Why Was Cortes Able To Conquer The Aztecs

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The Spanish conquest of the Americas

The Spanish conquest of the Americas was used with tactics. Cortes with five hundred and eight soldiers defeated the entire Aztec empire. Through disease which would be the smallpox that Cortes and his men were immune to and did not affect them like it did to the Aztecs. The weapons that the Spanish had were more advanced. The Spanish had Indian allies like the Tlaxcala that were at war with the Aztecs already. Luck got Cortes quite far because of the fact that the Aztecs thought that Cortes was a god and they were also in the year in which the Aztecs were unable to fight. Cortes managed to rule over the whole Aztec empire. Without the element of luck Cortes may not have been able to conquer the Aztecs.

Firstly one of the reasons that the Spanish conquered the Aztecs was by sacrificed many people so they were down in numbers and it also angered the people because many of the Mexican tribes tried to oppose and feared the Aztecs because of the Aztec sacrifices. The Aztecs sacrificed between 10,000 and 50,000 victims per year. A lot of the people who were sacrificed were the people that they imprisoned during war. The Aztecs only tried to disarm their enemies and not kill them so that they could use them for the offerings to their gods. They sacrificed people by stretching people over the Alter and a fire …show more content…

The year that Cortes arrived was the year that the god Quetzalcoatl was meant to return. The god was also meant to return from the east. Cortes also came from the east. The god Quetzalcoatl was said to be a white skinned man who Cortes was also. Montezuma let Cortes come very close to their city because they thought that he was a god. This gave Cortes a big advantage because he managed to get very close. When Cortes saw the city of Tenochtitlan he knows that he would not be able to take it over with force. He became friends with Montezuma and then kept him as a