Dynastica

Aztec Empire

Mesoamerica / Mexico · 1428 – 1521

Overview

The Mexica polity centered on Tenochtitlan that, in alliance with Texcoco and Tlacopan, dominated central Mexico for ninety-three years before its destruction by Hernán Cortés. Built on tribute, religion, and the sustained terror of mass human sacrifice, at its 1519 height it ruled perhaps six million people across central and southern Mexico. The empire fell in two years to a Spanish force of less than a thousand soldiers, devastated by smallpox and outflanked by indigenous allies who hated Mexica rule even more than they feared the conquistadors.

Lineage

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Related events

  • Conflict

    Spanish Conquest of Tenochtitlan

    1519 – 1521· this dynasty: destroyed

    A two-year campaign by Hernán Cortés and roughly six hundred Spaniards, aided by smallpox and tens of thousands of indigenous allies who hated Mexica rule, destroyed the Aztec Empire. Moctezuma II received Cortés peacefully in Tenochtitlan in November 1519 and was held captive there; he died in disputed circumstances during the Mexica uprising of 1520. The eighty-day Spanish siege ended on 13 August 1521 with the capture of the last tlatoani, Cuauhtémoc.

    Also involved: Spanish Habsburgs (conqueror (under Charles V))

See also

Same era