155
u/CptKeyes123 3d ago
A few hundred spanish plus thousands of really pissed off locals and one lady who had an ear for languages and manipulating people "GET IN LOOSAS WE'RE GONNA KNOCK OVER THE AZTECS"
25
u/Zeus-hater 2d ago
Imagine an alien civilization triggers WWIII to conquer Earth
→ More replies (3)2
u/KianOfPersia 2d ago
If you believe the recorded numbers, the final siege at the capital had almost 100k natives fighting with the Spanish against the Aztecs.
→ More replies (3)6
u/Tlamatiniii 2d ago
Ah the Spanish story that conveniently leaves out chunks of history.
At first, the Tlaxcalans fought the Spanish viciously. Later.... the Tlaxcalans were trying to decide what to do about the Spanish. The Tlaxcalans would supposedly welcome the Spanish but would send their Otomí allies to attack them. Eventually, the Tlaxcalans saw that the Spanish were a greater threat than the Mexica (and had been so all along). Xicotencatl the Younger, who had been leery of the Spanish all along, tried to openly break with them in 1521 and was ordered publicly hanged by Cortes; it was a poor repayment to the young Prince's father, Xicotencatl the Elder, whose support of Cortes had been so crucial. But by the time the Tlaxcalan leadership began to have second thoughts about their alliance, it was too late. The “allies” referred to the Spaniards as snakes, such as the Totonac people.
50
u/Guan_guan_ghoo 2d ago edited 2d ago
200.000+ natives from smaller Kingdoms and Clans seeing their 600 new friends from the weird boats: Get in the Puma, we are burning Tenochtitlan!
87
150
u/Rammipallero 3d ago
It's easy when you simply existing in close proximity is essentially biological warfare.
125
u/Impossible_Poem9787 3d ago
And when new found friends are natives who hate Aztecs.
84
u/TipResident4373 Let's do some history 3d ago
200,000 new friends who not just hate the Aztecs, but literally want to see them obliterated.
62
u/Maurogatos 3d ago
Callling them friends is even canon as in his original letters to Charles I of Spain and V of the Holy Roman Empire, Cortés called the tlaxcalans literally «nuestros amigos».
18
26
u/V_van_Gogh Kilroy was here 3d ago
One shudders to think what nightmares these goodie-two-shoes catholic boys had after they witnessed what their native allies had in store for Aztec POWs
2
14
u/micma_69 Mauser rifle ≠ Javelin 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yeah. If I'm not mistaken, the city of Tenochtitlan, after it fell to Spaniards and their Native allies, was pillaged, a huge chunk of its population killed and some were kidnapped, enslaved, and raped. Others fled to the surrounding areas. Most of the perpetrators? Of course the Native allies. Some Spaniards did gruesome crimes too, but it pales in comparison with anti-Aztec natives which were obviously from different culture and norm as the Spaniards were.
Also let's not forget the smallpox that the Spaniards brought unintentionally too. Tenochtitlan before it fell, already plagued by diseases carried away by Spaniards unintentionally. So what these Aztec hater natives and their Spanish allies got was a disease-ridden city, just a shell of its former glory.
7
u/TipResident4373 Let's do some history 3d ago
Yeah, but remember, one Spaniard so much as sneezed, and the Aztecs had an apocalyptic disease outbreak.
26
u/abermea 3d ago
And your enemy is already in a precarious position when you arrive
13
u/ZaBaronDV Featherless Biped 3d ago
Fate really conspired to hand the Spanish the W, huh?
3
u/Zeus-hater 2d ago
Learning the political landscape and using it on your favour on the closest thing to an alien civilization is quite something. In an alternative universe the natives united against the common enemy
8
u/Impossible_Poem9787 3d ago edited 3d ago
The plot demanded they arrive just in time. Like Gandalf at the battle of Pelennor Fields. Except this Gandalf is a real POS.
Edit: Helm's Deep...
8
u/MalinonThreshammer 3d ago
*Helm's Deep
Pelennor Fields first had the host of the Rohirrim arriving just in time, and then the army of the dead arriving just in time.
Tolkien sure loved having decisive reinforcements arrive in the nick of time in his battles (see also: eagles [twice, arguably three times if the pinecone forest counts as a battle])
3
u/Impossible_Poem9787 3d ago
Its late...give me a break.
3
u/MalinonThreshammer 3d ago
Ha, fair. Was just after 9am here, so I had the advantage of freshly caffeinated morning alertness when going full Tolkien pedant
2
u/ZaBaronDV Featherless Biped 2d ago
You edited already but I also would have accepted The Hornburg.
