Conquistadors and Aztecs
A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
A highly readable narrative of the causes, course, and consequences of the Spanish Conquest, incorporating the perspectives of many Native groups, Black slaves, and the conquistadors.
Five hundred years ago, a flotilla landed on the coast of Yucatán under the command of the Spanish conquistador Hérnan Cortés. While the official goal of the expedition was to explore and to expand the Christian faith, everyone involved knew that it was primarily about gold and the hunt for slaves.
That a few hundred Spaniards destroyed the Aztec empire--a highly developed culture--is an old chestnut, because the conquistadors, who had every means to make a profit, did not succeed alone. They encountered groups such as the Tlaxcaltecs, who suffered from the Aztec rule and were ready to enter into alliances with the foreigners to overthrow their old enemy. In addition, the conquerors benefited from the diseases brought from Europe, which killed hundreds of thousands of locals. Drawing on both Spanish and indigenous sources, this account of the conquest of Mexico from 1519 to 1521 not only offers a dramatic narrative of these events--including the fall of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and the flight of the conquerors--but also represents the individual protagonists on both sides, their backgrounds, their diplomacy, and their struggles. It vividly portrays the tens of thousands of local warriors who faced off against each other during the fighting as they attempted to free themselves from tribute payments to the Aztecs.
Written by a leading historian of Latin America, Conquistadors and Aztecs offers a timely portrayal of the fall of Tenochtitlan and the founding of an empire that would last for centuries.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Rinke (Latin America and the First World War) revisits in this comprehensive and insightful chronicle the fall of Tenochtitlan and the Mexica (or Aztec) Empire in the early 16th century. Adding depth and nuance to historical accounts of a small band of conquistadors swiftly overcoming a massive empire through technological and tactical superiority, Rinke draws on Indigenous and Spanish sources to uncover a much more complex series of events. He sketches Hernán Cortés's youth in Spain and departure for the Caribbean in 1504, before shifting gears to focus on Mexica ruler Moctezuma II and the empire's state of disarray prior to Cortés's expedition to Mesoamerica in 1519. Much attention is paid to the Spaniards' interactions with the Totonacs, Tlaxcalans, and other Mexica vassal states and enemies who proved to be invaluable allies in the battle for Tenochtitlan, which lasted for more than a year and involved victories and setbacks for both sides. Only in subsequent histories, primarily by non-Indigenous peoples, was the fall of the Mexica Empire viewed as inevitable. Rinke's prodigious research enables him to disentangle the biological, psychological, military, and sociocultural factors behind this much mythologized conquest. The result is a vital reconsideration of the history of the New World. Illus.
