Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire

“ The conquerors had to disproportionately increase the alleged atrocities and the warriors’ ability and the power of the "natives", given that it was them who defeated the Aztecs. These false stories increased the alleged heroic deeds and courage developed to defeat the "powerful mexicas". This was totally untrue, because we know that the conquest war was actually a civil war between native peoples, provoked, encouraged and directed by the spaniards, because they used the prophecies that weighed on the Aztec ruling class and their own internal contradictions. ”

“ It is not easy to reconcile his assumed innocence of the plot with many circumstances connected with it. But it must be remembered here, and always, that his history is to be collected solely from Spanish writers and such of the natives as flourished after the Conquest, when the country had become a colony of Spain. Not an Aztec record of the primitive age survives, in a form capable of interpretation. [228] It is the hard fate of this unfortunate monarch to be wholly in{219}debted for his portraiture to the pencil of his enemies. ”

“ Even such fragments of Aztec lore as survived the fanaticism of the Conquistadores in Mexico are wanting to the annals of the earlier Central American civilization. It was a culture of rich growth in its day and place, destined like that of the contemporary Roman Empire, to tempt the cupidity of a hardier race, and after an unavailing struggle, to fall before the might of numbers and superior physique. Howbeit, the Aztec Goths and Vandals overran the isthmus, and when the Spanish invasion came, it met only the late subjects of Montezuma's widespread, ill-governed kingdom. ”

“ Their fetters, indeed, would be broken, and their wrongs be amply avenged on the proud head of the Aztec. But it was to be by that strong arm which should bow down equally the oppressor and the oppressed. The light of civilization would be poured on their land. But it would be the light of a consuming fire, before which their barbaric glory, their institutions, their very existence and name as a nation, would wither and become extinct! ”

“ As the long file of priests and warriors reached the flat summit of the teocalli, the Spaniards saw the figures of several men stripped to their waists, some of whom, by the whiteness of their skins, they recognized as their own countrymen. They were the victims for sacrifice. Their heads were gaudily decorated with coronals of plumes, and they carried fans in their hands. They were urged along by blows, and compelled to take part in the dances in honor of the Aztec war-god. ”

“ The Mexican ambassadors were not much gratified with finding the war at an end, and a recon{161}ciliation established between their mortal enemies and the Spaniards. The mutual disgust of the two parties with each other was too strong to be repressed even in the presence of the general, who saw with satisfaction the evidences of a jealousy which, undermining the strength of the Indian emperor, was to prove the surest source of his own success. [167]
Two of the Aztec envoys returned to Mexico, to acquaint their sovereign with the state of affairs in the Spanish camp. ”

“ Year after year saw them return, loaded with the spoils of conquered cities, and with throngs of devoted captives, to their capital. No state was able long to resist the accumulated strength of the confederates. At the beginning{26} of the sixteenth century, just before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztec dominion reached across the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and, under the bold and bloody Ahuitzotl, its arms had been carried far over the limits already noticed as defining its permanent territory, into the farthest corners of Guatemala and Nicaragua. ”

“ But the Aztecs could better afford the loss of a hundred lives than their antagonists that of one. And, while the Spaniards showed an array broken and obviously thinned in numbers, the Mexican army, swelled by the tributary levies which flowed in upon it from the neighboring streets, exhibited, with all its losses, no sign of diminution. At length, sated with carnage, and exhausted by toil and hunger, the Spanish commander drew off his men, and sounded a retreat. ”

“ But the great aim of the Aztec institutions, to which private discipline and public honors were alike directed, was the profession of arms. In Mexico, as in Egypt, the soldier shared with the priest the highest consideration. The king, as we have seen, must be an experienced warrior. The tutelary deity of the Aztecs was the god of war. A great object of their military expeditions was to gather hecatombs of captives for his altars. ”

“ But the Spanish commander did not yet understand the character of the Aztecs if he thought to intimidate them by menaces. It was true, they replied, that he had destroyed their temples, broken in pieces their gods, and massacred their countrymen. Many more doubtless were yet to fall under their terrible swords. But they were content so long as for every thousand Mexicans they could shed the blood of a single white man. ”

“ After the Conquest, for years the Spaniards were disturbed by remaining savage tribes who, resisting civilization, had retreated to the woods and mountains; but these tribes have been long exterminated. Their successor, the highway robber of roads and mountain passes, was of another breed, imported, with other products of civilization, from old Spain.
The Aztec dynasty, then, was extinct, but the Aztec nation, a large population, even after the great diminution in the wars of the Conquest, remained on the plateau to begin a new life under the influences of Christian rulers. ”

“ By terror alone were these subject peoples ruled. No love or loyalty could they have for the distant emperor who exacted from them a tribute so grinding that it drove them to frequent revolt. Then would the Aztec armies mercilessly ravage their lands and carry off the rebels by hundreds to slavery and sacrifice.
Hardly less dreaded than the tribute-gatherers were the Aztec merchants, who took high rank in Mexico, and travelled supported by small armies through the wide empire to the countries beyond its bounds. ”

“ The severe volleys of the Mexicans did some injury to the Spaniards and their allies, and began to throw them into disorder, crowded as they were on the narrow causeway, without the means of{306} advancing, when Cortés ordered a retreat. This was followed by renewed tempests of missiles, accompanied by taunts and fierce yells of defiance. The battle-cry of the Aztec, like the war-whoop of the North American Indian, was an appalling note, according to the Conqueror’s own acknowledgment, in the ears of the Spaniards. ”

