The logo for Lesson 6 is Hernán Cortés

Whatever we may think today of the destruction and changes wrought by the conquistadores, we must acknowledge that the handful of men who crossed the ocean to carry out the conquest performed historically epic deeds as they faced disease, hunger, hardship and hostile terrain to battle large numbers of warriors from two major empires. How were they able to accomplish this in such a short period of time? One explanation lies in the military superiority of the Spanish, both in weapons (steel, armor, gunpowder, the horse, the fighting dog), as well as in tactics (the Spanish had the experience of fierce fighting with the Moors, while to many of the Indigenous Americans warfare was something ritualistic and religious, such as the Aztecs' "war of the flowers"). Psychological factors helped as well, since many of the Indigenous empires held the belief of a returning god, such as Quetzalcoatl, coming from the east to reclaim his rightful kingdom on earth. Then there was the factor of biological warfare in the form of diseases brought by the Europeans (measles, smallpox) for which the Indigenous had no immunity. Finally, there was the factor of political divisions and fragmentation between the various groups the Spanish found. A prime example was in the conquest of Mexico, where the Aztec's brutal exploitation of other tribes made it easy for the Spanish to find allies in their fight against the Aztecs.