendas, which the conquerors apportioned to themselves. Between massacres, mistreatment, overwork, and Old World epidemics, the native population of New Spain crashed from an estimated 30 million when Cortes arrived, to a mere 3 million by 1568.