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Expert answer:WOH 2012 Paper #3 AssignmentIt must be a minimum of 750 words long
fall_of_tenochtitlan_sources.pdf
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Source 13.4
Conquest and Victory: The Fall of Tenochtitlán from a
Spanish Perspective
While the Aztecs may well have thought themselves permanently rid of the Spanish, La Noche
Triste offered only a temporary respite from the European invaders. Cortés and his nowdiminished forces found refuge among their Tlaxcalan allies, where they regrouped and planned
for yet another assault on Tenochtitlán. In mid-1521, Cortés returned, strengthened with yet more
Mesoamerican allies, and laid siege to the Aztec capital. Bitter fighting ensued for several
months, often in the form of house-to-house combat, ending with the surrender of the last Aztec
emperor on August 13, 1521.
A Spanish account of this event comes from Francisco de Aguilar, a conquistador who took part
in the siege of Tenochtitlán, though he subsequently regretted his action and became a priest.
Much later in life, around 1560, he wrote an account of his experiences, including this
description of the final battle of the Spanish conquest.
Questions to consider as you examine the source:
•
•
How does Aguilar account for the Spanish victory?
How does he portray the Spanish and their Aztecs adversaries?
Francisco de Aguilar
Brief Record of the Conquest of New Spain, ca. 1560
[W]ith [Spanish] forces encircling the city and with the brigantines [warships], which were a
great help on the lake, the city [Tenochtitlán] began to be battered by land and water. In addition
great trouble was taken to cut off the fresh water from the springs, which reached the city by
conduits. . . .
The Christians wounded some of the Indians, and great numbers of Indians were killed in the
assaults on horseback and by the guns, harquebuses and crossbows. In spite of all this, they put
up their strong barricades, and opened causeways and canals and defended themselves
courageously. . . . They also killed some of the Spaniards and captured alive one of them called
Guzman, who was Cortés’s aide.
The war was sustained fiercely by both sides, since on our side we had the help of many
Tlaxcalan warriors, while the Mexicans [had the advantage of] their rooftops and high buildings
from which they battered us. . . . As soon as the Spaniards took any of the houses, which were all
on the water, they had the Tlaxcalan Indians demolish and level them, for this gave more
freedom to maneuver.
When some of the Indian lords inside the city began to see the danger they were in . . . , they
decided to escape by night . . . [and] came over to our side. . . . In addition to this, when the
Christians were exhausted from the war, God saw fit to send the Indians smallpox and there was
a great pestilence in the city, because there were so many people there, especially women, and
they had nothing more to eat. . . . Also for these reasons they began to slacken in their fighting.
The Mexicans, almost vanquished, withdrew to their fortresses on the water, and since a great
number of women were left among them, they armed them all and stationed them on the
rooftops. The Spaniards were alarmed at seeing so many of the enemy again, whooping and
shouting at them, and when they began killing them and saw they were women, there was
dismay on both sides.
[Twice the last Aztec ruler, Cuauhtemoc, refused Spanish offers to surrender in return for a
“pardon and many privileges.” Then he was finally captured.]
This done, the Spaniards seized the house that had been Cuauhtemoc’s stronghold, where they
found a great quantity of gold and jewels and other plunder. The Tlaxcalans, who were assisting
us in the war . . . , knew [the city’s] ins and outs, so that when they went home again, they were
rich with the spoils they took.
Source: Patricia de Fuentes, ed., The Conquistadors: First-Person Accounts of the Conquest of
Mexico (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), 158–62. Translation copyright © 1963
by Penguin Random House LLC. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin
Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
Source 13.5
Defeat: The Fall of Tenochtitlán from an Aztec Perspective
From The Florentine Codex comes an Aztec account of what was to them a devastating defeat.
The Codex is a compilation of text and images, compiled under the leadership of Fray
Bernardino de Sahagún, a Franciscan missionary who believed that an understanding of Aztec
culture was essential to the task of conversion. Because Sahagún relied on Aztec informants and
artists, many scholars believe that The Florentine Codex and other codices represent indigenous
understandings of the conquest. However, they require a critical reading. They date from several
decades after the events they describe. Many contributors to the codices had been influenced by
the Christian and European culture of their missionary mentors, and they were writing or
painting in a society thoroughly dominated by Spanish colonial rule. Furthermore, the codices
reflect the ethnic and regional diversity of Mesoamerica rather than a single Aztec perspective.
