Why did the Aztecs lose? The short answer is encapsulated in Jared Diamond’s pithy phrase Guns, Germs and Steel. There was more to it than that. Above Tenochtitlan, the Spanish had seen nothing like it.
Let me begin by saying Cortez never faced the full strength of the Aztec Empire. Had he done so he would have ended up stretched on the altar stone of the Great Temple. That he did not is down to a number of factors, all of them Aztec related.
The Aztecs were not popular with their neighbours and didn’t see any need to be. Consequently, when Cortez arrived, he was able to recruit whole armies of non- Aztecs. All of them fully committed to destroying the Aztec State.
Moctezuma (pictured above and below) equivocated on how to deal with the Spanish. He tried bribery, he tried proxy war, he probably intended treachery. We should understand that he would have been fully briefed on the Spanish, their conduct and intentions.
Did he think they were returning gods? I doubt it. The correct response would have been to mobilise everything he had and march on them. This he failed to do.
Fatally, he allowed Cortez into Tenochtitlan with his whole army. It may be that he thought they would be easier destroyed there. Indeed, when it came to it the Spanish did have a very hard time fighting in Tenochtitlan. They were driven out with heavy casualties. By then it didn’t matter to Moctezuma for he was dead.
There were consequences to Moctezuma decision.
First the Spanish immediately took him prisoner rendering him a puppet Emperor.
Second deadly disease entered the city.
Third the Spanish took the occasion of a festival dance to mass murder most of the unarmed Aztec officer class.
Fourth the Spanish found out that the Aztecs were rich beyond dreams of avarice. Gold rich, that is. Spanish motivation, never lacking, abounded.
Moctezuma was killed during a riot either by the Spanish or his own people. Once he was gone the Aztecs rose against the Spanish. Let us now consider how they stood.
They needed a new Emperor and got one, Cuitláhuac, unfortunately he was already infected with small pox. He reigned a short time and died. Before doing so he presumably set the resistance in motion. The Aztecs were to have a succession problem.
His successor was Cuauhtemoc a thoroughly able man. Today he is a Mexican national hero. Moctezuma by comparison seems mainly to be associated with stomach disorders.
The Aztec military assembled. Most of its leadership was dead. All ranks were sick or shortly to be so. Key allies decided to sit it out. It was not the army Moctezuma had inherited.
These disadvantages notwithstanding the Aztecs walloped the Spanish and their allies. The Spanish called their retreat from Tenochtitlan the Night of Sorrows. The slaughter was considerable.
The Spanish and their allies would be back. The Aztecs simply lacked the strength to finish the job. Try as they might. They had lost too many men and were losing more by the day. Once they had boasted that they let Tlaxcala survive purely as a source of war prisoners for sacrifice. Tlaxcala endures yet.
Tenochtitlan fell after a most valiant defence. It was mainly destroyed in the process. There is much to the Guns, Germs and Steel argument, especially if you add horses. Even so, it is not hard to envisage how different decisions by Moctezuma could have produced other results.
For a moment let us imagine an early decisive Aztec victory. Fought outside of Tenochtitlan by a full strength Aztec Army. The Spanish dead or captured. Their Tlaxcala allies chastened in defeat and now ravaged by disease. Perhaps too, civil war, for there was an anti-Spanish faction.
Disease, given Aztec prisoner practice, would have come to Tenochtitlan. So though would have steel weapons, crossbows, metal armour and horses.
Less centralised polities than the Aztecs managed to do an awful lot with those things.
The last image on this page is by Diego Rivera. If you don't know his work, check it out. There is much to enjoy.
Fsscinating background.
ReplyDeleteThanks Richard. I think it is an interesting 'what if'.
ReplyDeleteIf the Battle of Otumba had gone differently, or really if Cortes (with an s not a z btw!) had been dispatched on any innumerable opportunities then perhaps the Aztecs may have endured for a time. However, when you wage incessant warfare on your neighbors and take up to 20,000 of them for sacrifice annually year upon year, or just show up annually to also take their food, you're going to have enemies. Lots of them. All they needed was a way to combine forces and the Spanish arrival did just that. Montezuma was in the end a prisoner not just of the Spanish but of his religious beliefs that saw the Spanish as the beginning of the apocalypse - one that ostensibly all those human sacrifices were supposed to stave off by satisfying Huitzilopochtli. Thus, his actions towards the Spanish were more of resignation to the concept that he was at the "end of times", which was ironically true for his empire. His tries at treachery were at best half-hearted and incapable of being executed - but they did exist. Interestingly, I have not seen information that smallpox ravaged the Tlaxcalans to the degree it did the Aztecs. One would think it did, but as the Tlaxcalans and others made up the vast bulk of Cortes' forces. The one factor that to me made all the difference was Hernan Cortes himself and his ability to cajole and manipulate his opponents (and allies) as well as meet them in battle. If he had been rolling dice the results he got would have been considered waaaay outside the bell curve. Nice informative post.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mark.
ReplyDeleteThere are lot of potential break points that didn't happen.
Cortez is acting beyond his remit, a real adventurer. When legitimate authority caches up to him he suborns it. It could have gone the other way-with him in chains. Later he could have been killed.
Had he been killed I would have expected Pedro Alvarado to make a pitch for leadership, or maybe the more restrained Cristobal Maldonado. Would they have enjoyed the same success? I doubt it.
The Tlaxcalans were getting sick from the first encounters onward. Their population reduced accordingly, but, they were not subjected to the worst of colonial rule.
It's salutary to think of the size of the armies the mobilised against Mexico compared to what they could scrape together for the Spanish northern expeditions. Anyhow, they tipped the balance against the Mexica when it counted.
Some believe Moctezuma was resigned to his fate because of religious considerations. I don't I think so. I think he overplayed his hand and became unstuck. Either way it's clear the rest of the Aztec leadership didn't share that view of the Spanish. Nor did the commonality hard as they fought.
Fab info Sir!
ReplyDeleteCheers Ray, I had a break through with the rules today.
ReplyDeleteInteresting summary of a period I literally know nothing about ...I anomaly aware of Conquistadors and Cortez but that's about it! I guess long term, it does the make a lot of difference to the Aztecs...I am sure the Spanish or other European colonisers woukd have come back and done the job at some point in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries....
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think that's a safe guess.
ReplyDeleteMind you they might have got a better deal if they had seen off the Cortez expedition, it was unauthorised by the Spanish Crown.