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Hernan Cortez
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Possibly no other conquest has been so amazing as Hernan Cortes’s. That one thousand three hundred men, no matter how well armed, could topple an empire with a population reaching into the millions, seems as amazing today as it was for the men who lived concurrently with the events. How did Cortes do it? Why was the mighty Aztec Empire destroyed by a handful of adventurers far from any logistical base?
Cortes first arrived at Tenochtitlan on November 8th, 1519. At the time, it was one of the largest cities in the world; Cordoba before the Reconquista, Constantinople before its fall, and Baghdad before the Mongols burned it would have been larger, but now this city, which Spaniards swore in later accounts was more beautiful than any city they had ever seen, was only outranked by some cities in China. Cortes had, on his march over, variously made wars and alliances with the other Mesoamerican tribes; by dint of force and the general hatred of Aztec hegemony, he had acquired a number of allies, most notably the Tlaxcalans.
By sheer good fortune, the cyclical nature of the Aztec calendar and some ancient Aztec prophecies had foretold a return of their god Quetzalcoatl around this time. Thus, Cortes was welcomed into Tenochtitlan and, initially, given everything they desired. The idea of the Spaniards being gods quickly wore off as the Aztecs grew suspicious of their incessant demands for gold, the removal of the idols of Quetzalcoatl, and the times when they grew sick and bled and died like men, instead of like gods. In fact, once the Spaniards had the notion in their heads that the Aztecs treated them like gods, it nearly became their downfall, for they marched unsuspecting into the Aztec trap when they returned to the city the second time.
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