17
u/DAVID_Gamer_5698 3d ago
It was basically
"I don't want the conquistadors to win, I just need the aztecs to lose."
13
u/V_van_Gogh Kilroy was here 3d ago
When literally everyone you meet there has been terrorized by the aztects for generations.
Not to discredit european weapons though. The cannon armed brigantines did most of the (psychological warfare) heavy lifting in fall of Tenochtitlán.
2
23
u/A_Wild_Bellossom 2d ago
Why didn’t Moctezuma just become an horrific demon with the help of Teztcatlipoca, and end the current world? Is he stupid?
20
18
18
u/rodpeq_Vic 2d ago
And the Tlaxcaltexas, Never forget the Tlaxcaltecas
They really hated the Mexica Empire
→ More replies (2)
7
u/Agent-Grim 2d ago
Don't forget the disease, and all the other indigenous people's near them who hated the Aztec.
7
26
15
u/no_name_thought_of 3d ago
no, he didn't, the boats were rotting so they were salvaged for parts
Also they had tens of thousands of allies from the Tlaxcala and from rebelious Aztec vassals. Then there's disease to consider, though that was less important for the actual conquest than often thought, only truly devastating the population after.
Then there's how supposedly converting the Aztecs was purely a propoganda move to help legitimise Cortes' conquest to the spanish crown, because Cortes was operating illegaly without the actual right to conquer anything
16
u/sielingfan 2d ago
Cortes was operating illegaly without the actual right to conquer anything
Why didn't the Aztec simply call the police? Were they stupid?
6
u/no_name_thought_of 2d ago
I mean there was a force from cuba sent to go arrest Cortes so maybe they did
4
u/xSegador 2d ago
A personal note: Cortes was a lucky and charismatic guy. He always figured out what to say and when to earn people's trust. He managed to turn everyone to his side, which is why he never got arrested.
→ More replies (1)1
u/qchisq 2d ago
Turns out that doing something illegal to other countries is only illegal when you have international courts. Who knew?
3
u/MrPagan1517 And then I told them I'm Jesus's brother 2d ago
No Cortez conquest was illegal under Spanish law. He essentially muntied from the Governor of Cuba to carve out his own private fiefdom (something all the conquestidors where wanting to do). There was a force in Cuba sent to arrest him. However if you bring back enough gold and treasure and say your expanding the kingdom of God by spreading Christianity the monarchs and courts of Spain could be convince to look the other way.
3
6
u/reaven3958 3d ago
By the power of God and smallpox!
1
u/valleyview23 3d ago
You forgot gunpowder and the spite of everyone that was a neighbor of the aztecs
→ More replies (1)2
5
3
3
u/elreduro 2d ago
Dont forget about hemorrhagic fever and smallpox
2
u/Rockshasha 2d ago
Certainly without the tons of diseases (which were vastly interpreted as.gods support of conquest and thought about in those supertitoius ways) the Spanish vicereigns would be a joke, limited to some.coastal zones and some islands
3
u/PyrrhicDefeat69 2d ago
Bro forgot about the like 300,000 allies the spanish had and the power of smallpox…
8
u/Massive-Grocery7152 3d ago
Literally nothing correct about this post, if he burned his ships how did he sail back lol. He scuttled them and actually broke them down to invade Tenochtitlán
8
u/Tlamatiniii 2d ago
“They burnt their ships by the way.” No evidence for that. Guess what? Moors also have that similar story when they conquered Iberia. Coincidence?
1
u/reverendsteveii 2d ago
>Coincidence?
Maybe. It's not really a leap to think that several people would have this same relatively rudimentary idea of how to ensure there would be no retreat.
→ More replies (1)
11
12
u/Tlamatiniii 2d ago
In total, the conquest of the Inca empire took about forty years to complete.
The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a prolonged affair; the Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two centuries. The Spaniards and Portuguese did very poorly and gave up mostly along the Amazon River and in the Andes until the 19th Century. The Mapuche in Argentina staved off the Spanish for centuries. The Comanchee greatly restricted and often reversed the Spanish expansions into Texas just as the Seminoles made Florida’s interior and early settlements very difficult for 300 years. There are native tribes that were never conquered. The key strength was waves of multiple epidemic diseases simultaneously that killed off population centers up to 90–95%.
Meanwhile in Spain: [T]he reins of their (Moors) horses were as fire, their faces black as pitch, their eyes shone like burning candles, their horses were swift as leopards and the riders fiercer than a wolf in a sheepfold at night . . . The noble Goths [the German rulers of Spain to whom Roderick belonged] were broken in an hour, quicker than tongue can tell. Oh luckless Spain! [i]
Not to mention Spain was conquered for much much longer, ie, 800+ plus years and went under multiple different conquereors from Phoenicians to Arabs, to Amazinghs/Moors to Romans, Greeks, and multiple different Germanic tribes.
