[Sun] What was the impact of Cortés' trip to Mexico in 1519
In 1519, the German priest Martin Luther was distributing his pamphlet explaining his conflict with the Vatican.
In September of that year, Spain sent Ferdinand Magellan and his five ships to embark on an expedition, crossing the Atlantic Ocean westward, bypassing South America, to the spice island of Indonesia, a voyage that would complete the circumnavigation of the world in three years.
In November, Spanish authorities in the Americas sent Hernán Cortés, a 34-year-old former law school dropout, on a mission to Mexico, which they referred to as New Spain.
The Cuban governor was no longer friendly to Cortés and did not like Cortés' appointment. He recalled the expedition at the last minute, but Cortés had already left for Mexico with multiple ships with a crew of 600.
Cortés spent months in Mexico, taking sides in the conflict between local societies. He won gifts from the locals, including twenty women, one of whom became his mistress and translator.
He founded the town of Veracruz and was elected chief military and judicial officer by the town council, thus establishing an independent status in Santo Domingo from the Spanish authorities.
He was in Tenochtitlan, King Montezuma II of the Aztecs, and heard that Cortés was on his way. Montezuma believed that Cortés was the embodiment of the Quetzalcoatl god, and he returned to claim his people, and he planned to welcome Cortés and appease him with gifts – a common way of dealing with God.
Cortez arrived with his small force and about 1,000 Tlaxcatecs. He and his fellow Spaniards were struck by the size and beauty of Tenochtitlán, a city surrounded by water.
Herds of Aztecs came in canoes to see the White God and their supernatural animals. Montezuma came in a palanquin and treated the Spaniards as guests. He let them use one of his castles and entertained them for a week.
Cortés, in turn, took Montezuma hostage. He received gold and other gifts from Montezuma, male and female slaves and passivity of the Aztec nation. Cortés was the master of Tenochtitlan and claimed divine authority in Spain.
Offended by Aztec human sacrifice and widespread paganism, Cortés encouraged his subordinates to attack Aztec worship, thus undermining the Aztec theistic interpretation of events. The Spaniards began to drive the Aztec priests out of their temples and replaced the stone statues with crosses and images of the Virgin Mary.
A few months after the Spanish entered Tenochtitlan, Montezuma was still in captivity, and one of Cortés' subordinates attacked the crowd in the central square of Tenochtitlan, in an attempt to disrupt religious festivals. Many Aztec nobles were killed.
Apparently, at this time the Aztecs had a new perception of the Spaniards, who saw Montezuma as traitors. They threw stones, and Montezuma soon died of his wounds.
To escape the angry Aztecs, Cortés and his 1,300 men fought overnight out of the city. About half of his troops were killed, and some Spaniards were killed by an overload of precious metals.
Cortés and his troops returned to Tlaxcala, where they were welcomed by people with down-to-earth Machiavellian views. The power of the Aztecs was challenged, and the various peoples ruled by the Aztecs still saw an opportunity to move away from Aztec rule, and they continued to side with Cortés and Tlaxcala.
Spanish reinforcements and supplies arrived to strengthen Cortés' forces. Cortés won domination of neighboring territories from Tlaxcala, and in August 1521, Cortés returned to Tenochtitlan with an enlarged army of Spaniards and Indians.
They surrounded the city, cutting off the external supply of fresh water and food. They attacked the city on rafts and supported artillery, fighting block by block in the city.
The Tenochtitlans fought without guns, they suffered from smallpox, they were not immune to smallpox, unlike the Spaniards.
Five sixths of Tenochtitlan's land was destroyed. Montezuma's nephew and heir, Cuauhtémoc, surrendered. The surviving Aztecs abandoned the corpse-ridden and disease-ridden city, and everything that was left of the city was burned to the ground. Cuautemac would be executed in 1524, ending the lineage of Aztec kings.
Cortés renamed Tenochtitlan Mexico (Mexico City). The lands on which Columbus and Cortés set foot were claimed by the Spanish crown, Emperor Charles V of the Habsburgs, devout Roman Catholics and the first emperor to rule Castile, León and Aragon simultaneously in his own right.
Spaniards from the Caribbean began to flock to Mexico, where they married Indian mistresses, who gave birth to children and began a mixture of Spaniards and Indians. In a letter to King Charles, Cortés asked His Majesty the Pope to send the Franciscan and Dominican friars to Mexico.
Cortés returned to Spain in 1528 and denied in a conversation with King Charles that he had prevented the royal family from obtaining gold. He argues that he contributes more than a fifth of Mexico's wealth that he demands.
Cortés returned to Mexico in 1530, and Charles rewarded him with a large fortune and title, but Charles put someone else in charge of administering Mexico. In 1535, Antonio de Mendoza was appointed the first governor of New Spain, much to Cortés' great annoyance.
At the same time, Spain expanded in South America in a war fought in the name of Charles.
