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How Did Hernán Cortés Get the Expedition to Mexico?

Si Sheppard says Hernán Cortés turned a coastal survey into a campaign to seize the interior of Mexico.

Velázquez, the Spanish nobleman who took Cuba in 1511, used the island as a base and sent expeditions along the Mesoamerican coast. In 1518 he gave that work to Cortés, a man he already had a stormy relationship with. Cortés had arrived in Cuba in 1511, used legal training to work as a notary, and rose to alcalde, the chief magistrate, while wanting something larger. He recruited men not merely to explore the coast but to go inland, find what was there, and take control of it.

When Velázquez realized what was happening, he tried to stop the ships. On 18 November 1518 he reached the waterfront as Cortés was already leaving, and Cortés told him the expedition was under control. By then it was Cortés's expedition. He was sailing off the edge of European maps, into land Europeans had not charted, with the political instincts he had learned in the islands.

Transcript

Si Sheppard – How did a few hundred Spanish soldiers topple two empires? ·

Dwarkesh Podcast

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  2. Why Did Steel Armor Matter More Than Guns for Cortés?Si Sheppard says steel armor and steel helmets mattered more than guns once native fighters got past the first shock.
  3. Why Was the Horse the Conquistadors' Most Important Weapon?Si Sheppard says the horse was the vital weapon once the conquistadors left the coast, more decisive than the other animals they brought.
  4. Why Did Moctezuma Let Cortés Into Tenochtitlan?Si Sheppard says letting Cortés into Tenochtitlan was Moctezuma's best option, whether the emperor saw it that way or not.
  5. How Did Cortés Take Moctezuma Prisoner?Si Sheppard says Cortés used a coastal attack as the pretext to put Moctezuma under Spanish custody, and that once he held the emperor he held the empire.
  6. Why Did Cortés Flee Tenochtitlan on La Noche Triste?Si Sheppard says La Noche Triste, the tragic night, was the night Cortés broke out of Tenochtitlan after the city turned on him, and most of his men did not…
  7. Why Did Native Allies Fight Alongside Cortés?Si Sheppard says native allies, not the few hundred Spaniards, were most of the army that marched back on Tenochtitlan, and they fought for their own aims.
  8. How Did Francisco Pizarro Capture Atahualpa at Cajamarca?Si Sheppard says Francisco Pizarro captured Atahualpa by copying Cortés: seize the person at the top of the hierarchy, in a place where horses and gunpowder…
  9. How Fast Did Cortes Conquer the Aztec Empire?Si Sheppard says Cortes took over the Aztec empire in what is now Mexico in two and a half years, with a couple hundred men against an empire of six million…
  10. Why Didn't the Aztecs and the Inca Learn From Each Other?Si Sheppard says the Aztecs never made bronze, the Inca world did, and the two empires did not pass that knowledge to each other.
  11. Why Did Moctezuma Keep Cooperating With Cortés?Si Sheppard thinks Moctezuma suffered a complete psychological break the first time someone else told him what to do, and then became Cortés's willing puppet.
  12. Why Did Aztec Warriors Try to Capture Cortés Instead of Killing Him?Dwarkesh Patel says Aztec warriors tried to capture Cortés instead of killing him because their wars were built around taking victims for sacrifice, and that…
  13. Why Did the Inca Siege of Cuzco Fail?Si Sheppard says the Inca siege of Cuzco failed because narrow streets kept a huge army from hitting the remaining conquistadors all at once.
  14. Why Did Spanish Soldiers Chase the New World?Si Sheppard says Spanish soldiers chased the New World for two separate reasons: Extremadura left proud fighters with little but dirt farming, and word from…
  15. Why Couldn't the Aztecs Turn Spanish Rivals Against Each Other?Si Sheppard says the splits among conquistadors were personal rivalries inside one Spanish world, so the Aztecs could not use them to stay in power.

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