Conquistadors The Rise and Fall Episode 3 The Aztec Conquest
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00:00The year is 1517, a quarter of a century has passed since Christopher Columbus stumbled
00:16across the islands of the Caribbean, launching a period of continuous Spanish presence in
00:22the New World.
00:24There was money to be made here, and yet the mainland remained to be explored.
00:31This curious continent offered even greater financial promise, its potential captivating
00:37the ambitious mind of one power-hungry royal bureaucrat, Hernán Cortés.
00:44It would be Cortés who would tire of his government position, and risk pushing boundaries
00:50never before breached by Europeans.
00:53Would he really be able to control and defeat the Aztecs?
01:11There was this young man by the name of Hernán Cortés on the island of Cuba.
01:17He was an official that worked under the governor Velázquez.
01:21He was very ambitious.
01:24Cortés is a fascinating fellow.
01:27He is from Extremadura, the western part of Castile.
01:32He was fairly well-educated for a man of his time.
01:37He comes from the very, very lowest rank of nobility in Spain, individuals called hijo
01:46de algo.
01:47That means son of somebody.
01:48They come from a known lineage.
01:50He became a colonist, and he spent some time in Hispaniola, where he was actually a notary.
01:57It was like a dead-end job.
01:59So he joined the expedition to actually settle the island of Cuba.
02:06Hernán Cortés was smart, and he was ruthless.
02:10Rising swiftly through the ranks of the Cuban government, by the age of 33 he had
02:15been promoted to municipal magistrate by Governor Diego Velázquez.
02:22With this respected position came a generous encomienda, the right to force labor and take
02:28whatever he liked, whenever he liked, from the island's indigenous people.
02:35In Cuba he became quite wealthy, but the truth of the matter is that actually he comes from
02:40relative obscurity.
02:42He was never the protagonist of any great events in the conquest or colonization of
02:47either Hispaniola or Cuba, and it seems that he might have been chosen for the role by
02:52Velázquez because Velázquez thought that he could actually manipulate him or keep him
02:56under his control.
02:59But Cortés was growing hungry for more.
03:03He sought adventure.
03:05He dreamt of glory.
03:07Nowhere better to fulfill these boyish needs than beyond the confines of the Caribbean.
03:14Only there, in Mesoamerica, could he ever rise to become the most famous of all the
03:19conquistadors.
03:20So there's a peculiar feature of the Spanish and European presence in the New World.
03:26Columbus' voyage, as we know, is in 1492.
03:29And for fully 25 years, a quarter of a century, the Spaniards remain in the Caribbean.
03:33And it's because the early Spanish experience in the New World was actually quite disappointing.
03:38These were not people, the native Caribbeans, who built large cities.
03:42They hadn't accumulated vast amounts of precious metals.
03:46Even their agriculture was relatively non-intensive.
03:49So in other words, there didn't seem to be much incentive to further Spanish exploration.
03:55But during that period, nevertheless, they're sending out feeler expeditions down to Trinidad
04:01along the northern coast of South America, Venezuela, what's now Colombia, the southern
04:06coast of North America in Florida.
04:12Indigenous mainlanders were wooed and interrogated by the Spanish on these exploratory trips.
04:19The colonists sought healthy, farmable land and the labor to work it.
04:26And yet just about everything, no matter its long-term potential, paled in comparison
04:31to their ultimate desire.
04:35The Spanish had this insatiable thirst for gold.
04:41Gold to Spaniards was not just a kind of monetary thing, nor was it a mere embellishment.
04:48It was a symbol of honor, of grandeur, of stature.
04:55It had a kind of web of symbolic meanings around it that made it far more than just
05:01a precious metal.
05:04Twelve years after the death of Queen Isabella, the Spanish crown had landed with her grandson,
05:10Charles.
05:11The young king's desire for total power across Europe required gold, vast supplies of this
05:18precious metal which could buy him his dominance.
05:27And who was already exploring the mysteries of the New World, where legend spoke of cities
05:31built from this rare treasure?
05:35Charles was about to offer the full weight of his support to the conquistadors and Cuba's
05:40governor, Diego Velazquez.
05:44Velazquez had commissioned two voyages of exploration within the general confines of
05:51the Gulf of Mexico.
05:54Francisco Hernández de Córdoba commanded the first expedition to the Yucatan Peninsula.
06:01He and his crew faced fierce resistance from the Maya population.