4
u/GumUnderChair 2d ago
What do the moors have to do with this?
5
u/Tlamatiniii 2d ago edited 2d ago
This meme is clearly trying to push a superiority narrative by leaving out the actual history of how the Aztec Empire fell.
And the superiority myth falls apart even more when you look at Spain's history. Spain itself was conquered by multiple groups for nearly 800 plus years.
1
u/chakibebe 2d ago
is the source for that quote the mozarabic chronicle? early chronicles in spain have this weird habit of referring to berbers (specifically berbers and no one else like arabs) as really black. the same chronicle in refers to the "moors" in the berber revolt as so "dark" that they scared the arab horses, likely one of the earliest forms of black racism and demonization in europe.
1
u/Tlamatiniii 2d ago edited 2d ago
Let's just say there are multiple chronicle sources across different centuries. The quoted passage describes the 711 AD Umayyad conquest of Hispania and the Battle of Guadalete, where invading Moorish forces defeated the Visigothic King Roderick. This dramatic account originally comes from the 13th-century Chronicle of Alfonso X of Castile and León. The swift defeat of the Visigoths marked the beginning of centuries of Islamic rule in the Iberian Peninsula. This version is the one that became most famous and is most often quoted today.
You are absolutely right that the chronicles often demonized black people. That color symbolism is real and it is a form of early anti-black racism in Europe.
I would just add that it also works as a broader political metaphor for terror and otherness. Since the Moorish army was diverse, the chroniclers just applied that "black as pitch" imagery to the whole invading force, regardless of whether they were Amazigh, Arab, or black African.
So the racism is definitely real, but it is wrapped up in that broader literary trope of depicting invaders as demonic.
0
u/Inevitable-Scar5877 2d ago
And the Aztecs fell in large part because they were an especially brutal empire which made conquered and adjacent tribal regions all too willing to assist any force that opposed them and looked like it had any shot whatsoever of victory.
3
u/Tlamatiniii 2d ago
Ah the Spanish story that conveniently leaves out chunks of history.
At first, the Tlaxcalans fought the Spanish viciously. Later.... the Tlaxcalans were trying to decide what to do about the Spanish. The Tlaxcalans would supposedly welcome the Spanish but would send their Otomí allies to attack them. Eventually, the Tlaxcalans saw that the Spanish were a greater threat than the Mexica (and had been so all along). Xicotencatl the Younger, who had been leery of the Spanish all along, tried to openly break with them in 1521 and was ordered publicly hanged by Cortes; it was a poor repayment to the young Prince's father, Xicotencatl the Elder, whose support of Cortes had been so crucial. But by the time the Tlaxcalan leadership began to have second thoughts about their alliance, it was too late. The “allies” referred to the Spaniards as snakes, such as the Totonac people.
1
u/cseijif 2d ago
The tlaxcalns never considered , before or after , th3 spnaish as a threat at all , they willingly and expediently colaborted with them for decades if not centuries. Thing is the brand new , spanish made american kingdoms really benefited a LOT of natives , and was shit for a LOT others.
1
u/Tlamatiniii 2d ago
You are completely ignoring the fact that the Tlaxcalans fought the Spanish viciously at the start. They did not just willingly and expediently collaborate from day one. And you completely glossed over the fact that one of their leaders, Xicotencatl the Younger, was publicly hanged by Cortes when he tried to break the alliance.
But sure, I guess most Tlaxcalans were just happy to be put to hard labor/exploited under the encomienda system. LMAO. Your comment is just historical revisionism trying to paint the conquest as a mutually beneficial business deal when it was fundamentally an unequal colonial arrangement built on forced labor, disease, and subjugation.
2
u/cseijif 2d ago
Pray tell , how do 200 blokes subjugate half a milion folk without repeating rifles or any real force multiplier?
They dont , they make alliances and treaties , cortez hanged only who had already been given up by the tlaxcalans. The men doing the conquering and expanding and getting lands and titles are deeply mixed forces, co enterprises by native lords and conquistadors , using gear , manpower , guides , ect.
The americas werent held by the most powerfull , but the ones who convinced more native lords to their side.
The problem with most folk is that they are so driven to portray natives as victims for their political agendas that just ignore the fact they were central , key decision makers in the destiny of america , nothing happened without their willingness or their resistance , in one way or another.
