{"id":2478,"date":"2018-08-22T00:20:43","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T00:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/?p=2478"},"modified":"2026-02-25T07:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T07:11:11","slug":"spanish-and-aztec-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/spanish-and-aztec-meet\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish and Aztec Meet: A Detailed Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The first meeting between the Spanish, led by Hernan Cort\u00e9s<\/a>, and the Aztecs<\/a>, under Emperor Moctezuma II<\/a>, took place in November 1519 in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan<\/a>. Initially, the Spanish were welcomed visitors to the Aztec Empire, but soon the main events of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire<\/a> occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

WHO WERE THE AZTEC?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Following the\u00a0Aztec\u2019s\u00a0founding and construction of\u00a0Tenochtitlan\u00a0in the Valley of Mexico in 1325 AD, they quickly\u00a0established their authority across the other societies in the valley.\u00a0 Historians refer to this time period as the Aztec Empire, since the Aztec were constantly expanding throughout central Mexico.\u00a0 As well, for the two centuries that followed the initial construction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec were ruled over by a series of leaders referred to as Huey Tlatoani<\/a>.\u00a0 In the Aztec language<\/a> of Nahuatl this translates to ‘Great Speaker’.\u00a0\u00a0Moctezuma II\u00a0was the leader of the Aztec with the arrival of the Spanish into the Aztec territory.\u00a0\u00a0Historians have reported that Moctezuma II was first made aware of the Spanish\u2019s arrival in 1517 when Spanish conquistadors landed at the edge of Aztec territory along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.\u00a0 In fact, this was the expedition of\u00a0Juan de Grijalva\u00a0who was a Spanish conquistador and one of the first European explorers to arrive in Mexico.\u00a0 Unsure of who these people were or what they wanted, Moctezuma II ordered his people to keep him informed of their movements and actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Map
Map of the Aztec Empire and Aztec Triple Alliance by History Crunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

BEFORE THE SPANISH ARRIVED IN AZTEC TERRITORY<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the years before the arrival of the Spanish into the territory of the Aztec Empire, the Spanish had been exploring the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean during the European \u2018Age of Exploration<\/a>\u2019.\u00a0 Spain\u2019s monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand, were expanding Spain\u2019s influence and prestige by funding expeditions by Spanish explorers.\u00a0 Many of these explorers were driven by a desire to capture as much gold and other precious metals as possible.\u00a0 For example, Spain had already played an important role in the early part of the\u00a0Age of Exploration\u00a0with the voyages of\u00a0Christopher Columbus<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Christopher<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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THE SPANISH AND AZTEC MEET – SUMMARY<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hernan Cort\u00e9s<\/a>\u00a0was the Spanish conquistador that led the expedition to explore and conquer the Aztec Empire.\u00a0 At the age of 19, he travelled to the Spanish controlled colonies in the Caribbean.\u00a0 More specifically, he arrived at the island of Hispaniola which is the modern-day Dominican Republic and Haiti.\u00a0 After several years in the colonies, Cort\u00e9s convinced Diego Velasquez, another conquistador and then governor of Cuba, to let him lead an expedition to\u00a0Mexico. \u00a0Cort\u00e9s set sail soon after with approximately 11 ships and just over 500 men.\u00a0\u00a0Moctezuma II was informed of their arrival, which was in the area of the Yucatan Peninsula, to the east of the main territory of the Aztec Empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Hernan
‘Portrait of Hernan Cortes’ by an unknown artist. (1525)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Quickly, Hernan Cort\u00e9s and his men encountered other Mesoamerican peoples living in the area.\u00a0 For example, they came into contact with the Tlaxcala, which was a powerful city-state to the east of Tenochtitlan.\u00a0 Tlaxcala were traditional enemies of the Aztec as the two had fought each in different battles including the\u00a0Flower Wars<\/a>.\u00a0 As such, the Tlaxcala used the opportunity to their advantage and allied themselves with the Spanish against Tenochtitlan.\u00a0 This is important, because Cort\u00e9s used the Tlaxcala and other enemies of the Aztec in his later conquest of Tenochtitlan.\u00a0 In response, Moctezuma II had gifts sent to Cort\u00e9s in an attempt to show his prestige and the power of the Aztec over their rivals.\u00a0 Moctezuma II was also unsure of how to respond to Cort\u00e9s and the other Spanish conquistadors because their arrival into the Aztec territory coincided with an important\u00a0Aztec prophecy in relation to the Mesoamerican god\u00a0Quetzalcoatl<\/a>.\u00a0 The prophecy spoke of Quetzalcoatl\u2019s arrival at the same time as the Spanish, and Quetzalcoatl was said to have white skin.\u00a0 Unsure of whether or not Cort\u00e9s was the god, Moctezuma II responded by greeting him with honor and giving him many gifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Quetzalcoatl\"
Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god, from the Codex Magliabechiano.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Regardless, the Aztecs were amazed by the Spanish.  First, the Aztec had never seen a person with white skin before.  Secondly, the armor and weapons that the Spanish used would have been mostly unimaginable to the Aztecs.  For example, the Aztec would not have known what firearms were, or understood how they worked.  When the Spanish conquistadors first fired their weapons, the blast and smoke shocked and amazed the Aztec people.  As well, the metal armor of the Spanish fascinated the Aztec because they did not have any similar form of protection.  Third, the Aztec people had never seen a horse before.  Horses are not native animals to the Americas, and the Aztec people would not have known what the animal was.  The animal itself likely shocked the Aztec people, but the fact that the Spanish Conquistadors rode on them would have astounded them even more.  The Aztecs had no similar animals and certainly none that they would ride.  These three factors combined, along with others, to show the technological divide that existed between the Spanish and the Aztecs.  As such, the Aztec and their leader Moctezuma II were shocked and unprepared for the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cort\u00e9s and the Spanish arrived at the city of Tenochtitlan in November of 1519.\u00a0 While they were accompanied by their new allies, the Tlaxcala, only Cort\u00e9s and the Spanish were invited into the city.\u00a0 Still believing that Cort\u00e9s might be Quetzalcoatl, Moctezuma II gave the Spanish many gifts and allowed them to stay as guests in the Aztec capital.\u00a0 During the next week or so the Spanish toured the city and saw the many Aztec temples<\/a>, markets and palaces.\u00a0 However, soon after, Cort\u00e9s learned of the death of several of his men from an Aztec attack on the Gulf Coast.\u00a0 The Aztec had attacked one of their rivals, and since the Spanish had allied with many of the Aztecs enemies, they were caught up in the battle.\u00a0 At this point Cort\u00e9s became fearful that Moctezuma II may order his death and in response he took the Aztec leader captive in the palace that Moctezuma II had prepared for the Spanish in Tenochtitlan.\u00a0 The\u00a0conquest of the Aztec Empire\u00a0by the Spanish conquistadors had begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tenochtitlan
Tenochtitlan (Templo Mayor can be seen in the center)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spanish and the Aztec societies first met when Hernan Cortes and his crew ventured into Aztec territory in the Valley of Mexico. What followed was the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":25,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,80],"tags":[57,77,15],"class_list":["post-2478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aztec-empire","category-mesoamerica","tag-american-history","tag-aztec-empire","tag-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2478"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5727,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions\/5727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}