Until their mysterious disappearance about a.d. 1200 the Toltecs dominated much of Central America. Their fall was coincident with the arrival of nomadic tribes from the north. One of them, the Aztecs (People from Aztlan) drifted into the valley of central Mexico and became subject to whatever power achieved temporary hegemony. The Aztecs settled on the western side of Lake Texcoco, adapting themselves to the practice of building "floating gardens" of built-up silt. Here they established Tenochtitlan in the mid-fourteenth century. A second Aztec faction built a second city, Tlatelolco. The two cities placed themselves under the protection of rival powers-Tenochtitlan under Culhuacan, Tlatelolco under the Tepanecs.

In the late fourteenth century the Tepanecs dominated the valley and expanded their power across the mountains to the west to encompass an area of perhaps 20,000 square miles. This consolidation was accomplished under King Tezozomoc, but after his death in 1423 the various city-states he had dominated began rebelling. Three powers joined together into a Triple Alliance to replace the Tepanecs, one being the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan. Despite an occasional disagreement, the three worked fairly well together and dominated central Mexico for ninety years. They consolidated their hold over the former Tepanec domain, then in 1465 began to expand. The Aztecs became the dominant partner in the triumvirate, but the three tribes collectively spread the empire from the Atlantic to the Pacific and as far southward as the modern-day border between Mexico and Guatemala. Only two tribes remained recalcitrant, the Tlaxaltecs and the Tarascans. The Aztecs established garrisons along disputed borders and occasionally warred against but never subjugated them.

The Aztecs led the expansion in order to increase their trade routes while incorporating a larger tax base among the conquered peoples. They also fought for religious reasons. The Aztecs worshiped (among others) the god of the sun, Huitzilopochtli. The Aztec religion taught that history moved in cycles, the end of which came with the destruction of the sun. To keep the god healthy and shining he required sacrifices to eat, so the Aztecs went conquering for sacrificial offerings. The pyramids that dominated the city of Tenochtitlan were large altars on which prisoners of war were executed daily. On days of special celebration, several thousand would be sacrificed. This need for offerings drove the Aztecs to conquer, but did not create loyal subjects.

Once their empire was consolidated, Tenochtitlan was expanded and beautified. The city reached a population of perhaps 200,000, about one-fifth of the total Aztec population; the number of subject peoples might have taken the empire's population as high as 6 million. When Moctezuma II came to power in 1502, the Aztec empire was well established and he was responsible for much of the lavish architecture and decoration in the capital city. Their sister-city Tlatelolco, which they took under their control in 1475, became the commercial center containing the largest market in Central America, hosting perhaps as many as 60,000 people on market days.

The constant need for sacrificial victims created resentment among the subject peoples, and when the Spaniards arrived they easily gained allies to assist them in their attacks on the Aztec empire. In 1519 the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortés landed on the coast of Mexico with 550 men and 16 horses. He had heard of a powerful tribe known as the Aztecs who ruled a vast, rich empire located in a land far to the west of Cuba, his Caribbean base. Landing at modern Vera Cruz, Cortés learned that the tribes subject to the Aztecs feared and resented their masters. Seeing Cortés as a possible savior, they allied with the strange newcomers.

Among the peoples of Central America was a belief in a great white god, Quetzalcoatl, who had visited the region in ages past and promised to return. Cortés played on that belief, for his horses, iron armor, and firearms were otherworldly items to the natives.

Cortés began his march into the interior in August 1519, gaining allies by reputation or by force. His major confrontation came with the Tlaxcalans, against whom he fought a number of battles throughout September. Spanish firepower and cavalry on open ground allowed Cortés to slaughter large numbers of the natives. Tlaxcala surrendered to him in the middle of the month, realizing that the Spaniards could prove vital in overthrowing the Aztecs. The Tlaxcalans warned Cortés that the route by which Moctezuma had invited him to travel, through the religious center of Cholula, was surely an ambush. When Moctezuma learned that Cortés had avoided the ambush, the emperor was convinced that only a god could have had foreknowledge of the plan. From that point Moctezuma seemed to have ceded the initiative to the Spanish. Cortés and his men entered Tenochtitlan on 8 November, where they gaped at the wealth the city contained.

After discussions with Moctezuma, Cortés learned that an Aztec governor near the coast had attacked and killed some Spaniards near Vera Cruz. Cortés used that as an excuse to seize Moctezuma and began to rule through him. Knowing no other ruler, the Aztecs would follow none of their own people who tried to make himself emperor in the face of Moctezuma's apparent surrender. Cortés pushed his luck too far when he banned the Aztec religion in order to introduce Christianity. That decision provoked dissent. Then Cortés learned that a Spanish expedition from Cuba, sent by his rival, Governor Diego Velazquez, had arrived off Vera Cruz. For a few weeks Cortés carried on a long-distance negotiation with the expedition's commander, Pánfilo de Narváez. By carefully leaking news of the immense wealth available, Cortés subverted many of Narváez's men. In the spring of 1520 Cortés led 250 of his men to fight Narváez; Cortés won and quickly incorporated the men sent to capture him into his army.