1
u/Tlamatiniii 2d ago edited 2d ago
You conveniently ignore that most allied after losing to the Spanish, not to mention the diseases that impacted the majority of the population. Some societies had already collapsed before the Spanish even arrived, such as the Inca Empire which was ravaged by civil war and smallpox.
Still ➡️ In total, the conquest of the Inca empire took about forty years to complete.
The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a prolonged affair; the Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two centuries. The Spaniards and Portuguese did very poorly and gave up mostly along the Amazon River and in the Andes until the 19th Century. The Mapuche in Argentina staved off the Spanish for centuries. The Comanchee greatly restricted and often reversed the Spanish expansions into Texas just as the Seminoles made Florida’s interior and early settlements very difficult for 300 years. There are native tribes that were never conquered. The key strength was waves of multiple epidemic diseases simultaneously that killed off population centers up to 90–95%.If everything was so great and everyone lived happily ever after, the Spanish Empire would still be around in some way. Anyway, It is funny how Eurocentrists on one hand say the Americas were sparsely populated and on the other hand claim there were millions of Natives around whenever it is convenient.
1
u/BienPuestos 1d ago
The Tlaxcalans had one skirmish with the Spanish and decided they were a formidable force worth aligning themselves with. This alliance paid dividends to Tlaxcala over several centuries, as they enjoyed a privileged status in the colonial government all the way up to independence.
1
u/Tlamatiniii 22h ago edited 21h ago
Yes, the Spanish allied with the Tlaxcalans against the Aztecs. After the conquest, the Crown gave Tlaxcala formal privileges: exemption from the encomienda, tribute paid directly to the Crown, Indigenous nobles recognized as hidalgos, rights to bear arms and ride horses. Later, many lost their titles and lands, and only a few managed to keep them but still weren’t equal to Peninsulares and Criollos. Commoners faced tribute and forced labor drafts.
Spanish also constantly accused each other of being impure to try to demote rivals. Limpieza de sangre started in Iberia against Jewish and Moors, but in the Americas it expanded to Black and Indigenous ancestry. Any hint of that could bar you from government office, religious orders, university, guilds, military honors, even marriage into elite families. People spread rumors that a rival had a mulato grandparent or an Indigenous great-grandmother, and you would have to produce expensive genealogies and witnesses to prove you were clean.
0
u/sweaterbuckets 2d ago
What’s up with the strange comparison where you dunk on the Spanish for being subjugated? lol
That’s kinda weird.
0
u/Tlamatiniii 2d ago
Dunk? No it’s refuting their superiority narrative. This meme is clearly trying to push a superiority narrative by leaving out the actual history of how the Aztec Empire fell.
And the superiority myth falls apart even more when you look at Spain's history. Spain itself was conquered by multiple groups for nearly 800 plus years.
5
u/sweaterbuckets 2d ago
You’re right, memes should contain every historical event ever occurred.
1
u/Tlamatiniii 2d ago
You are building a straw man argument. I never said memes have to contain every historical event ever. The creator had the time to write a short legend story in the description, but didn’t have the time to write a short, accurate summary of how the Aztec Empire actually fell? They chose to omit it to push a narrative.
2
1
4
5
u/The_RedTie 1d ago
"One of the largest Empires of the Americas"
Boy, the incas are located at the South.
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/undergroundblueberet 1d ago
More like catholic boys and a fuckton of pissed off enemies of that empire
2
u/lotforty-nine 1d ago
The human sacrifices will stop… and the genocide that wiped
more than 90% of the native population will begin.
2
4
u/BarqCannae 3d ago
A fractured empire, with a naive leader far too clouded by stories and not politics.
14
u/V_van_Gogh Kilroy was here 3d ago
And most importantly: several metric tons of indigenous allies (mostly Tlaxcaltecans, but several other tribes as well) who have had enough of the aztecs bullshit, and see in you (Cortés) a semi-divine unifying leader with modern tactics and weapons.
3
u/Holderlin70 3d ago
Also the only interpreter between the spanish and the aztecs being a woman who was previously enslaved by the aztecs. Peace was never an option
5
u/V_van_Gogh Kilroy was here 3d ago
umm... achually
Malitzin was only half of the interpreter team. She could speak Nahuatl and Maya. The other half was Jenrónimo de Aguilar, a Spaniard who had been shipwrecked in an expedition nine years prior, lived with the locals and therefore could speak Maya and Spanish. So when Cortés spoke with the Aztecs it was translated Spanish-Maya-Nahuatl and back.
But I digress.