Despite such limitations, these codices represent a unique window into Mesoamerican
understandings of the conquest.
Questions to consider as you examine the source:
•
•
•
To what extent does this document confirm, contradict, or supplement Aguilar’s account
of the fall of Tenochtitlan?
How does this account explain the terrible defeat?
What posture toward the Spanish does this document reflect?
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún
The Florentine Codex, Mid-Sixteenth Century
Before the Spaniards appeared to us, first an epidemic broke out, a sickness of pustules. . . .
Large bumps spread on people; some were entirely covered. . . . [The disease] brought great
desolation. . . . They could no longer walk about, but lay in their dwellings and sleeping places,
no longer able to move or stir. . . . Very many people died of them; . . . starvation reigned, and no
one took care of others any longer. . . . The Mexica warriors were greatly weakened by it.
And when things were in this state, the Spaniards came. . . . The warriors fought in boats; the
war-boat people shot at the Spaniards, and their arrows sprinkled down on them. . . . Many times
they skirmished, and the Mexica went out to face them. . . .
When [the Spanish finished adjusting the guns], they shot at the wall. The wall then ripped and
broke open. The second time it was hit, the wall went to the ground; it was knocked down in
places, perforated, holes were blown in it. . . . [T]he warriors who had been lying at the wall
dispersed and came fleeing; everyone escaped in fear. And then all the different people [who
were on the side of the Spaniards] quickly went filling in the canals. . . . And when the canals
were stopped up, some horse[men] came. . . . And the Spaniards did not move at all; when they
fired the cannon, it grew very dark, and smoke spread. . . .
[In the fighting, the Aztecs captured fifty-three Spaniards and many of their allies.] Then [the
Aztecs] took the captives. . . . Some went weeping, some singing, some went shouting while
hitting their hands against their mouths. When they got to Yacacolco, they lined them all up.
Each one went to the altar platform, where the sacrifice was performed. The Spaniards went first,
going in the lead. . . . And when the sacrifice was over, they strung the Spaniards’ heads on
poles; they also strung up the horses’ heads. . . .
And the common people suffered greatly. There was famine; many died of hunger. They no
longer drank good, pure water, but the water they drank was salty. Many people died of it, and
because of it many got dysentery and died. Everything was eaten: lizards, swallows, maize straw,
grass that grows on salt flats. And they chewed at . . . wood, glue flowers, plaster, leather, and
deerskin, which they roasted, baked and toasted so that they could eat them, and they ground up
medicinal herbs and adobe bricks. There had never been the like of such suffering.
Along every stretch of road, the Spaniards took things from people by force. They were looking
for gold; they cared nothing for green stone, feathers, or turquoise. They looked everywhere with
the women, on their abdomens, under their skirts. And they looked everywhere with the men,
under their loincloths and in their mouths. And [the Spaniards] took, picked out the beautiful
women, with yellow bodies. And some of the women covered their faces with mud . . . , clothing
themselves in rags. . . .
And when the weapons were laid down and we collapsed, the year was Three House and the day
count was One Serpent.
Source: James Lockhart, ed. and trans., We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of
Mexico (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 108–18. Copyright 1993 by the
Regents of the University of California. Reprinted by permission.
C h a p t e r
1 3
Political Transformations
Empires and Encounters
1450–1750
European Empires in the Americas
The European Advantage
The Great Dying and the Little
Ice Age
The Columbian Exchange
Comparing Colonial Societies
in the Americas
In the Lands of the Aztecs and
the Incas
Colonies of Sugar
Settler Colonies in North America
The Steppes and Siberia: The
Making of a Russian Empire
Experiencing the Russian Empire
Russians and Empire
Asian Empires
Making China an Empire
Muslims and Hindus in the Mughal
Empire
Muslims and Christians in the
Ottoman Empire
Reflections: The Centrality of
Context in World History
Zooming In: Doña Marina:
Between Two Worlds
Zooming In: Devshirme:
The “Gathering” of Christian
Boys in the Ottoman Empire
Working with Evidence:
State Building in the Early
Modern Era
“What he [Vladimir Putin] wants to do, you can just see the lust in his
eyes, he wants to re-create the Russian empire, and this move on
Crimea is his first step.” So said U.S. senator Bill Nelson in March of
2014, referring to the Russian president’s actions in seizing Crimea
and in pressuring Ukraine to remain within a Russian sphere of influence. In reflecting on this very current political situation, the senator,
and many others as well, invoked the Russian Empire, which had taken
shape during the early modern era. In the same vein, commentators
on the economic and political resurgence of twenty-first-century Turkey often refer to it as an effort “to rebuild the Ottoman Empire,”
likewise a creation of the early modern era.1 In such ways, the memories of these earlier empires continue to shape understanding of
current events and perhaps to inspire actions in the present as well.