“ Yet we cannot regret the fall of an empire which did so little to promote the happiness of its subjects or the real interests of humanity. Notwithstanding the lustre thrown over its latter days by the glorious defence of its capital, by the mild munificence of Montezuma, by the dauntless heroism of Guatemozin, the Aztecs were emphatically a fierce and brutal race, little calculated, in their best aspects, to excite our sympathy and regard. Their civilization, such as it was, was not their own, but reflected, perhaps imperfectly, from a race whom they had succeeded in the land. ”

“ The Aztecs, struck aghast at their own sacrilegious deed, dispersed in sorrow and shame to their homes; while the Spaniards felt that they had lost their only remaining hold upon the forbearance and regard of a mighty people, whose confidence they had shamefully abused, and whose altars and houses they had wantonly desecrated. It was a season of agonizing suspense. To retreat from their post, and abandon the conquest which they once imagined was nearly achieved, might be as disastrous as it would be humiliating. ”

“ The Spaniards, first hailed as gods by the Aztecs, because of their fair skins, their "canoes with wings," their armor, their horses, and their artillery, conquered the country, laid waste the fair cities of the lakes and the valley, and, with iron heel, stamped out the last vestiges of Aztec civilization—"a civilization that," as one historian says, "might have instructed Europe."
And foremost in this work of destruction and of death stood Ixtlilochitl of Tezcuco, a traitor to his home-land, [Pg 195] the vassal and the ally of Cortez the Spaniard. ”

“ Gallatin, we find ourselves frequently bewildered in the labyrinth of historical details and picturesque legends, which have been carefully gathered and grouped to form a romantic picture of the Aztec nation. Yet facts enough have survived, not only the wreck of the conquest, but also the comparative stagnation of the viceroyalty, to satisfy us that there was a large class of people, at least in the capitals and their vicinity, whose tastes, habits, and social principles, were nearly equal to the civilization of the Old World at that time. ”

“ For myself and the brave men around me, we must bare our breasts to the storm, and meet it as we may!" Such are the sorrowful and sympathetic tones in which the Aztec emperor is said to have uttered the bitterness of his grief. He would have acted a more glorious part had he put his capital in a posture of defence, and prepared, like the last of the Palæologi, to bury himself under its ruins.
He straightway prepared to send a last embassy to the Spaniards, with his nephew, the lord of Tezcuco, at its head, to welcome them to Mexico. ”

“ While the Aztec court was thus agitated by the arrival of the Spaniards, they were passing their time in the tierra caliente, not a little annoyed by the excessive heats and suffocating atmosphere of the sandy waste on which they were encamped. They experienced every alleviation that could be derived from the attentions of the friendly natives. ”

“ The Spaniards had encountered in the Tlascalan an open enemy, who had no grievance to complain of, no wrong to redress. He fought under the vague apprehension only of some coming evil to his country. But the Aztec, hitherto the proud lord of the land, was goaded by insult and injury, till he had reached that pitch of self-devotion which made life cheap in comparison with revenge. Armed thus with the energy of despair, the savage is almost a match for the civilized man ”

“ The story of the fall of Aztec civilization before the Spanish invaders has deservedly won a great hold upon popular imagination, for every page is redolent of romance, and indeed few, if any, writers of fiction have conceived a tale so full of incident, or have brought their heroes to victory in the face of greater odds. Moreover, the existence of Aztec civilization, an organized empire with cities built of stone and rich in gold and gems, burst upon the Old World as a thing almost beyond belief. ”

“ It has fortunately been preserved, and presents a favourable specimen of Indian eloquence. Towards the conclusion the orator exclaims, "Who can doubt that the Aztec empire has reached the zenith of its greatness, since the Almighty has placed over it one whose very presence fills every beholder with reverence? Rejoice, happy people, that you have now a sovereign who will be to you a steady column of support; a father in distress, a more than brother in tenderness and sympathy; one whose aspiring soul will disdain all the profligate pleasures of the senses, and the wasting indulgence of sloth. ”

“ And as the ancient walls of Tenochtitlan shook under the thunders of the artillery, it announced that the white man, the destroyer, had set his foot within her precincts. [114]
Night at length came, and drew her friendly mantle over the contest. The Aztec seldom fought by night. It brought little repose, however, to the Spaniards, in hourly expectation of an assault; and they found abundant occupation in restoring the breaches in their defences and in repairing{113} their battered armor. ”

“ Whatever else might fail, the capital of the Aztec empire was true to itself, and, mindful of its ancient renown, opposed a bold front to its enemies in every direction. As in a body whose extremities have been struck with death, life still rallied in the heart, and seemed to beat there, for the time, with even a more vigorous pulsation than ever.
It may appear extraordinary that Guatemozin should have been able to provide for the maintenance of the crowded population now gathered in the metropolis, especially as the avenues were all in the possession of the besieging army. ”

“ The Aztecs of Mexico were a martial race their leading institutions and the national spirit, the splendor of dress, of ornament, and the pride and glory of Aztec, were centered in war; their legions consisting of 8,000 men, not without discipline. Montezuma had been a distinguished warrior and conqueror. The peculiarity in their mode of fighting was that they did not seek to kill, but to make prisoners, and these prisoners were to be solemn votive offerings to the gods. ”

“ The massacre of six hundred Aztec nobles, unarmed, during the peaceful celebration of a religious ceremony, had at length maddened the whole people to revolt. There is no direct information whether the cruelty or rapacity of Alvarado, or some secret intelligence of a conspiracy, (not improbable, when the Mexicans saw that their whole city was now held in check by but a handful of the Spaniards,) had prompted this ill-timed and ill-conducted mimicry of the great blow struck by Cortes at Cholula; but from this time the whole Aztec nation was leagued in implacable hostility to the Spaniards. ”