Pour One Out For: The Aztec Empire
Hereeeeeeee's Hernán!
On March 4th, 1519, Hernán Cortés landed on the Yucatán Peninsula. It was a bold move. Cortés had been given command of a Spanish expedition to the Mexican interior by Diego Velázquez, the Spanish governor of Cuba. Velázquez and Cortés were colonialism drinking buddies, but when it became clear to Velázquez that Mexican glory > Cuban glory, Velázquez tried to revoke Cortés’ command. Cortés killed the messenger (literally), and when Velázquez arrived personally to stop him, Cortés waved adios to Velázquez from the helm of a ship.
Cortés sailed off to the mainland with 11 ships, 100 sailors and 530 soldiers. On the Yucatán Peninsula he met the two people who would allow him to whisper silky words into the ears of the Aztecs: Geronimo de Aguilar, a shipwrecked sailor who had been living with the Maya, and La Malinche, a native woman given as a slave to the Spanish. Aguilar spoke Spanish and Mayan, and La Malinche spoke Mayan and the Aztec language Nahuatl. An effective game of New World Telephone ensued, and the rest, as they say, is lamentable.
Moctezuma II greeting Cortés
Cortés was a talented and persuasive military leader, and proved adept at manipulating alliances and social power structures he encountered in the native civilizations. A massacre here, a hostage taking there, sprinkle with smallpox, and within two and a half years the Aztec Empire was in ruins. On August 13, 1521, the city of Tenochtitlan surrendered to Cortés’ besieging forces, and that was that.
So pour out a splash of mezcal for the Aztec Empire. Say what you will about their penchant for human sacrifice and oppression of surrounding peoples; the Aztecs were no match for the wildly successful combination of Spanish colonialism, New World Telephone, and smallpox.
