Cortes Completes the Conquest of Mexico

Hernan Cortes landed on the Mexican coast in 1519 with a small force of Spanish soldiers and soon marched inland toward the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, one of the largest cities in the world. He gathered indigenous allies, especially the Tlaxcalans, who resented Aztec domination and the tribute and human sacrifice the empire demanded. The emperor Moctezuma II at first received the Spaniards but was later taken captive.

After a violent uprising drove the Spanish from the city during the disastrous retreat known as La Noche Triste, Cortes regrouped and laid siege to Tenochtitlan in 1521. European diseases such as smallpox, to which the native population had no immunity, devastated the defenders. The capital fell on August 13, 1521, after fierce house-to-house fighting that left much of the city in ruins, completing the conquest of the Aztec empire.

The fall of Tenochtitlan marked the beginning of three centuries of Spanish rule in Mexico. The Spanish built Mexico City atop the ruins of the Aztec capital and made it the seat of the viceroyalty of New Spain. The conquest brought catastrophic population decline among indigenous peoples, the spread of Christianity, and the extraction of vast wealth that flowed back to Spain and reshaped both the New World and Europe.