06:06Many never returned.
06:11One of a handful of survivors was Bernal DĂaz, who returned to Cuba with gripping
06:16tales of a highly advanced, vastly powerful civilization.
06:22They had explored part of the Yucatan Peninsula and they had obviously heard rumors that there
06:28were other polities farther north worth exploring.
06:32One year later, DĂaz would return in search of this marvelous, dangerous metropolis.
06:39With him was Governor Velazquez's nephew, the explorer Juan de Grijalva, and 200 men
06:45armed with gunpowder weaponry.
06:52Gruesome tales of guerrilla warfare in the jungles of Campeche, leading to dozens of
06:57fatalities and injuries, including Grijalva being hit by three separate arrows and breaking
07:03two of his teeth.
07:07Was Grijalva missing, or worse, dead?
07:10Who would track down and finally bring him home to the safety of his uncle, Governor Velazquez?
07:17Meanwhile, Cortés grew restless.
07:19He yearned for his very own opportunity to storm the mainland and secure its bounty.
07:27The idea that he brought to Velazquez was to go in search of Juan de Grijalva.
07:36And so it was initially seen as a recovery mission.
07:41So in 1519, he was ordered by Velazquez to undertake an expedition.
07:48Shortly before leaving on the expedition, his ambition and arrogance began to put doubts
07:52in Velazquez's head.
07:53So he changed his mind and told Cortés he was not to sail.
07:57The message from the governor got there in time, but Cortés chose to ignore it and sail
08:01toward Mexico in 1519.
08:04There are 10 ships, probably some 500 men all told, which is unquestionably the biggest
08:12expedition that had been launched at the time.
08:17And it becomes clear rather quickly that although Cortés had been telling Velazquez that he
08:24was just going to go off and find Grijalva, or he was just going to go off and do more
08:29reconnaissance, that he had an ulterior motive.
08:34He follows the traditional path to go to the east coast of Yucatán, encounters Maya groups
08:42around to the west coast of Yucatán, and then up the Gulf of Mexico, encountering natives,
08:48having battles, taking on water, but also gaining huge amounts of information.
08:57At last, a truly promising discovery.
09:01A landscape flush with exotic creatures and colorful plants, populated by an indigenous
09:08people whose civilization appeared to be remarkably advanced.
09:14Finally, on Good Friday of 1519, they make a more or less permanent camp near what is
09:25now Veracruz, Mexico.
09:28They then declare themselves an independent city and in essence abrogate their contract
09:37with Diego Velazquez.
09:40They send out smaller expeditions to look at the surrounding area.
09:47They entertain emissaries from the Mexica, folks who we call the Aztecs, and make the
09:56decision that there is more here than meets the eye.
10:02It was merely the tip of the iceberg.
10:05Cortés must have been trembling with excitement.
10:09The determined conquistador knew that he and his men were teetering on the precipice of
10:15an immeasurable wilderness, home to a countless number of highly developed civilizations and
10:21cultures.
10:30Before the arrival of Europeans, the Americas are a really varied and in many places a densely
10:37populated landscape.
10:39There's peoples in tropical areas, in deserts, as well as the Incan highlands or the highlands
10:46of the Andes.
10:48There are large numbers of peoples in parts of the Amazon basin and also in the American
10:55Midwest around the Mississippi River.
10:59The most densely populated regions are in temperate and tropical areas, particularly
11:05around Central Mexico, what we talk about as Mesoamerica or Middle America.
11:11In the north there are what we talk about as the Aztec, the Mexica people who speak
11:15Nahuatl.
11:17To the south there are Maya peoples who speak Mayan languages.
11:22So we think of Mesoamerica as this fairly unified cultural area, even though we have
11:28many different native groups.
11:31There are certain common cultural aspects which they all share, such as a base-20 number
11:39system, such as a complex calendar system.
11:47Certainly Mesoamerica was one of the most densely populated areas on the globe.
11:54Back in Cuba, Governor Velazquez was furious.
11:59Cortes had actively chosen to ignore his clear and strict orders.
12:03He was no longer welcome or safe to return home, and so his only option was whatever
12:10lay ahead.
12:12If he was to stand any sort of chance at surviving out here, Cortes knew he must find an effective
12:18way to communicate with the Maya and Aztec people.
12:25At the beginning of the Cortes expedition, when the Spaniards land on Cozumel, just off
12:31the coast of Yucatan, they hear word that some Spaniards who had been shipwrecked there
12:36six years earlier had survived.
