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As we look back into time we can see many different historic events that have made a great impact on societies and cultures around the world. It seems that during the late years of the 1400 s and the early years of the 1500 s, during the time of Europe's domination over the whole world, that many cultures were influenced by their hunger to discover as much land as they could. During this time many new lands in the west such as the Americas were discovered and many new lands began to become the property of Kings and Queens that lived thousands and thousands of miles away in Europe. What is pretty remarkable is that the lands were not discovered be the Europeans.
The lands were already there. Huge masses of people were already living in these lands for thousands of years. Even though this is so the Europeans took credit for their discovery and therefore they felt that these lands that they landed on were to be taken over and governed by them. There were two main countries in Europe that were trying to discover as much land as possible in the area that we call South America. They were the Spanish and the Portuguese.
The Spanish however were the more successful of the two. The Spanish, along with the help of a great explorer and conqueror Cortez, were highly successful in the take over of Mexico and the defeat of the great Aztec warriors. Two books that give a good account of this story are William H. Prescott's The Conquest of Mexico and The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico by Bernal Diaz del Castillo. During the time of the explorations of Mexico, the Aztecs were the main tribe that lived in the area. The Aztecs originally lived north of the Valley of Mexico.
There they lived under the control of the Toltec empire. During the time, the Aztecs were a farming group and the Toltecs were demanding huge tributes from the Aztecs so they were forced to move. They then moved themselves to a city called Tizapan, which is located in the center of Mexico where they came under the control of the Culhuacans. However, this arrangement didnt last very long because like the Toltecs, the Culhuacans too wanted the Aztecs to pay tributes to their empire. Eventually the Aztecs formed a military alliance with the Texcoco and for the next years they spent their time under the rule of the Itzcoatl. During the years of the great Aztec empire in the early 1500 s, the ruler was Montezuma II.
He was also the last Aztec Emperor. During his time as Emperor the Spanish came to Mexico and defeated them all in a horrific battle. This was the end of the Aztecs. Across the Atlantic Ocean there was another great empire that was looking to find some new land to conquer. This was the Spanish empire. The Spanish were very jealous of the credit that the Vatican was giving the Portuguese on their discovery of the Americas.
In 1493, after Columbus first voyage, Spain sent letters to the pope that demanded that he gave them the rights to everything that Columbus had discovered. They had hopes that the pope would follow the trend of the past popes that gave the Portuguese the rights of Africa. The new pope, Alexander VI was sympathetic to the cries of the Spanish because he too was of Spanish descent. This new ruling gave the Spanish the rights too much of the land discovered in the new lands in the west. This allowed the Spanish to sail out and begin to colonize the new lands in the Caribbean and the Gulf. During many of they colonial trips they often killed off many of the locals because of diseases or because they were not being cooperative.
The Spanish problem was that even though they were planning to colonize the new lands, the only real reason that they were over in the new lands was because they had heard that they were full of gold, silver, and other valuable mineral deposits. During the past explorations of Cordoba and Grijalba there has been much talk of wealthy Mexican empires. This prompted the Spanish to send again another explorer by the name of Hernan Cortez to explore the continents inland's. This is written in both the Prescott and the Diaz books. Each of the two have an accurate depiction of the exploration of the previous two explorers and then of the exploration of Cortez. Cortez was born in Medellin, in Spain in 1485 to a family of nobility, but of not high ranking.
Cortez was sent to study law at the University for two years, but soon left that to fight in a military expedition in Italy. In 1504 Cortez left the mainland of Europe to find his fortune in the West Indies. There he also fought in many battles with the Arawak. While in the Indies he became familiar with Diego Velazquez and joined him in his explorations and later his conquest of Cuba where Velazquez made himself governor.
After Valazquez had heard of the explorations of Cordoba and Grijalba he decided that he wanted to gain fame and fortune for himself and his homeland country Spain. To do this he was going to explore the innards of Mexico and bring back the gold and silver that he had heard about. In order to do this, he decided that he was going to appoint Cortez the General of the fleet that was to take over Mexico and in return this would help them both gain fame and fortune back in their homeland countries. According to Prescott's History of the Conquest, Valazquez chose Cortez because he came of an ancient, respectable family and his courage and prowess won him favor and respect with Valazquez as much as his good humor, cordial manners, and wit made him a favorite with a soldier P. 13. This also pleased Cortez because he had been waiting his whole life to do something like this.
He had wanted nothing more then to gain fame and fortune for his homeland of Spain. He had been waiting a long time to prove himself as an independent explorer. Cortez began to contribute all his cash resources to the project and mortgaged all of his estates in Cuba. Valazquez also agreed to help Cortez and contributed one-third of the funds needed for Cortez to make his journey. Cortez bought six vessels and commissioned 110 mariners and 553 soldiers to go along with him on the journey. He also brought along 200 Cuban soldiers and a few Cuban women to do the cooking and other menial jobs for the army.
Because he knew that they would be able to scare the native that they encountered he also brought with him fourteen cannons and sixteen horses. Shortly before the mission was to be sent out, Valazquez had heard a rumor that if Cortez were to go on the mission that he would then become too powerful if he were successful and he would then betray Valazquez. This worried him so he tried to stop Cortez from going out. Cortez heard this and set out for his voyage anyways. S...
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