Hernan Cortes is credited with the "Conquest" of Mexico; and yet no statues or other memorials have been erected to celebrate his achievement. The last Aztec king, Cuauhtémoc, whom Cortes captured, tortured, then later murdered, is even today honored above Cortes. Almost overnight, Cortes destroyed an entire civilization and set the stage for centuries of oppression of the indigenous people of Mexico. Nevertheless, he still has his admirers, who see in him a rather sympathetic, badly misunderstood man, who had the best interests of the native at heart.
Cortes has been likened to Julius Caesar. Both had their moment of destiny, Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon in 49 B.C. and started a civil war (Alea iacta est, "The die is cast"), Cortes when in A.D. 1519 he burned his ships (Los eché a la costa, "I scuttled them on the coast") to prevent his men from turning back from their march on Mexcio-Tenonchtitlan. Both were extremely energetic and ambitious men who went far beyond the mandates conferred on them by their respective governments and, almost singlehandedly, changed the course of history. However, like Napoleon, both met their Waterloo, Caesar by assassination in the Roman senate house, Cortes by the loss of much of his ill-gotten wealth and prestige and his ignominious burial.
Cortes has been painted both as a villain and a hero. To some, his military successes against greatly superior numbers may seem amazing, even praiseworthy, but what is truly incredible is the combination of historical circumstances and events that made his success possible. Moreover, Cortes did not "conquer" all of Mexico, just the Aztecs, who were the most dominant force in Mexico at that time.
Like Caesar, Cortes was a clever strategist, ready to employ any means to accomplish his ends. On his march to Tenochtitlan, Cortes employed the stratagem of "Divide and Conquer." With the aid of the Tlaxcallans, bitter enemies of the Aztecs, Cortes massacred an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Indians at Cholula in less than two hours of sheer butchery. Cortes claimed that the Cholulans were planning to ambush him. But more likely Cortes massacred the Cholulans to make himself appear more terrible to Moctezuma before he arrived. It worked.
The "Conquest" proceeded rapidly by means of further betrayal, treachery, and Spanish-style massacres. In 1519 Moctezuma welcomed Cortes to Tenochtitlan and was promptly taken prisoner and locked up in his own palace. On June 30, 1520, "La Noche Triste" ("The Sad Night"), the Spaniards were driven out of Tenochtitlan after Alvaredo, who had been left in charge while Cortes was away, massacred countless unarmed dancers and singers at a fiesta in the main temple. On his return in 1521, Cortes, aided by an epidemic of smallpox among the Indians, completed the siege and destruction of Tenochtitlan,sealing the fate of the survivors.
Military conquest was followed by spiritual conquest in which temples were torn down, statues of deities overthrown, and books burned in a systematic attempt to destroy all vestige of indigenous religion. Priests devised ingenious methods of torture to dissuade Indian "converts" from backsliding into the old paganism. There were exceptions, such as Las Casas, a strong supporter and apologist for the natives of New Spain; however, he and others like him were products of the Conquest and themselves part of the problem.
The Aztec empire was pre-programmed for destruction. Cortes arrived at precisely the right moment. Internal dissensions, inter-tribal wars, and political rivalry among the Indians made his work much easier. Moctezuma, already disheartened by adverse omens and expecting the arrival of the man-god, Quetzalcoatl, was easy prey. Cortes's men were professional soldiers with state-of-the-art weapons against which the Indians had no real defense. Moreover, Spaniards went for the kill; the Aztecs fought to take prisoners for sacrifice or in self-defense. But Cortes's motives were never in doubt. Indian survivors reported his very words in their own language: Catli in teocuitlatl ("What of the gold?").
Admirers of Cortes point out the "benefits" he bestowed upon the Indians after their subjugation. However, the victims of this "benevolent" conquest tell their own story of treachery, betrayal, greed, intolerance, and ignorance on the part of the invaders. In assessing the benefits of European civilization, we might also note that in 1519 there were an estimated 25 million Indians in Central Mexico alone. By 1630 this number had been reduced by disease, famine, and war to a million or less in what has been described as "possibly the greatest demographic disaster in the history of the world."
The Spanish invasion could not fail to succeed. Like a nail driven into soft wood, the impact of a small but determined band of unscrupulous adventurers against the Aztec empire was irresistible. Even today, many are still living under the burden Cortes forced upon them in 1521.
