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Spain and the ‘New World’, c1490–c1555

The conquest of Mexico

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 2 booklet P

Overview

Cortés's force of 1519, Vera Cruz and the wrecked ships, Malinche, the Tlaxcalan alliance, Montezuma's welcome and death, the Noche Triste, the siege of Tenochtitlan, Cuauhtémoc's surrender and why the Aztecs fell.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What force did Cortés take to the mainland in 1519?

Key term

How did Cortés free himself from the governor's control once he had landed?

Numbers

What became of Montezuma?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What force did Cortés take to the mainland in 1519?

    Model answer

    Eleven ships carrying about 500 soldiers, sixteen horses and a handful of cannon.

  2. 2

    How did Cortés free himself from the governor's control once he had landed?

    Model answer

    Velázquez had cancelled his commission, so Cortés founded the town of Vera Cruz and had its council appoint him, then wrecked his own ships so no one could sail back.

  3. 3

    Who was Malinche, and why was she so valuable to Cortés?

    Model answer

    A Nahua woman given to him in 1519 who spoke both Nahuatl and Maya; with a shipwrecked Spaniard who knew Maya she gave him a chain of translation into the Aztec court.

  4. 4

    Why did the Tlaxcalans, having fought Cortés for two weeks, then become his allies?

    Model answer

    They were an unconquered people ringed by Aztec land and raided for sacrificial victims, so they joined him with thousands of warriors to strike at the empire.

  5. 5

    How did Montezuma treat the Spanish when they reached his capital in November 1519?

    Model answer

    He let them walk into Tenochtitlan unopposed, lodged them in a palace and gave them gifts of gold, rather than fighting them at the causeways.

  6. 6

    What became of Montezuma?

    Model answer

    Cortés seized him and governed through him as a puppet, and he died in June 1520; Spanish accounts say his own people stoned him, Aztec accounts that the Spanish killed him.

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