12:39And particularly one called JerĂłnimo de Aguilar comes running out of the woods.
12:46First they don't even recognize him as a Spaniard.
12:49He starts speaking in Spanish.
12:50He wants to know what day it is.
12:53He's been living among the Maya of Yucatan ever since his shipwreck and has learned Maya.
12:58He's had to learn Maya in order to survive.
13:00He then is incorporated into the expedition.
13:03Then when they begin to enter the Aztec Empire, there they have an encounter with a local
13:08indigenous group where the men who rule give the Spaniards 20 girls.
13:14One of those girls, the Spaniards baptize Doña Marina.
13:19She spoke both Nahuatl and one of the more common Maya languages.
13:25So through Doña Marina and de Aguilar, they could communicate with the vast majority of
13:30all native peoples in central Mexico.
13:34Cortes would soon grow reliant on Doña Marina, his translator, negotiator, and indispensable
13:42cultural mediator.
13:44Without her, Cortes and his men would never have survived.
13:49They then organized themselves in order to go inland.
13:54And this is the dramatic moment because in an expedition of 10 ships, 500 and some men,
14:02about half of those men were sailors.
14:06They figured that, heck, by June, they were going to be home with the wife and kids.
14:11And all of a sudden, this guy says, sorry, we're going inland.
14:16You have two choices.
14:17You can go dandle your child on your knee or you can become filthy rich.
14:22It's up to you.
14:24What we then do, we keelhaul all the ships and we dismantle them.
14:28We take all of the metal fittings, all of the blocks, all of the lines, all the sails,
14:35and we store it.
14:36The hulks we burn.
14:39Now, a lot of romantic authors of the 19th century have seen this as a cataclysmic moment.
14:47You're either with me or you're against me and I just burn the ships.
14:52There's no way you can get home.
14:54Well, I mean, that's a delightful idea.
14:57It's quite romantic.
14:59But the truth is those ships had been in tropical waters probably for two to three years by
15:06that time.
15:08If you leave the ships in the water, they are going to disintegrate.
15:13So you might as well pull them out, salvage all the material that you possibly can because
15:18you can always rebuild them.
15:20Remember, half of your crew are sailors and their ship's carpenters and all the like.
15:27You can rebuild those ships.
15:29And so even though we see the burning of the ships as this very dramatic turning point,
15:34it really wasn't.
15:35It was quite practical.
15:43Six months had passed.
15:49Cortés, having explored great lengths of the coastline, was by now highly aware that
15:55the region's preeminent power were the mighty Mexica.
16:00The Mexicas, or better known as the Aztecs, were an extraordinarily hierarchical society,
16:06not that different to Spanish society in some ways.
16:10The leader known as the Tlatoani of the Aztecs was in that time Moctezuma.
16:16Their society began in the 11th and 12th century somewhere to the northwest in a process of
16:24migration that may have lasted 200 years.
16:29They entered into the well-watered area of the central basin of Mexico, what we now know
16:37as the Valley of Mexico, where Mexico City is located.
16:41They set up a capital in the middle of a lake, Lake Texcoco in central Mexico.
16:48From the middle of this lake, they built a capital city, the capital of Tenochtitlan,
16:54which was the capital of what became what we might think of as the Aztec Empire.
17:00The city itself could have housed as many as a quarter of a million people, many, many
17:05times the size of London at the same period.
17:09And they then used military force to expand their power and control beyond the central
17:16basin of Mexico until it encompasses from north central Mexico all the way down into
17:22Central America.
17:25But the truth is, most of the Aztec Empire was not a formal political entity, but rather
17:35it was an imperial system which was based upon the payment of taxes.
17:41We'll leave you alone if you pay your taxes to us.
17:46The Mesoamerican tradition in terms of religious and cosmological views is that just like humans
17:53need to eat, gods need to eat.
17:56That meant sacrifices during particular parts of the year.
18:01Some sacrifice took the form of things like everyday items like corn or maize, but particularly
18:07in important periods it would have been human or blood sacrifices.
18:14August 1519, forever enticed by the scent of power, Cortes requests a meeting with Mexica
18:21ruler Moctezuma.
18:24He's swiftly rejected.
18:27Seeking to meet Moctezuma, Cortes sought a different approach.