When he left Tenochtitlan, Cortés had placed in command Pedro de Alvarado, who began fighting the Aztecs in Tenochtitlan. He soon found himself badly outnumbered and besieged in one of the palaces. Cortés returned to Tenochtitlan with a force of nearly 1,100 men. No sooner had he reestablished himself than all his work began to fall apart. Moctezuma refused to cooperate in any way and managed to secure the release of his brother, Cuitlahuac, claiming that the people would lay down their arms if Cortés displayed that act of good faith. Instead, the war chiefs of the city quickly elected Cuitlahuac as emperor in Moctezuma's place. Near the end of June, an assault was launched on Cortés' position. The massive amounts of javelins and arrows wrought havoc in the Spanish lines. Fire from cannon and arquebus slaughtered many Aztecs, but employing human wave tactics they broke through the palace walls. The nature of Tenochtitlan, a city laced with canals, made maneuver nearly impossible since the Aztecs controlled all the bridges. Cortés sallied against the attackers but was always overwhelmed and forced to retreat. "Men who had fought against the Moors declared afterwards that they had never faced such a fierce and determined enemy, and veterans of the Italian wars said that even the French king's artillery was easier to face than these Indians" (Innes, The Conquistadors, p. 164). Soon every Spaniard not killed had been wounded. Cortés displayed Moctezuma on a rooftop to convince his people to stop fighting so the Spanish could evacuate the city. After some debate, the more warlike Aztecs prevailed and arrows and stones were soon flying. Moctezuma was struck in several places and died three days later.

Cortés had large wooden towers built, hoping to give his crossbowmen sufficient height to control the streets, but the Aztecs were too numerous. Even aided by a few thousand Tlaxcalans within the palace walls Cortés was badly outnumbered. He won a small, hard-fought victory at the pyramid temple near the palace, but his only hope of survival was to escape. For two days he fought his way through the streets to the causeway to Tacuba, then had to capture the gaps in the road where the Aztecs had destroyed eight bridges. Slowly, they captured each barricade, tore it down to fill the gap in the causeway where the bridge had been, then fought to the next barricade. Cortés thought he had bought a cease-fire when envoys promised to stop fighting if their high priest was released. Instead, Aztecs needed him to perform ceremonies to install Cuitlahuac as emperor. The attacks started again and the Spaniards were forced back to their palace. Hastily building a portable bridge, Cortés ordered a force of 150 of his soldiers and a few hundred Tlaxcalans to lay the bridge across the first gap in the causeway, then defend it while the bulk of his survivors crossed. They would then lay down fire for the second gap to be bridged. The evacuation took place on the night of 30 June-1 July, which the Spaniards called Noche Triste, the Night of Sorrows. They broke out of the palace with almost all of their cannon, but they carried as much gold as they could and that slowed their escape. In the end they succeeded, but they lost all their artillery and most of their gold, as well as some 600 men and two-thirds of sixty-eight horses. The Tlaxcalan allies lost around 2,000. They made a stand at Tacuba, then escaped northward the following night, harassed constantly to Tlaxcala.

Had the Aztecs continued to launch hit-and-run attacks, Cortés' force would certainly have been wiped out. Instead, Cuilahuac decided on a battle. Having fought the Spaniards only in the city, he had no idea what heavy cavalry could do in the open. He learned the hard way. At the town of Otumba on 7 July they fought. Cortés had but twenty-two horses, but with armor and lances they were still formidable. By attacking the gaudily dressed commanders, the Spanish robbed the Aztecs of their leadership; still, it was an all-day battle. There is no accurate count of Aztecs engaged, but there must have been many thousands. Spanish discipline defeated them. The day after the battle the Spaniards reached the Tlaxcalan border and the Aztecs withdrew.

Cortés sent to Vera Cruz for all the gunpowder and cannon available. He spent the next several months rebuilding his force, and with Tlaxcalan assistance pacifying the neighborhood and gaining allies. During this period Cortés was aided by an unexpected benefactor. An African slave with the Narváez expedition, afflicted with smallpox, died in the town of Zempoala. The disease spread from that one man across all of Mexico, and it severely weakened Cortés' enemies. The germs ran rampant through Tenochtitlan, killing Cuitlahuac. He was succeeded on the throne by Cuauhtemoc, one of Moctezuma's sons-in-law.