A
s these comments imply, empire building has been largely
discredited during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,
and “imperialist” has become a term of insult rather than a source
of pride. How very different were the three centuries (1450–1750)
of the early modern era, when empire building was a global process! In the Americas, the Aztec and Inca empires flourished before
they were incorporated into the rival empires of the Spanish, Portuguese, British, French, and Dutch, constructed all across the
Western Hemisphere. Within those imperial systems, vast transformations took place: old societies were destroyed, and new societies
arose as Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans came into sustained contact with one another for the first time in world history.
The Mughal Empire Among the most magnificent of the early modern empires was that of the Mughals in India. In this
painting by an unknown Mughal artist, the seventeenth-century emperor Shah Jahan is holding a durbar, or ceremonial assembly, in the audience hall of his palace. The material splendor of the setting shows the immense wealth of the court, while the
halo around Shah Jahan’s head indicates the special spiritual grace or enlightenment associated with emperors.
553
554
CHAPTER 13 / POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS, 1450–1750
It was a revolutionary encounter with implications that extended far beyond the
Americas themselves.
But European empires in the Americas were not alone on the imperial stage of
the early modern era. Across the immense expanse of Siberia, the Russians constructed what was then the world’s largest territorial empire, making Russia an Asian
as well as a European power. Qing (chihng) dynasty China penetrated deep into
Inner Asia, doubling the size of the country while incorporating millions of nonChinese people who practiced Islam, Buddhism, or animistic religions. On the
South Asian peninsula, the Islamic Mughal Empire brought Hindus and Muslims
into a closer relationship than ever before, sometimes quite peacefully and at other
times with great conflict. In the Middle East, the Turkish Ottoman Empire reestablished something of the earlier political unity of heartland Islam
SEEKING THE MAIN POINT
and posed a serious military and religious threat to European
Christendom.
In what ways did European empires
Thus the early modern era was an age of empire. Within
in the Americas resemble their Russian, Chinese, Mughal, and Ottoman
their borders, those empires mixed and mingled diverse peoples
counterparts, and in what respects
in a wide variety of ways. Those relationships represented a
were they different? Do you find the
new stage in the globalization process and new arenas of crosssimilarities or the differences more
cultural encounter. The transformations they set in motion
striking?
echo still in the twenty-first century.
European Empires in the Americas
Among the early modern empires, those of Western Europe were distinctive because
the conquered territories lay an ocean away from the imperial heartland, rather
than adjacent to it. Following the breakthrough voyages of Columbus, the Spanish
focused their empire-building efforts in the Caribbean and then, in the early sixteenth century, turned to the mainland, with stunning conquests of the powerful
but fragile Aztec and Inca empires. Meanwhile, the Portuguese established themselves along the coast of present-day Brazil. In the early seventeenth century, the
British, French, and Dutch launched colonial settlements along the eastern coast of
North America. From these beginnings, Europeans extended their empires to
encompass most of the Americas, at least nominally, by the mid-eighteenth century
(see Map 13.1). It was a remarkable achievement. What had made it possible?
The European Advantage
Connection
What enabled Europeans
to carve out huge empires
an ocean away from their
homelands?
Geography provides a starting point for explaining Europe’s American empires.
