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The outbreak alone killed more than 50% of the region's population, including the emperor Cuitláhuac, as the indigenous of the New World had no previous exposure to smallpox. [51] The new emperor Cuauhtémoc dealt with the smallpox outbreak, while Cortés raised an army of Tlaxcalans, Texcocans, Totonacs, and others discontent with Aztec rule.
The Aztecs intended to cut short the Spanish retreat from Tenochtitlan and annihilate them. Here, the Aztecs made their own errors of judgement by underestimating the shock value of the Spanish caballeros because all they had seen was the horses traveling gingerly on the wet paved streets of Tenochtitlan. They had never seen them used in open ...
Alvarado consented provided that there were no sacrifices, no people killed, and no one had weapons. More than 600 gentlemen and several lords gathered in the yard of the largest temple; some said there were more than a thousand there. They made a lot of noise with their drums, shells, bugles, and hendidos, which sounded like a loud whistle.
The death of many Aztecs due to the epidemic led to a void in land ownership, with Spanish colonists of all backgrounds looking to exploit these now vacant lands. [42] Coincidentally, the Spanish Emperor, Charles V, had been seeking a way to disempower the encomenderos and establish a more efficient and "ethical" settlement system. [43]
The Aztecs were a Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican people of central Mexico in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. They called themselves Mēxihcah (pronounced [meˈʃikaʔ]).. The capital of the Aztec Empire was Tenochtitlan.
The Aztecs [a] (/ ˈ æ z t ɛ k s / AZ-teks) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries.
La Noche Triste ("The Night of Sorrows", literally "The Sad Night"), officially re-branded in Mexico as La Noche Victoriosa [2] ("The Victorious Night"), was an important event during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, wherein Hernán Cortés, his army of Spanish conquistadors, and their native allies were driven out of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.
Although hard-pressed, the Spanish infantry was able to hold off the overwhelming numbers of enemy warriors, while the Spanish cavalry under the leadership of Cortés charged through the enemy ranks again and again. When Cortés and his men killed one of the Aztec leaders, the Aztecs broke off the battle and left the field. [48]: 303–05