Posted on 01/09/2019 10:35:33 PM PST by vannrox
Tenochtitlan was an absolutely amazing city. The city was larger than any in Europe at the time and held approximately 200,000 people with some estimates as high as 350,000. Built over 100 years or so on Lake Texcoco, the city was impressively organized.
Being built on the lake meant that land platforms were created as needed in an orderly fashion leaving clean canal streets for canoe traffic and multiple bridges and paths for pedestrians. Each neighborhood was distinct and had its required services from schools to garbage collectors.
The city also had fabulous amenities befitting a great city. Huge gardens were quite popular and the city zoo and aquariums held wildlife from all over Mesoamerica. Fresh spring water flowed through several aqueducts along the three long causeways that connected the city to the north, west and south shores.
Among the beauty of Tenochtitlan was a great amount of war and death. The large central temple complex usually held daily sacrifices and many of the different gods required human sacrifices whether they be battle captives or willing victims. On either side of the main temple were the houses of the eagle and jaguar warriors, elite warrior clans who led the armies in battle.
When Hernan Cortez brought his band of around 600 soldiers to Mexico, his chief motivation was evading his superior. Many of the men’s motivations were some combination of gold, power or God. As Cortez established a base at Veracruz he left some men to guard the camp while proceeding inland, but not before destroying his fleet to prevent any insurrection from a desire to escape.
He had a force of about 3-400 men with steel armor and swords along with crossbows, primitive firearms, and a few light cannons. One of his men, Gerónimo de Aguilar, was a survivor of a shipwreck eight years’ prior and had learned many of the languages and customs.
The temple complex. on the flat lake the temples rose above the city and could be seen for miles. The temple complex. On the flat lake, the temples rose above the city and could be seen for miles.
In a series of misguided battles, the confederation of tribes known as the Tlaxcala launched several attacks against the advancing army of Cortez. In these first engagements the Spanish were faced with armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands and easily prevailed. The Aztec Macuahuitl was a viscious weapon against unarmored foes and indeed in these battles a horse was essentially decapitated but the steel armor of the Spaniards was too effective.
Counter to some popular thought, the Spanish actually fought mostly with swords and crossbows, though they had a similar devastating result. Steel swords cut right through the padded cotton armor of the natives and crossbow bolts would fly right through the light shields. When firearms were used that had a truly terrific effect with their loud bangs and smoke they truly terrified the natives.
After every battle, Cortez released prisoners with messages of peace. Finally, the Tlaxcala were willing to meet, and the two sides realized that they both sought to control the Aztecs. The Tlaxcala were one of the few independent groups left near Tenochtitlan and were often targets of new wars primarily to steal more sacrificial victims. After this alliance was formed, the king/emperor Montezuma urgently requested to see Cortez and summoned him to Tenochtitlan before any more of his enemies united against him.
The motives of Montezuma are difficult to ascertain, he clearly was afraid of the Spanish to a degree owing to their established power and strange origins, but he seems to have attempted to orchestrate an ambush as Cortez was on his way to Tenochtitlan and prepared and sent an army towards Veracruz. He seems to have truly favored an appeasement policy, giving gifts to get the Spanish to leave but also seemed ready to hit hard with his armies.
When Cortez and his men arrived at Tenochtitlan they were given a royal welcome. They were given rooms in the royal residences and given tours around the city. They made notes of the impressive causeways and the city zoo as well as the evidence of wealth and treasures everywhere.
Here though the Spanish began to become horrified by the constant and routine human sacrifices. While it is true that the Spaniards often lusted after power and riches, the witnessing of what they perceived as pure evil would have also provided future motivation to topple the empire. Not only were their sacrifices but other brutal acts such as feeding these victims to captive jaguars and outright cannibalism.
The details are uncertain, but Cortez seems to have figured out some of Montezuma’s plots to attack the Veracruz settlement and decided to hold the emperor captive. This captivity was very civil with all daily activities, including sacrifices, continuing for months, but with the Spanish cautiously monitoring things.
This standoff persisted until Cortez had to leave the city to meet a force of around 900 Spaniards tasked with arresting Cortez for disobeying the Cuban (New Spain) governor. Cortez was able to ambush skillfully and capture the commanding officer and showed his great speaking ability by convincing the 900 men to join his cause.
