How Did Spain's Search For Gold And Its Effect On The Aztecs

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Spain’s Quest for Gold and Its Effects on the Aztecs
Can you imagine a world where Spanish wasn’t one of the most common languages being spoken? If Spain hadn’t fought as hard as they did for gold than that could’ve been the case. The Spanish went to Mesoamerica in search of gold and their greediness lead to violence which eventually caused the end of the Aztec Empire. Overtime, they gained many advantages over the Aztecs which allowed them to take control of the empire. Not only were the Aztecs naive in how they didn’t fight back but they also didn’t work together to gain strength in numbers. The Aztecs didn’t originally fight back because they believed that Hernán Cortés was the god Quetzalcoatl. According to the Ancient Origins website, “It …show more content…
Cortés heard of this and he was quick to get them onto his side. At this point, the Aztecs outnumbered the Spanish by a very large amount. This is partially because according to Douglas Daniel, “The Spanish were all volunteers,” and for the Aztecs, “Every able-bodied man was liable for military service.” The Spanish gained much more power from the people Tlaxcala allying with them. This brought them from having a few hundred soldiers to having thousands. The Spanish already had more advanced weapons and fighting strategies so once they had the numbers it was easy for them to become incredibly powerful. Montezuma did not have the best intent for the Aztec people and it is believed that,
“upper classes were aware of this forgery, which would explain the later actions of Montezuma II when he met Hernán Cortés. But eventually this institution helped to cause the fall of the Aztec empire. The people of Tlaxcala were spared conquest, at the price or participating in the flower wars. When Cortés came to know this, he approached them and they became his allies. The Tlaxcaltecas provided thousands of men to support the few hundred
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