18:32He would lead his 600 Spaniards, including a handful of horsemen, dragging their ship's
18:36cannons into the jungle, heading inland towards the Aztec leader's home, Tenochtitlan.
18:44It seems that Doña Marina was able to explain to Cortes that the Aztecs actually had this
18:49rival indigenous group that hated them vehemently and would ally with the Spanish.
18:55The Tlaxcalans were an independent, almost autonomous, resistant community who hated
19:01the Aztecs more than anyone.
19:04Folks have calculated that probably as many as 100,000 Tlaxcalans then begin to fight
19:10alongside of the Spaniards.
19:15The Spaniards then move on to the important cultural center of Cholula, where the local
19:23elements attempt to annihilate the Spaniards by attacking them in the night, working in
19:31concert, we believe, with the Mexica of Mexico City.
19:37The Spaniards learn about the plot, thanks to Doña Marina, and are able to foil it.
19:44And then the entire expedition of Spaniards and natives enter into the valley of Mexico.
19:59Exhausted, Cortes and his men finally emerge from the claustrophobic forest to a mesmerizing
20:06sight.
20:09Masterfully crafted waterways flowing through a vast city, overlooked by magnificent pyramids.
20:19This was the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.
20:25Standing on the ridge, looking down into the central valley of Mexico, the central basin,
20:32it would have just been quite literally mind-boggling to see a population center of hundreds of
20:39thousands of people, and then this crystalline lake with a city placed in the middle of it.
20:48When we saw all those cities and villages built in the water, we were astounded.
20:55These great towns and temples and buildings rising from the water, all made of stone,
21:01seemed like an enchanted vision.
21:04Indeed, some of our soldiers asked whether it was not all a dream.
21:08It was all so wonderful that I do not know how to describe this first glimpse of things
21:13never heard of, seen, nor dreamt of before.
21:18November 8th, 1519.
21:22Cortes and his men arrive at the gates of the city.
21:26This was a risky tactic, leaving his army open to attack.
21:31Perhaps Moctezuma was superstitious or simply anxious that the tense atmosphere might tip
21:37over into violence.
21:40Either way, he offered the Spaniards a peaceful welcome.
21:46They're put in one of the palaces in the central religious district of the Mexica.
21:53In the midst of all this splendor, they noticed these large pyramids that were temples, and
21:58they saw that they were blood-soaked.
22:00And they were horrified to learn that this blood was because of human sacrifice.
22:06Of course, human sacrifice for them is horrible, and they continually complain about it.
22:13The Mexicas seem to diminish it a little bit for their benefit.
22:21As the months passed, this uneasy truce began to crumble.
22:26Political aggression and coercion poisoning the relationship between Cortes and his host.
22:33Cortes seizes Moctezuma as his prisoner, locking him in his own palace.
22:39Historic documents suggest he turned the Aztec into a puppet ruler.
22:44Now, using his hostage, the man who had welcomed him in as his mouthpiece, Cortes was in charge
22:52of Tenochtitlan.
22:55But back in Cuba, Governor Velazquez had not forgotten Cortes' disobedience in setting
23:00sail against his orders.
23:04After a couple of months, word reaches Cortes that Velazquez had sent out a punitive expedition
23:13to stop Cortes.
23:16So he takes half the Spaniards away with him.
23:20He quite possibly is taking a large number of his native allies also.
23:28Flanked by 400 of his soldiers, Cortes marched out to confront the army sent after him by
23:33Governor Velazquez.
23:36The city was left under the control of his second-in-command, the violent, paranoid,
23:41and unpredictable Pedro de Alvarado.
23:51Alvarado becomes concerned about what he sees as plots against the Spaniards.
24:05And all of this comes to a head during the celebrations of the Mexica month of Toshcat.
24:14The creme de la creme of the Mexica nobility are engaged in a ritual dance in one of the
24:23major courtyards.
24:26Alvarado believes that this might be a triggering event for a rebellion.
24:33And so he orders his men to fire on the native celebrants, killing many of the leaders of
24:43the Mexica.
24:46One Aztec account of the massacre describes how the Spaniards entered the sacred patio
24:51to kill people.
24:53They attacked the man who was drumming and cut off both his arms and his head.
24:59They struck others in the shoulders and tore their arms from their bodies.
25:04Some tried to escape, but the Spaniards murdered them at the gates while they laughed.
25:11In any war, men who are willing to be violent without hesitation tend to rise up through
25:19the ranks.
