alt Hacker News>> These are excerpts from the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, a sixteenth-century manuscript painted by the Tlaxcalans, longtime rivals of the Aztecs, to record the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish. The Mesoamericans fought with weapons made from obsidian, a hard, jet-black stone that was very sharp but brittle. They were brutally outmatched by a European military armed with steel swords, gunpowder, and horses. Image credit: New Mexico History Museum.
I wonder if this is still a widely accepted view among historians and archeologists, that Cortés' men "brutally outmatched" the Aztecs. I have the feeling that a more nuanced image has emerged in more recent years, taking into account, for example, the alliance of the Spaniards to the above-mentioned Tlaxcalans and other Mesoamerican people who hated the Aztecs a lot more than they cared to hate the Spaniards, and who saw the Spaniards as a useful ally in their feud with Tenochtitlan [1] so that when the Spaniards fought the Aztecs, they had several thousands of Tlaxcallans and other allies on their side, enough to match the numbers of the Aztecs, but who are omitted from the telling of the story[2]. Smallpox also played a huge role in depopulating the region, including the cities of the Spaniards' allies. Then there was the way that the Mexicans and their enemies traditionally fought: primarily, not so much to kill but to take prisoners to sacrifice later, much unlike the Spaniards who were all business.
Additionally the superiority of the arms of the Spaniards (not just iron but also black powder and horses) was tested in La Noche Triste: The Sad Night [3], an event in which the Spaniards were savagely attacked and driven out of Tenochtitlan in an urban battle that resulted in many Spanish casualties, including the loss of all their artillery and many of their horses by the same Aztecs whom the Spaniards' superior military technology dominated in open field battles.
And let's not forget the Battle of Isandlwana [4]: 20,000 Zulu warriors, armed mainly with assegai spears and cowhide shields massacred 1500 British soldiers equipped with rifles and even a couple cannon and rocket batteries. Morale of the story: there is a lot more that goes into the killing of men than who has the bigger weapons: another lesson repeated throughout history.
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[1] A pattern that repeats throughout history, e.g. the Middle Eastern states in the middle ages very quickly formed alliances with the Crusader states and the Westerners were fully integrated into local politics, and wars.
[2] Similar to how e.g. the ~2700 other Greeks that fought with Leonida's 300 Spartans are also often forgotten: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae#Greek_ar.... Not that it made a difference given the Persian numbers.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Noche_Triste
Many years ago I read Bernal Diaz Del Castillo's *The True History of the Conquest of Mexico": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_verdadera_de_la_conqu.... A beautiful book in which I learned all of the above. I seem to remember Castillo himself attributed the military dominance of the Spaniards to their modern equipment and horses. My impression that this narrative is perhaps not fully accurate comes from other sources- here and there.