World History

The Spanish conquests in the Americas seem like impossibilities. The Spanish in Mexico and South and Central America, it is believed were out numbered by more a thousand to one. Their adversaries were people well skilled in war and killing, with strong well organized societies. So how did the Spanish manage to be victorious in the face of such odds?

One of the fundamental differences between the Spanish Conquistadors and the Mexican was language. The Spanish were able to control the conversations however because they had trained a woman called la Malince, to be an interpreter. This gave the Spaniards the ability to have open conversations, while the Mexican could not. The Spanish knew what the Mexica were saying all of the time, while the Mexica only knew what the Spaniards wanted them to know. An example of this would be during negotiations with Montezuma’s emissaries, Cortez could issue orders to his troops in the middle of negotiations to do things like fire cannon, and tactically this gave the Spaniards an advantage

Another difference between the two cultures was religion, even though both parties had a religion based on human sacrifice, the Mexica actively sacrificed people in a ceremony of blood, while the Spanish religion was based upon a single sacrifice. The Spanish were monotheists while the Mexica were polytheists. However while the Mexica believed in active human sacrifice and bloodletting, the Spanish had no problem spilling the blood of thousands of Mexica and Amerindians. The Aztecs thought that the Spaniards might be the reincarnation of one of their gods, as they had a legend of this god returning. Therefore they were initially reluctant to immediately attack the Spanish. The fear that this was their god returning was reinforced by the Mexica priests, soothsayers, magicians’ messengers and spies. Further, they believed that