We need look no further than superior Spanish technology to explain the conquest of the native Americans.’ Discuss this statement with reference to the Conquest of Mexico.

The Aztec empire began as an alliance between three city states that ruled the area in and around the valley of Mexico from 1428 until their defeat in 1521[1] by the Spanish Empire. The Aztecs were the dominant force in this central region and they were the main opposition against the Spanish during the conquest of their empire which was also known as the conquest of Mexico. The conquest happened with relatively few Spanish soldiers on the ground (Some historians called it “a mere handful of men[2]”) against thousands of natives, raising the question as to how such a feat was possible. Hernan Cortes was one of the main conquistadors that was responsible for the fall of the Aztec empire by leading the deciding battle against their capital city, Tenochtitlan. The conquest brought to the forefront the clash between the Old and New world which had evolved differently in terms of the war tactics used, cultural beliefs and the tools that they had available. Much of the information gathered about the conquest is from primary sources, mainly from Spanish conquistadors such as Hernan Cortes and Bernard Del Castillo among others. One must approach these historical documents with judgement and caution in order to find the truth in regards to the causes of the conquest of Mexico.

Analysts of the conquest have assumed that one of the main causes of the military defeat of the Aztec empire was the technological backwardness of the Old World against the superior technology from the Spanish and the New World. The term ‘technology’ can be analyzed in two parts- the technology of the conquest and the technology used within the battle itself. Ships were a vital part of the conquest because they had the ability to bring endless reinforcements. They also established communication links with the rest of the world which gave them a wider geo-political perception during the events of the Conquest that the Aztecs simply lacked. After Cortes first defeat in Tenochtitlan in mid-1520 he received seven ships loaded with men and supplies.[3] These ships had also allowed the Spanish to travel across the world to reach the Native Aztecs- a concept that they could not even begin replicating themselves and highlights the subtle inequality between these two different worlds. In terms of technology used in the battlefield, the glass and wood swords of the native Americans were no match against the crossbows, cannons and steel swords of the Spanish.[4] The wooden clubs and native swords could batter and bruise the Spanish soldiers but rarely did they do serious damage.[5] The wounds that the Spanish did receive were easy and quick to heal because they were clean cuts made with glass or obeisant in contrast to the gunshot wounds that the Aztecs suffered from which led to infection and a much slower death. The Spanish soldiers had access to two major advantages in terms of gun powder and steel that did not exist in the Aztec Empire.

Spanish weaponry made it easier to inflict a higher level of casualties with less effort in comparison to the less technologically evolved weapons of the native Americans which gave them another advantage during the conquest. Especially since their guns and crossbows meant that they could be deployed from a distance greater and that hand to hand combat was not always necessary. Guns allowed soldiers to shoot at selected enemies well behind the line of engagement as ‘snipers’.[6] This caused psycological damage as well as the physical act of killing them because they had not yet had the opportunity to engage in a battle before they were already killed. The Spanish crossbow alone had far more penetrating power than the simple bow and arrow, especially since the native Americans did not wear armor but only lightly padded cloth which gave them no protection. Horses were also ridden into battle which gave the Spanish another advantage because it was easier for them to kill Aztecs from above with either their swords or their lances which also meant that they did not have to engage intimately with the soldiers. On the open ground the Spanish appeared almost invincible because their advantage was so great. Horses were so important to the Spanish that there existed a social divide between the Calvary men and the common soldier. Calvary men were even given a bigger share of the treasures that they found because they were so fundamental to them winning the battles against the Aztecs. During the battle of Tenochtitlan 400-600 Spaniards were killed fleeing but in contrast 1,000 Natives died.[7] This large difference in death toll shows that technology played a huge role in giving the Spanish an advantage during the conquest because they were able to kill with much more ease.

Even though it is undeniable that the Spanish possessed superior technology one can argue that there is an over exaggeration to the extent that it contributed to the downfall of the Aztec empire. It proved to be a burden to the soldiers because it was not suited to the conditions in which they were fighting in. Horses were useful over the open plain but in narrow passage ways and difficult terrain they were often slow. This was the same for the cannons that the Spanish carried with them which were also difficult and slow to reload during battle. Cannons and other machinery such as the guns needed a constant supply of gun powder in order to function. This was difficult to attain in the remote areas that they were fighting in, especially as they did not receive reinforcements from ships as Cortes had come over to Mexico illegally. Gun powder also did not work when it was wet.[8] The armor that Calvary men wore was heavy and oppressive and even caused some of the riders to pass out from the extreme heat inside them, especially during a battle when they had to flee from the enemy. These factors indicate that Spanish technology was not as superior as first thought and that there were other causes that contributed to the downfall of the Aztec empire. 