While Cortez was with his newly gained army, his garrison in Tenochtitlan faced dire odds. The city was at peace when Cortez left but his second in command, Pedro de Alvarado, had been invited to a traditional Aztec feast. Accounts differ but supposedly unprovoked, Alvarado blocked the exits and slaughtered all the natives at the Feast, 600 to 1,000 people mostly of the noble class were ruthlessly slaughtered and their bodies looted for jewelry.
Following this slaughter, the residents of Tenochtitlan had enough of the Spaniards and spurred by a divine proclamation that the Spanish must be expelled, they besieged the palace complex with the garrison and the captive Montezuma.
a different massacre but no less helpless than the one at the Aztec festival a different massacre but no less helpless than the one at the Aztec festival. with guns and steel weapons the Spanish had no problem killing everyone in the temple. their looting of the bodies shows the greed, but everyone was likely on edge irregardless of the desire for treasure. Cortez had secured his army and had gained more local allies but was now faced with the prospect of losing his entire city garrison, his captive Montezuma and his foothold in the city. Cortez had to figure out how to regain his hold on the 200,000 people in the city while saving the few hundred they were trying to capture and sacrifice. Reports from the besieged Spanish maintained that the Aztecs would shout threats such as, “you will be sacrificed” and “we will eat you”. Every day of this would have been agonizing for the Spanish, knowing full well that capture meant certain and brutal death.
And a big beautiful temple in the middle to cut people’s living hearts out for the daily sacrifice.
“Tenochtitlan was an absolutely amazing city.”
And all they asked for was your heart.
The Conquistadors taking that place over and wiping them out was like the Allied armies rolling into the nazi death camps.
“I heart Tenochtitlan”
PING
Heads up!
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“we will eat you” no wonder they slaughter the people at the festival. They figured out they were offered meat from the natives sacrifice
I clicked on the link to the article and it tried to load malware/virus on to my machine, claiming an update to my flash player was needed. This article and link seems like click bait for malware. Beware.
Was this somebody’s sixth grade history report?
To all my freeper brothers and sisters...
None of the cannibal/murder judeo/Christian value relativism is relevant to the study of Maya/Aztec/mezo-american history.
I’m Hispanic and a Catholic.
The European migration to North America resulted in the murder and unnecessary deaths of hundreds of millions of human beings.
That number is at least 100x the number of deaths the mezo-american societies were even capable of inflicting upon each other.
Please do your own research, and come to your own conclusions as to the morality of colonial Christians compared to native Americans.
The fact that Aztecs murdered one another, does nothing to excuse European Christians murdering native Americans by the tens of millions.
Please understand, it’s okay to kill in defense of your own life when threatened.
It’s not okay to horrifically, savagely, and systematically murder hundreds of millions of humans, because they don’t have the same value system you have.
I’m proud to have significant native American ancestry, AND proud to have European ancestry.
Please don’t look back at this ancient history, and choose sides.
The only winners of that period in history were the survivors.
Thanks for reading.
I’ll step off my soapbox now.
Maybe Mexico should bring this up with Spain. Stop putting the blame on us. Better yet ask Spain for a few billion every year.
Yeah, right?
No one is ‘’native’’ to the North American Continent. The ‘’natives’’ came from the steppes of Central Asia.
No one is blaming you.
I’m saying, we can’t look back and tally a score.
The winners we’re the survivors.
The indigenous people’s paid a very high price per capita, as a result of European settlement of North and South America.
You missed the point entirely. And we can’t back and tally a score? That’s exactly what you’re doing. Hypocrisy is kind of lost on you, huh?
Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Russia, and many other European countries established settlements in the New World.
Many hundreds of millions of humans died and were killed as a result of these settlements.
It’s true that some native cultures were considered abominable to European Christians of the time period.
It’s not okay to justify the deaths of hundreds of millions of human beings, because some we’re very brutal.
That’s all I’m saying.
I didn’t miss any point.
I’m saying, don’t be okay with saying, yeah, some were cannibals, glad we killed ALL of them.
That’s what the left is doing to us
Kill all deplorables, it’s ok, because some are extremists.
On second thought...do what you want...
You missed the point. These people were waging brutal wars of conquest on each other for centuries before whites showed up. So it’s ok if the natives are slaughtering each other but it’s not ok for whites to do it.
While the number of dead was high, I don’t think there were hundreds of millions of natives in central and north America in the 1400s through the 1800s. Maybe hundreds of thousands to under 10 million.
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