25:20And that is Pedro de Alvarado.
25:23His entire career is about him being the man who's willing to stick his neck out to attack
25:32without mercy.
25:34He's psychotic, mass murderer, serial killer, I mean, whatever kind of modern anachronistic
25:39phrases we want to use.
25:41He's that kind of guy, the archetypal bad conquistador.
25:46They're not all like that, but he's about as bad as it gets.
25:57Cortes comes back victorious.
25:59He finds the city in complete uproar.
26:03Tenochtitlan is now in the midst of a violent Aztec uprising.
26:08They attack the palace of Moctezuma in order to expel the conquistadors.
26:13And in the scuffle, Moctezuma was killed, possibly by a rock thrown by an Aztec.
26:20The more likely story is that the Spaniards kill Moctezuma.
26:24The Spaniards then on La Noche Triste, the sad night, are forced to flee the city or
26:30perhaps be massacred themselves.
26:33The Mexica could have annihilated them, but they didn't.
26:37They are allowed to leave the central basin and go back over to Tlaxcala.
26:44A bitter, humiliated Cortes formulates his plan to deliver a final crushing blow to the
26:50Aztecs.
26:52In Tlaxcala, they regroup.
26:55Cortes calls for all of that materiel, all that equipment that we left back in Veracruz
27:01to be brought up to Tlaxcala.
27:04And they cut lumber, and they build 12 small gunships here in Tlaxcala, which I'd like
27:12to point out is landlocked.
27:14There's no big water around Tlaxcala.
27:17And then they carry them over the mountains back into the Valley of Mexico for the final
27:22siege against the city.
27:27Tenochtitlan was essentially an island reliant on the surrounding rural communities.
27:35Cortes knew a direct attack could fail, but that a war of attrition, cutting off the city
27:41from crucial supplies, would starve the Aztecs into surrender.
27:46Unless you control all canoe traffic, all water traffic, you cannot seal that city off.
27:53You can cut the water supply, you can do all sorts of things, but it's almost impossible
27:57to seal the city off.
27:59And so the 12 gunships, known as brigantines, become very important.
28:05They patrol the water and help to keep the canoe travel to a minimum.
28:15During the time that they are laying siege to Tenochtitlan, a disease has already taken
28:21hold on the city.
28:23The population begins to die from this European disease.
28:29Waste piled high across the once pristine streets of the city.
28:34Its people cowed by starvation, disease, the deaths of their children and their elderly.
28:40Their lives ruined.
28:43The Mexica resistance had been defeated.
28:46So on the 13th of August of 1521, the Spaniards and their 100,000 or more native allies are
28:54victorious in taking the city.
29:06Hernan Cortes had somehow led an expedition of a few hundred starving, exhausted men and
29:13overthrown an island city home to a quarter of a million people.
29:19It had taken him over two years.
29:23The Spanish Empire owed him some six million new subjects, not forgetting an additional
29:2885,000 square miles of stolen land.
29:35It was to be coined New Spain and Cortes was to be its first governor.
29:45When the siege of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital ends, the Spaniards then quickly begin
29:51to insist that their conquest has been achieved because that way they can then write their
29:57merit reports and get their rewards.
30:01And any ongoing violence or resistance by indigenous peoples can then be classified
30:06as a rebellion.
30:08Over time, that kind of myth of a rapid conquest and a completion becomes consolidated with
30:16this idea that in 1521 Tenochtitlan becomes Mexico City, becomes the city of Mexico.
30:22In fact, that process is a very gradual and slow one.
30:27The city of Tenochtitlan was devastated, never again to rise to its former glory.
30:36As generations passed, an Aztec culture mortally wounded by Spanish violence was lost to history.
30:46You have to think of the conquest not ending in 1521, but really beginning in 1521.
30:52The conversion of these lands into New Spain takes place over many, many, many generations.
30:58And only gradually does it become called the city of Mexico, which is still an indigenous
31:02name because its original people are the Mexica.
31:05So in the Nahuatl language, Mexico is the place of the Mexica.
31:09So Mexico then becomes Mexico, Mexico, but only very gradually.
31:16The state-level activity changed because there were new overlords.
31:23The Mexica have been replaced by the Spanish.
31:27But in terms of daily rituals, things did not change very much at all.
31:34People woke up in the morning, they made their tortillas, they worked in their fields.
31:40By and large, life went on as it had before.
31:45It takes several years for the Christianization effort to begin.