There was a fundamental difference of the concept of ‘war’ between the conquistadors and Aztecs which influenced their fighting style and meant that the Aztecs were less aggressive and violent towards their opponents than the Spanish. In the culture of those who were the dominant forces in the central region of Mexico, war was seen as a scared contest. It was an event that should be fought on equal footing because “to prevail by mere numbers or by some piece of treachery would vitiate the significance of the contest”.[9] There were more Aztecs in comparison to Spanish soldiers which would have made it easier for them to overpower them but they did not make use of this advantage. Neither did the Aztecs fight to kill but rather they took captives of their enemies. Taking prisoners captive came from the tradition of humiliating the defeated by plundering the resources of their town which also meant taking their civilians.[10] These actions against the Spanish aimed to humiliate them bit rather it gave them the ability to escape and regroup and a higher chance of survival which was important given their already small numbers. The Spanish did not understand the different social practices of the Aztecs but it gave them an advantage that allowed them to succeed in the conquest.

 The Aztecs were ‘warriors’ whereas the Spanish were ‘soldiers’ and there was a difference between these two definitions that also affected the ways in which they fought. The Aztecs fought individually and they did not help each other in battle because they believed that one had to make it on their own merit, “individual warriors found their individual glory[11]”. This made it easier for the Spanish soldiers to group together and kill them one by one. The Aztecs fought in an honourable and brave manner which meant that they fought their enemies face on. They would realise a war cry at the beginning of their charge which let the Spanish know where they were. This was done so that their enemies knew that they were able to engage in battle and it made the fight fairer, a favour which the Spanish did not return as they relied on the element of surprise to capture the Aztecs. If the Aztecs had killed the Spanish soldiers than they would have decimated their already small numbers, especially since the Spanish did not have a secure source of replenishments. Therefore, the Aztecs did not make use of their tactical advantages due to their cultural beliefs of war.

The Spanish conquistadors were not alone in their conquest because they were helped by other native allies that wanted to take down the Aztec empire for their own benefit. This is a concept that is rarely explored in some of the major Spanish primary sources of the conquest because they were bias against the own superiority but other indigenous documents have proved otherwise.[12] Spanish accounts such as the letters written to Charles II by Cortes himself were written for self-serving reasons and aimed to stress the important role that the Spanish troops played in the conquest  and the ease in which they were able to do so in order to gain royal favor. The native allies gave the Spanish insider information, men to fight and provisions and shelter along the way to Tenochtitlan. For example, La Malinche was the famous translator for Cortes who could speak both Spanish and the Nahuatl language. This allowed the two sides to communicate with each other. In these sources, if Spaniards are mentioned at all, it is normally to refer to them as nuisances in battle who continuously had to be rescued, be taken care of, and be carried around because they were inefficient in battle.[13] 

There were weaknesses within the internal structures of the Mesoamerican empire and its internal cultural diversity which allowed for political revolt to develop against the Aztec empire and triggered the other natives to fight against them. There was resentment among other indigenous tribes that had to pay tribute to their conquering overlords, the Aztecs. The most powerful and influential tribe that joined them were the Txcalans and according to the conquest history Ross Hassig, the final siege and assault on the capital there were 200,000 native allies “even though they went virtually unacknowledged and certainly unrewarded[14]”. Native allies were willing to help the Spanish on their conquest because they rightly judged that the they would be able to help them destroy the Aztec empire and its city. Townsend argues that the Spanish were only able to keep their indigenous allies because they recognised that the Spanish were technologically superior to them. They saw that other civilians could not defend themselves against the Spanish attacks in the short term and they also recognised the undeniable importance that the Spanish had to the far away distant lands across the sea.[15] This suggests that technological superiority helped motive the native allies to support the Spanish conquistadors.