Cortés sent ships to Jamaica to buy ordnance and horses. He also began constructing thirteen small ships (brigantines) to operate on Tenochtitlan's lake. By Christmas 1520 he was ready. By April 1521 his men captured one town after another along Lake Texcoco's shores. After fighting his way completely around the lake, Cortés summoned his allies for the final assault. He now commanded 86 cavalry, 118 crossbowmen and arquebusiers, and more than 700 infantry armed with swords and pikes. A further 50,000 Tlaxcalans supplemented his army. Cortés divided his force into three columns: two were to march counter-clockwise around the lake and occupy Tacuba and Coyoacán, west of Tenochtitlan,

and the third was to capture Iztapalapa to the southeast. That would put them in control of the mainland end of the causeways entering Tenochtitlan. A fourth contingent Cortés himself commanded: the thirteen brigantines he had built to operate on the lake and deal with the canoe-borne Aztec warriors.

The attack got off to a bad start when one of the Tlaxcalan chiefs defected. He was quickly executed for desertion, with the approval of the other Tlaxcalans. Then two of Cortés' commanders quarreled and refused to cooperate with each other; he used all his diplomatic skills to settle the conflict. On 26 May his first two columns were in position and destroyed the aqueduct taking water to the city. On 31 May a swarm of Aztec canoes attacked Cortés' small flotilla. In the early morning hours they rowed away from the attackers, but when the dawn brought a friendly breeze Cortés faced about and attacked. The cannon aboard his small ships did amazing damage; by day's end he was master of Lake Texcoco. The attack on the city was another matter, for gaps in the causeways were now too large to be bridged. Unfortunately for the Aztecs, one gap was sufficiently wide for the Spanish ships to sail through and set up a crossfire on the defenders, forcing their retreat. A force of crossbowmen entered the city and attacked one of the temples, but was quickly forced back by overwhelming numbers.

The battle raged for ten weeks. Each day the Spaniards saw their fellows, taken prisoner by the Aztecs, sacrificed to the god of war atop the city's central pyramid. That steeled their resolve, and the lack of fresh water inside the city took its toll. The brigantines kept Aztec canoes at bay while the Spanish advanced up the damaged causeways. Occasional Aztec ambushes slowed the Spanish. The Aztecs also threw body parts of sacrificed prisoners at the attackers in an attempt to break their spirit. The siege took place during the rainy season, dampening the Spanish spirits. A few Aztecs slipped out of the city to carry severed heads of Spaniards and their horses to neighboring towns, attempting to raise support, but a Tlaxcalan punitive expedition brought in more allies to the Spanish cause. Finally the Spanish filled the gaps in the causeways and moved closer to the city. In desperation, the Aztecs launched larger and larger attacks that the Tlaxcalans beat back with enormous losses. Fighting went on street by street as the invaders gained more and more of the city. Finally, on 13 August, Cortés launched a massive attack on the last 15,000 defenders. Most died, a handful of survivors fleeing in canoes. The Spanish and their allies occupied the Aztec capital, but it contained only rotting bodies.

Although the Aztecs were in many ways more advanced than the Europeans, they lacked the necessary weaponry and resistance to foreign diseases to defeat their invaders. Even without the arrival of the Spaniards, it is questionable how much longer the tribes of Central America would have accepted their military dominance and religious practices.

Cortés and the Spaniards who followed him completely dismantled Aztec society. Disease killed an estimated 90 percent of the population. However, the Spanish were intent on altering the country rather than adapting to it. One of their first goals was to ban the Aztec religion, for human sacrifice and cannibalism were unacceptable to staunch Catholics. With the new governing power completely in Spanish hands, if any citizen of New Spain had any idea of advancing himself in the New World order, learning the Spanish language was vital. Within a generation, the Aztec religion and language had virtually ceased to exist. The Aztec culture, as reflected in their artwork (the Aztecs were reputedly expert goldsmiths), also disappeared. Almost all Aztec artwork in gold and silver was melted down into bullion for easier distribution as booty for the soldiers as well as ease of transport in the ships that took the wealth of the New World back to Spain.

The immense wealth looted from Central America, coupled with that obtained in South America, made Spain the richest and most powerful nation on earth. With that financial foundation, the intensely Catholic Spanish king Charles V proceeded to spend that money in Europe on military power to enforce the will of the Church, embroiled at the time with the new Protestant movement. For a century Spain dominated Europe, but the defeat of the Spanish Armada at the hands of the English at Calais in 1588 began their decline from international preeminence to that of also-ran by the end of the nineteenth century.