31:52You no longer have human sacrifice, by and large, because the Spaniards are very careful
31:57about that.
31:59The biggest change is the imposition of taxation on the natives by the Spaniards.
32:06This is the encomienda.
32:09So you are required to pay taxes and provide labor to a Spanish colonist.
32:15And many of these colonists were not pleasant people.
32:20They were extracting everything they possibly could from the land in order to benefit themselves.
32:27That's why they fought in the war.
32:31And so we have true, true mistreatment of the natives at the hands of the Spaniards
32:37in the years and decades after the Spanish arrival.
32:44For half a millennia, literature has gushed with legendary tales of the conquest of the
32:49Mexica, repeating a lie telling of great bravery and cunning, with Cortes and his men painted
32:57as white gods, utilizing superior warfare and political manipulation to outsmart Moctezuma
33:04and achieve a righteous victory.
33:09But modern historians have begun to question this popular narrative.
33:14Cortes may not have had as much control or influence as was first believed.
33:23A few hundred Spaniards, led by Cortes, were able to march from one valley down into the
33:29valley of Mexico and then right into the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.
33:34How were they able to do that?
33:35I think there's only really two obvious explanations.
33:39One is the one that the Spaniards put forward.
33:41They're really, really clever.
33:43They are manipulating local political arrangements.
33:46They've got the Tlaxcalans as their allies helping to defend them.
33:51They're maybe convincing people to be interested in Christianity.
33:54In other words, an explanation that gives all the credit to the Spaniards.
33:58How do they get into the city?
34:00Then the argument is, well, Montezuma the Aztec emperor is a coward.
34:04He's very superstitious.
34:05He's kind of overwhelmed by the Spaniards.
34:08That's one explanation.
34:09That's the one you'll find in some form or another in almost all the accounts that are
34:13written over the centuries.
34:14So I think that explanation is completely wrong.
34:16And it's blatantly Hispano-centric.
34:20There's another explanation, which I think is better evidence and makes more sense.
34:25And that is that Montezuma is the opposite of being a superstitious coward.
34:30He is very much in control of the situation.
34:33He sees and has been tracking these invaders since before they even arrived in Mexico,
34:38when they were sailing down the coast of Maya country.
34:42He's very curious about them.
34:44He wants to draw them into his city in order to control them, study them, learn from them.
34:49They are not a threat.
34:50There's just a few hundred of them.
34:52He has tens and tens of thousands of soldiers that he could use to destroy them if he needed
34:57to.
34:58And he doesn't want to do that.
34:59He puts them up in his father's palace, right in the center, right next to his palace and
35:03studies them.
35:04And they are there for six months as his guests.
35:06He goes hunting with them.
35:08They play games together.
35:10They learn each other's languages.
35:12And so the story that Montezuma actually surrendered and that they were kind of controlling the
35:19empire through him, as ludicrous as it is, is easily believed because most of the Spaniards
35:26who are there at the end of the war, the thousand who were there in August of 1521, the vast
35:31majority of them weren't in that situation.
35:33They'd come later.
35:34Well, they had been outside the city during that moment.
35:37But it presents us with a kind of a wonderful conundrum, I think, with a solution that really
35:43kind of blows our minds in terms of thinking what's really going on during this time period.
35:51It has been seen that the Spaniards were thought of as white gods.
35:56Well, this is something which generally Spanish writers were casting back onto the events.
36:05We see none of that from the native sources themselves.
36:08To mention it, certainly in the context of Mexico, is completely incorrect.
36:16The Cortés mythology has presented the idea that Cortés was always in control, that he
36:20was a master manipulator.
36:22It seems, however, that that's far from the truth.
36:26When Cortés landed in Mexico, the Aztec empire was in turmoil.
36:32Under Montezuma, he had become much more oppressive.
36:37He demanded greater tribute from the tribes that they had conquered.
36:40He had conducted a great purge against his political enemies.
36:43There had been a three-year famine that led to widespread suffering.
36:48Tlaxcalans were skillful enough to enroll Cortés into their own rivalry against the
36:55Aztecs.
36:57This proved to be a crucial moment in the expedition because the Tlaxcaltecas are going
37:01to be the main allies that Cortés is going to have.
37:05So we need to remember that conquistadors, their success or failure depends sometimes
37:13in the way that they're allowed to insert themselves in those much longer story that
37:16was happening between indigenous polities.
