The Conquest of Mexico
The Conquest of Mexico
As we look back into time we can see many different historic events that have made a great impact on societies and cultures around the world. It seems that during the late years of the 1400’s and the early years of the 1500’s, during the time of Europe’s domination over the whole world, that many cultures were influenced by their hunger to discover as much land as they could. During this time many new lands in the west such as the Americas were discovered and many new lands began to become the property of Kings and Queens that lived thousands and thousands of miles away in Europe.
What is pretty remarkable is that the lands were not discovered be the Europeans. The lands were already there. Huge masses of people were already living in these lands for thousands of years. Even though this is so the Europeans took credit for their discovery and therefore they felt that these lands that they landed on were to be taken over and governed by them. There were two main countries in Europe that were trying to discover as much land as possible in the area that we call South America. They were the Spanish and the Portuguese. The Spanish however were the more successful of the two. The Spanish, along with the help of a great explorer and conqueror Cortez, were highly successful in the take over of Mexico and the defeat of the great Aztec warriors. Two books that give a good account of this story are William H. Prescott’s The Conquest of Mexico and The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico by Bernal Diaz del Castillo.
During the time of the explorations of Mexico, the Aztecs were the main tribe that lived in the area. The Aztecs originally lived north of the Valley of Mexico. There they lived under the control of the Toltec empire. During the time, the Aztecs were a farming group and the Toltecs were demanding huge tributes from the Aztecs so they were forced to move. They then moved themselves to a city called Tizapan, which is located in the center of Mexico where they came under the control of the Culhuacans. However, this arrangement didn’t last very long because like the Toltecs, the Culhuacans too wanted the...