By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
After the discovery da America by Columbus, in 1492, many navigators and adventurers hired and aided by the Spanish crown became interested and launched themselves into the waters of the Atlantic with the objective of better exploring the lands of the new world. One such browser was Hernan Cortez , responsible for the conquest of the Aztec Empire and the consequent defeat Aztec.
Cortez landed in the Aztecs, then ruled by Montezuma , in 1519, with 508 soldiers, some horses, cannons and guns. The process of conquest of the Aztec empire lasted until 1521. However, before there was direct conflict between Europeans and natives, Cortez devised a cunning strategy to achieve dominion. One of the gifts the Spaniards received from the Aztecs when they arrived was a young woman named Malinche, who had a full command of the local languages. This girl was of fundamental importance for the Spaniards to know better the riches discovered by the Aztecs, especially precious metals.
Furthermore, this coincided with the fact that the Aztecs thought that the Spaniards were sent by the gods, representatives of Quetzalcoatl . The Aztec calendar even pointed to temporal cycles that announced the end of the world and the beginning of another. The year 1519 coincided with the calendar year that closed this cycle. Perhaps this Aztec belief in the sending of the heirs of Quetzalcoatl made its leader, Montezuma, refuse to resist the Spanish offensive, as one of the chroniclers of the time points out:
“Montezuma must have been a weak man and of little courage, to have let himself be imprisoned like this and, later, for never having tried to escape, even when Cortez offered him his freedom. and his own men begged him to accept.” (López de Gómora. [chronicler of the time of the conquest] Quoted in:TODOROV, Tzvetan. The conquest of America:the question of the other. São Paulo:Martins Fontes, 1982.)
The capital of the Aztecs, Tenochtitlan, was besieged in 1521, thus ending the Aztecs' power over the region.
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