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The Aztecs were conquered by Spain in 1521 after a long siege of the capital, Tenochtitlan, where much of the population died from hunger and smallpox. Cortés, with 508 Spaniards, did not fight alone but with as many as 150,000 or 200,000 allies from Tlaxcala , and eventually other Aztec tributary states.
Chalchiuhnenetzin ('noble jade doll'; chal-cheeoo-neh-NEH-tseen) was an Aztec princess of Tenochtitlan, and a Queen consort of Tlatelolco by marriage to Moquihuix of Tlatelolco. She is foremost known in history for the famous legends about her lovers.
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.
The Aztec forces were destroyed and the Aztecs surrendered on 13 August 1521, Julian Date. [34]: 404 Cortés demanded the return of the gold lost during La Noche Triste. Under torture, by burning their feet with oil, Cuauhtémoc and the lord of Tacuba confessed to dumping his gold and jewels into the lake.
After Cortés continued to release prisoners with messages of peace, and realizing the Spanish were enemies of Moctezuma, Xicotencatl the Elder and Maxixcatzin persuaded the Tlaxcalan warleader, Xicotencatl the Younger, that it would be better to ally with the newcomers than to kill them. [49]: 143–55, 171
The word Aztec in modern usage would not have been used by the people themselves. It has variously been used to refer to the Aztecs or Triple Alliance, the Nahuatl-speaking people of central Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest, or specifically the Mexica ethnicity of the Nahuatl-speaking tribes (from tlaca). [7]
The Aztecs regarded the Spaniards as already defeated, and were looking to gain glory from capturing live Spaniards to sacrifice to their gods. The Castilian cavalry spearheaded the attack, breaking through the ranks and decimating the Aztec lines, preparing them for the assault of the Castilian rodeleros and Tlaxcalan infantry. Though this ...
Instead, they were titled as cuauhtlatoani, a term that literally meant "eagle ruler" and in pre-conquest times served to designate a non-dynastic interim ruler appointed when necessary. [23] Hernán Cortés and the Spaniards initially preferred such less legitimate rulers, possibly as a way of ensuring that the colonial authorities would be ...