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The Spanish conquest of the Americans. (SMALL POX (Smallpox was spread…
The Spanish conquest of the Americans.
SMALL POX
Smallpox was spread very easily. The disease was spread from simply coming in contact with someone who already carried it. You could pick it up by simply sleeping in the same bed as someone whom has it, or wearing the same clothes as them.
WHY WAS IT SO EASY FOR THE DISEASE TO SPREAD IN TENOCHTITLAN:
The Aztecs had a very strong market in the middle of their city, and thousands of people would come together everyday to exchange foods and goods to better their family status. Hand-to-hand contact would have obviously been a regular thing, and so the disease spread due to the trade that happened within in city.
How it may be hard to believe, but most of the Aztecs were not killed by the Spanish, but by smallpox. When the siege of Tenochtitlan began, they were not able to get any new foods in to the city, and were not able to bring any medicines in to the city to heal their sick, and so the disease spread.
While the Spanish are credited for conquering the Aztecs, they were not the biggest reason for the Death of the Aztecs. Smallpox had taken hold of the empire, and wiped and nearly 90% of the population. When the disease had finally left the fallen empire, there were only around about 1-2 million Aztecs left
THE SIEGE OF TENOCHTITLAN
While many may believe that Hernan Cortez had conquered the Aztecs without any difficulty, this is not true at all. Getting into the city was the easiest part of the whole thing, because they were welcomed by Montezuma. They were shown all the ins and outs of the city, and knew when and where it would be best to strike.
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3 years later, the Spanish returned to Tenochtitlan, but this time they were prepared, had re-reinforcements, and they knew exactly what to do. They cut off the bridges that led in to the city, so the Aztecs were not able to bring in food from outside the city when they the all of the foods inside they city have been used up. They were not able to get any more foods in and people started to die of hunger. When the warriors were weak enough, the Spanish attacked the city, and the Aztecs were easily defeated.
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When the Spanish arrived in America, Montezuma II thought that Cortez was the god Quetzalcoatl. When they reached the Aztecs, they were greeted by gifts as riches from the Aztec-people. They were able to settle in to the city, and find their ways around the city, and so they knew what the best way would be to take over the city, or if needed cut the city off.
Cortez and his men started to break down all of the statues that the Aztec people had of their own gods, as well as the wall of skulls, and they replaced them with statues of the virgin Marry, and Jesus on the cross. The Aztecs started to realise that these people were not who they said they are, and began to rebel against them. It broke out in to a war between the Spanish and the Aztecs. Eventually the massive and well trained warriors of the Aztecs were able to drive the remaining Spanish forces out of the city, with the hope that they would never come back.
Slave trade from The Aztecs to Europe
While Cortez was in Tenochtitlan, he got married to an Aztec slave named Catalina Juárez. However Cortez still had a wife waiting for him back in Spain. Cortez had a child with Juarez while his 1st wife was still in Spain. When she was invited to come live with Cortez in Mexico, she of course came with all of their children. When this happened Cortez immediately pushed away Juarez and the child that they had together. He completely pretended that he never had a 2nd wife.
Even though Cortez was told not to send back any slaves from his new adventure, he did so anyway. When he got to the empire and conquered his first few villages surrounding Tenochtitlan, he sent many of the women and children back to Europe to be sold as slaves. The king wasn't happy with many of the things Cortez was doing, and even put him in prison. But Cortez was free soon enough, and went right back to what he was doing.
When you take out the fact that they were taken away from their own home land, slavery wasn't a new thing for the Aztecs at all. To see a slave face in the market would not be a rare thing at all. people would often sell off slaves or even trade them for things such as foods, goods, or animals. Tenochtitlan often traded with the surrounding villages as well, as they tried to make their empire bigger, and increase their trade routes.
New goods, foods and services for European culture
The Spanish arrival in America already meant heaps of new goods and foods for Europe. They were guaranteed too take some of their new discoveries back home with them, and spread to the rest of Europe. this was a massive gain for the Spain, as it gave them some of the things that the rest of Europe did not have, so people would pay pretty big prices to get these goods.
However with all of the goods and that they were able to get together and take back to Spain, they also picked up a few problems. Things like smallpox, whooping cough and chicken pox followed the Spanish all the way back to Europe and this obviously caused a few problems for the population.
As the Aztecs provided the Europeans with many new foods, goods and slaves, they also got a few things that they had never seen before. For example, bananas and coffee beans. Those did not exist in America at that time.
Bibliography
https://www.livescience.com/39238-hernan-cortes-conqueror-of-the-aztecs.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_slavery#Aztec_slave_trade
