dec 21, 1518 - 1519 - Hernan Cortes in Tenochtitlan

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Most dramatic European conquest was the one from Hernan Cortes in 1519. He sailed from Cuba, bringing with him 11 ships, 600 sailors, 200 Cubans, and 16 horses and cannons.
They landed at the city of Veracruz and assaulted confederation of four small native kingdoms, which were opposed to the Aztecs. Cortes managed to convince them to join his advance to defeat the Aztecs.
With him were men called Conquistadores, entrepreneurs who received no pay but were promised a share of the expected gold and slaves.
To prevent men from disserting, Cortes burned almost all the ships, sparing one which would be used to carry the expected gold back to Spain.
It was a very long trip (200-mile march) to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, which took Cortes and his men 3 months.
Cortes and his men entered Tenochtitlan peacefully and captured the emperor Montezuma II through a mixture of deceptions and threats. He said to Montezuma that the Spaniards had a disease of the heart that only gold could cure.Montezuma partially abided because he mistook Cortes for a God. Cortes then forced Montezuma to supply laborers who would mine more of the precious metals.
Disgruntled natives after a year of being exploited, around 1520, they rebelled and stoned Montezuma to death. They killed a third of Cortes’s troup and they were forced to retreat.
In 1521, Cortes regrouped his forces and even gathered more Natives who were against the Aztecs, and they cut off access to water and food from the lake encircled city for 85 days. They also allowed for infectious diseases to spread (such as small pox) in the city to decimate its inhabitants.
After the Aztecs surrendered, the merciless Cortes ordered that the leaders be hanged and the priests be eaten by the dogs. In 2 years, Cortes and his disciplined army managed to conquer a civilization that had taken centuries to develop.

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