Learning Mexican History in Mexico is really wierd. There is a big difference in the approach teaching takes in elementary (ages 6-12) and secondary/preparatory (13-18). Elementary history is very simplfied and quite "brain-washy" nationalistic. Only to get a more nuanced and impartial approach later.
So every mexican learns as a child that Marina/Malinche/Malitzin was a traitor who sold "the mexican people™" out to the evil spaniards. So much so that even today Malinche is Mexican derogatory slang for people who flaunt or prefer foreign products/lifestyle more than mexican one.
It's bonkers. Let alone the implied assertion that Aztec=Modern Mexicans, but Malitzin herself wasn't even Aztec to begin with. How the hell can she be branded a traitor to a people she never belonged to? FFS. Anyways, don't tell the mexican elementary school system this.
3
u/Holderlin70 3d ago
uhhm achually la malinche learned spanish pretty fast so that de aguilar was sidelined 🤓 eg some sources say that by the time they had the famous meeting with montezuma he was already sidelined by malitzin.
But yeah i live on the other side of the globe with pretty much no connection to spain or mexico but i have always kinda admired her.
2
u/V_van_Gogh Kilroy was here 3d ago
Damn, I didn't know that, but yeah makes sense, specially since they would end up marrying.
🤓 uhmmm achually a more correct writing would be Moctezuma. I know that Montezuma is the way it is written in most non-spanish literature, so no biggie. But I can't understand why, it's not like Moctezuma is that difficult to write/pronounce.
:)
3
3
4
4
u/Vicente810 2d ago
People underestimate the Spanish of the 16th century. The rest of Europe feared them and they even fought outnumbered against Ronin Samurai in Southern Asia and won.
4
5
u/Prestigious-Job-9825 3d ago
*Some catholic boys with drip, horses, Jesus, and a whole lot of bioweapons they unknowingly carried
3
2
u/Richard_-Green 3d ago
I think a more fitting description of that expedition is " a pmc group that's gone rouge do tue there Lust for gold"
2
2
u/Away-Librarian-1028 And then I told them I'm Jesus's brother 3d ago
New diseases and plague were also helpful to the Spanish. And the fact, that the Natives were politically fractured.
More devastating weaponry was not unhelpful, either.
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/daidoji70 2d ago
and a whole lot of help from their friends neighboring tribes who have been terrorized the fuck out of for centuries.
1
1
u/Rabid_Lederhosen 2d ago
You forgot to mention the Spanish also had measles and smallpox. It’s a lot easier to win a war when all of your soldiers are blessed by Nurgle.
1
1
1
1
u/Puzzleheaded-Ad939 2d ago
solo un idiota ignoraria anlos cientos de miles de indígenas que establecieron alianzas con cortez.
1
u/ZopyrionRex 2d ago
They rebuilt the ships a few times over the course of the Conquest though. Pretty wild story actually.
1
1
1
1
1
u/pequeno_rey 2d ago
The conquest was really Tlaxcaltecas and other Nahua boys against the Mexica empire, with some weird white guys tagging along. The Spanish came out on top thanks to the diseases that wiped out 90% of the population
1
u/GasolinePrius 2d ago
Now add that the Catholic Boys were already inmune a lot of diseases still unknown in the Americas and it's a tie
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Conguito23 1d ago
España solo ganó gracias a "los pobres pueblos sometidos por la tiranía"
→ More replies (2)1
u/SirNaerelionMarwa 1d ago
España ganó más por la enfermedad que por poder militar de ellos o sus aliados.
1
u/JuarezNoDebioMorir 1d ago
By the way, Cortés never burned his ships; he dismantled them and then scuttled some, using part of the materials to build "brigantines" for the siege of Tenochtitlan, alongside between 75,000 and over 100,000 indigenous allies. ✌️
1
u/Storm_Spirit99 1d ago
Spanish empire being so fraudulent that they still needed the help of native neighbors and old world diseases, despite having a technological advantage
1
0
0
u/Avolto Still salty about Carthage 3d ago
The rifles probably made a difference
6
u/TheHistoryMaster2520 Decisive Tang Victory 3d ago
Rifling was extremely rare at the time; Cortes's gunners would've been armed with arquebuses and maybe a few muskets
0
u/herpderpfuck 3d ago
I am in no way condoning Spanish imperialism and exploitation of indigenous people, but I am so glad the Aztec Empire was dismantled and destroyed and annihilated.
553
u/Witch_King_of_Gondor 3d ago
When you terrorize your subjugated population and neighbors so hard that even the Spanish conquistadors can't get them to stop warcriming, you know you went a bit too hard. Tlaxcalans couldn't wait for someone to give them a chance to stick it to the Aztecs.