Countries on the Atlantic rim of Europe (Portugal, Spain, Britain, and France) were
simply closer to the Americas than were any potential Asian competitors. Furthermore, the fixed winds of the Atlantic blew steadily in the same direction. Once
these air currents were understood and mastered, they provided a far different maritime environment than the alternating monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean, in
EUROPEAN EMPIRES IN THE AMERICAS
A MAP OF TIME
1453
1464–1591
Ottoman conquest of Constantinople
Songhay Empire in West Africa
1480
Russia emerges from Mongol rule
1494
Treaty of Tordesillas divides the Americas between Spain and
Portugal
1501
Safavid Empire established in Persia/Iran
1519–1521
Spanish conquest of Aztec Empire
1526
Mughal Empire established in India
1529
Ottoman siege of Vienna
1530s
1532–1540
First Portuguese plantations in Brazil
Spanish conquest of Inca Empire
1550
Russian expansion across Siberia begins
1565
Spanish takeover of Philippines begins
1607
Jamestown, Virginia: first permanent English settlement in
Americas
1608
French colony established in Quebec
1680–1760
1683
After 1707
Chinese expansion into Inner Asia
Second Ottoman siege of Vienna
Fragmentation of Mughal Empire
which Asian powers had long operated. European innovations in mapmaking,
navigation, sailing techniques, and ship design — building on earlier models from
the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and Chinese regions — likewise enabled Europeans to penetrate the Atlantic Ocean. The enormously rich markets of the Indian
Ocean world provided little incentive for its Chinese, Indian, or Muslim participants to venture much beyond their own waters.
Europeans, however, were powerfully motivated to do so. After 1200 or so,
European elites were increasingly aware of their region’s marginal position in the
rich world of Eurasian commerce and were determined to gain access to that world.
Once the Americas were discovered, windfalls of natural resources, including highly
productive agricultural lands, drove further expansion, ultimately underpinning the
long-term growth of the European economy into the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Beyond these economic or ecological stimuli, rulers were driven by the
enduring rivalries of competing states. The growing and relatively independent merchant class in a rapidly commercializing Europe sought direct access to Asian wealth
555
Hudson
Strait
Hudson
Bay
.
eR
nc
wr
e
QUEBEC
.L
St
LOUISIANA
a
Quebec
Boston
i R.
New York
Mississip
p
NEW
SPAIN
Acapulco
St. Augustine
Gulf of
Mexico
Mexico City
Veracruz
ATL ANTIC
O CE AN
Jamestown
HAITI
CUBA
SANTO
DOMINGO
JAMAICA
Caribbean Sea
Panama City
NEW
GRANADA
PACIFIC
O C EA N
GUIANA
zon
Ama
PERU
R.
BRAZIL
Lima
Cuzco
Potosí
Rio de Janeiro
São Paulo
RÍO DE
LA PLATA
Dutch territories
English territories
French territories
Portuguese territories
Spanish territories
Buenos Aires
PAT
AG
ON
IA
Concepción
0
0
500
500 1,000 kilometers
Map 13.1 European Colonial Empires in the Americas
By the beginning of the eighteenth century, European powers had laid claim to most of the Western Hemisphere. Their wars and rivalries during that century led to an expansion of Spanish and
English claims, at the expense of the French.
556
1,000 miles
EUROPEAN EMPIRES IN THE AMERICAS
to avoid the reliance on Muslim intermediaries that they found so distasteful.
Impoverished nobles and commoners alike found opportunity for gaining wealth
and status in the colonies. Missionaries and others were inspired by crusading zeal
to enlarge the realm of Christendom. Persecuted minorities were in search of a new
start in life. All of these compelling motives drove the relentlessly expanding imperial frontier in the Americas. Summarizing their intentions, one Spanish conquistador declared: “We came here to serve God and the King, and also to get rich.”2
In carving out these empires, often against great odds and with great difficulty,
Europeans nonetheless bore certain advantages, despite their distance from home.
Their states and trading companies enabled the effective mobilization of both
human and material resources. Their seafaring technology, built on Chinese and
Islamic precedents, allowed them to cross the Atlantic with growing ease, transporting people and supplies across great distances. Their ironworking technology,
gunpowder weapons, and horses initially had no parallel in the Americas, although
many peoples subsequently acquired them.
Divisions within and between local societies provided allies for the determined
European invaders. Various subject peoples of the Aztec Empire, for example,
resented Mexica domination and willingly joined Hernán Cortés in the Spanish
assault on that empire. In the final attack on the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán,
Cortés’s forces contained fewer than 1,000 Spaniards and many times that number
of Tlaxcalans, former subjects of the Aztecs. After their defeat, tens of thousands of
Aztecs themselves joined Cortés as he carved out a Spanish Mesoamerican empire
far larger than that of the Aztecs. (See Zooming In: Doña Marina, page 558.) Much
of the Inca elite, according to a recent study, “actually welcomed the Spanish
invaders as liberators and willingly settled down with them to share rule of Andean
farmers and miners.”3 A violent dispute between two rival contenders for the Inca
throne, the broth …
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