37:27By embellishing the heroic exploits of the Spaniards in Mexico, it's easy to disguise
37:33the devastating impact of smaller, insidious European parasites brought upon the indigenous
37:39populations in Mesoamerica.
37:43Just as the Caribbean islands had been devastated by European pathogens decades earlier, now
37:50the mainland was to be struck with the same deadly force.
37:57Disease, probably smallpox, hits Mexico in April 1520.
38:04The core of the Aztec empire, right in the middle of the military conquest.
38:11Disease just destroyed them.
38:14The Aztecs had been defeated.
38:17Their vast territory is now just another distant corner of King Charles' Spanish kingdom.
38:24People could no longer ignore this growing empire or the rumors of its fearless conquistadors.
38:32These stories concerned Charles.
38:35Four thousand miles away, the self-proclaimed heroes seemed to be doing entirely as they
38:41pleased, drunk with power, basking in the untold riches of the New World.
38:49What could the crown do if this army of skilled killers decided to break away, taking Spain's
38:55gold and land with them?
38:59Charles needed to seize control before it was too late.
39:05Conquistadors are great first wave, but you don't want to trust the government of colonies
39:12to conquistadors.
39:15One of the patterns of the Spanish conquest is the willingness of the crown to give conquistadors
39:22huge amounts of power before or immediately after they succeed at conquests.
39:28But inevitably what happens, usually within a decade or so of the conquest, is that the
39:33king, or very often his ministers, want to bring that control back to the monarchy and
39:39not leave it in the hands of conquistadors.
39:43In 1524, Charles establishes his Council of the Indies.
39:48This was an administrative and advisory body for the New World, a way to better govern
39:53these increasingly important colonies, whilst regulating and controlling the conquistadors.
40:00These figures who established themselves in the Americas are seen as a kind of alternative
40:05nobility, competing with the traditional nobility in Castile, and that's one of the main reasons
40:10why the crown seeks eventually to exert much greater control over the conquistadors.
40:16So Cortes for a long time is largely in political control of the Valley of Mexico, and eventually
40:22Charles V decides to send out Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza to become the viceroy.
40:28That period where these men are acting with a great deal of autonomy and independence
40:33begins to come to an end.
40:36It doesn't mean that conquistadors were not powerful, or were not rich, but they were
40:42not in control, and I think this was crucial.
40:46Cortes, after his conquest, gained a great deal of fame and notoriety, tremendous wealth.
40:51He was given titles by the Spanish monarch, lands, recognition.
40:56But Cortes, you know, was really an ambitious man and never happy with what he'd accomplished.
41:01There was always more for him.
41:03He's the most powerful man in the Americas, a lord of men.
41:07He has a hundred thousand native Mexicans working on his private estates.
41:11He's got everything he could ever want, but in 1524 he leaves it all behind to push on
41:17further south into Guatemala, into central Mexico, in what become a series of disastrous
41:22expeditions.
41:24And so this began to erode his standing within Spanish society, although the monarch continued
41:29to support him for what he had done.
41:32So ultimately, you know, he did wind up with some lands and some wealth and some status.
41:37Nothing like he'd achieved during the conquest.
41:39But he is still revered as probably the greatest conquistador.
41:44Hernan Cortes would eventually return to Spain.
41:49On December 2nd, 1547, he would succumb to dysentery, choking to death on his own inflamed
41:57lungs.
41:59Cortes was dead, but his conquest of the Mexica had opened the new world up to a tidal wave
42:07of European activity.
42:11The conquest of Mexico changes everything, because now the Spaniards have seen that Native
42:17Americans can build vast cities, there's populations of tens of thousands, that they do practice
42:24intensive agriculture, very productive agriculture that sustains populations in the millions.
42:30That they have accumulated vast amounts of precious metals and other forms of wealth
42:35and valuable goods.
42:37And so the conquest of Mexico leads to an explosion of Spanish exploration and conquest
42:43and settlement throughout the Americas.
42:47Mexico City would eventually rise from the ashes of Tenochtitlan.
42:52And whilst the Aztecs may have been defeated, the largest civilization in the Americas had
42:57not yet felt the relentless force of the conquistadors.
43:02One impoverished Spaniard, Francisco Pizarro, found himself buoyed by wild tales of another
43:09golden city, and grew desperate to discover the impossible riches which lay in wait to
43:16the south.
43:18He trekked to Peru, the land of the Inca.