The Spanish Conquest: A Postscript and a Verdict

The last battle between Spain and the Aztec empire happened at a place called Tlatelolco, a mile or so north of the Templo Mayor/Cathedral area. Here, in 1521, the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtemoc, fell in battle and the Spaniards built a church on top of, and with the very stones of, the ruined Aztec city:


It is tempting to regard the conquistadores as unwanted barbarians who destroyed a great, nature-loving culture, and certainly the Spaniards have many crimes to answer for, not least their wanton destruction of people, buildings, art objects and libraries.

But the Aztecs bear some responsibility for their own downfall. Their religion centered on human sacrifice -- captured warriors from neighboring tribes had their chests cut open with obsidian knives like these below, their hearts ripped out of their living bodies and offered to the sun god:


Needless to say, this practice didn't endear them to the neighbors, and the few hundred Spanish invaders had hundreds of thousands of willing allies in their quest to take down the Aztecs.

The moral complexity of Mexico's birth story is summed up by an inscription at Tlatelolco:


The second paragraph reads, "This [Cortes' defeat of Cuauhtemoc] was neither triumph nor defeat. It was the sad birth of the mestizo people that is the Mexico of today."