Disease also contributed to the eventual defeat of the Aztec empire because it weakened the Aztecs and they were not able to fight as effectively against the Spanish. Their geographical isolation had given them a natural quarantine from the diseases that were prevalent in the New World. This was broken by the arrival of Spanish soldiers who brought with them diseases from their home such as Influenza and smallpox. These were highly contagious and deadly diseases that the native Americans had no immune system defence or medical treatments to contain them. There was a high death toll that almost wiped out the population. In Mexico the population declined an estimated 25 million in 1512 to 1.5 million by 1580.[16] The effect of these high death tolls left psycological scares as well as physical ones which demoralized the Aztecs. The natives felt as if their gods had failed them because they were being subjected to failure and humiliation.[17] The Spanish immunity to the diseases contributed to their profile as superhuman. There was no discrimination against the gender, age or status of the person which meant that whole towns were often left incapacitated by illness. These diseases travelled ahead of the soldiers so that when they arrived at the Aztec villages, they found that the men and the towns were too weak to fight against them which meant that it was easier for the Spanish to succeed during the conquest.

While there were many different factors that influenced the outcome of the conquest of Mexico, the superior Spanish technology gave them an overwhelming advantage against the Aztecs and allowed them to defeat such a vast empire with relatively few Spanish soldiers on the ground. The aid from the native allies was invaluable but the native allies would never have been able to overthrow the Aztec empire themselves. They recognised the superior technology of the Spanish which would give them an advantage over their own indigenous people. The Aztec empire was already at a disadvantage before the Spanish arrived. Even if the Spanish technology at times struggled to be effective in the Mesoamerican climate, the war tactics used by the Aztecs put them at a disadvantage. The Spanish had no qualms in using any tactic to their advantage whereas the Aztec soldiers fought with bravery by confronting their enemies face to face in the battlefield which made them vulnerable to being shot and killed. The geographical isolation of their country made them vulnerable to disease which further made it easier for the Spanish to kill them because they could not fight and defend themselves as effectively.

Bibliography:

Websites:

‘Armour and weapons of the Spanish conquistadors’, ThoughtCo, from: https://www.thoughtco.com/armor-and-weapons-of-spanish-conquistadors-2136508 (accessed:20/04/2019)

‘Overview of the Aztec empire’ History on the Net, from: https://www.historyonthenet.com/overview-of-the-aztec-empire (accessed: 05/04/2019)

Books:

Ed Grafton, Anthony, and Blair, Ann The Transmission of Culture in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990)

Ed Nichols, Deborah and Pool. A. Christopher, The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)

Hassig, Ross, Aztec warfare: Imperial expansion and political context (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006)

 Hennessy, Alistair, ‘The nature of the conquest and the conquistadors’ in The Meeting of Two Worlds: Europe and the Americas 1492–1650 ed Bray, Warwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) 

 Restall, Matthew, Seven myths of the Spanish conquest (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)

Journals:

Townsend, Camilla “Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico”, American Historical Review Vol 108 No.3 (2003)

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[1], ‘Overview of the Aztec empire’ History on the Net, from: https://www.historyonthenet.com/overview-of-the-aztec-empire (accessed: 05/04/2019)

[2] Restall, Matthew, Seven myths of the Spanish conquest (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) p. 3

[3] Townsend, Camilla “Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico”, American Historical Review 108:3 (2003), p. 679

[4] Hennessy, Alistair, ‘The nature of the conquest and the conquistadors’ in The Meeting of Two Worlds: Europe and the Americas 1492–1650 ed Bray, Warwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) p. 12  

[5]‘Armour and weapons of the Spanish conquistadors’, ThoughtCo, from: https://www.thoughtco.com/armor-and-weapons-of-spanish-conquistadors-2136508 (accessed:20/04/2019 )

[6] Ed Grafton, Anthony, and Blair, Ann The Transmission of Culture in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990) p. 108

[7] Townsend, ‘Burying the White God’, p, 670

[8] Hennessey, “The nature of the Conquest” p. 13

[9] Ed Grafton and Blair, The transmission of culture, p. 105

[10] Ibid, p. 106

[11] Ibid, p. 116

[12] Ed Nichols, Deborah and Pool. A. Christopher, The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) p. 460

[13] Hassig, Ross, Aztec warfare: Imperial expansion and political context (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006) p. 178

[14] Ibid, p. 178

[15] Townsend, ‘Burying the White Gods’, p. 678

[16] Hennessy, ‘The nature of the Conquest’, p. 17

[17] Ibid, p. 18