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The Spanish ‘Conquest’
Terms can be controversial: some feel we shouldn’t refer to the Spanish Conquest of Mexico but rather to the Spanish Invasion or ‘Spanish-Aztec War’, some feel we shouldn’t use such terms as ‘pre-Hispanic’ but rather ‘pre-Cuauhtémoc’, some feel the term ‘Conquistador’ is insidiously romantic - we will be building up a resource bank here of insightful material on the ‘Clash of Cultures’ between ‘indigenous’ Mexica/Aztecs and the Spanish colonizers. Please keep coming back...
Our tongue-in-cheek cartoon above comes courtesy of and thanks to Viv Quillin...
NB Please note that we have several features relating to life in Mexico for the Nahuas after the Spanish invasion in other parts of the website; check for instance our ‘Ask Us’ section...
A few years ago the BBC recorded a discussion on the Siege of Tenochtitlan for the Radio 4 ‘In Our Time’ series. Two of the panellists are on our Panel of Experts. Link below...
Central section of a screen mural by Roberto Cueva del Río
Our ‘Ask Us’ section
‘How long did it take the Aztecs to realise that Cortés was not a god? ‘
‘What did the Aztecs call the Spanish invaders?’
‘What happened straight after Moctezuma’s death?’
The effect of the Spanish invasion on Nahuatl
Hear a BBC podcast on the Siege of Tenochtitlan
Dissertation: ‘Spanish and Nahuatl Views on Smallpox and Demographic Catastrophe in the Conquest of Mexico’
NEH Summer Institute for School Teachers, Oaxaca, 2015 - teaching resources on the Spanish Invasion
Explore a series of interactive paintings of the Conquest - Library of Congress website
Part Two of our month-by-month guide to the
quincentennial of the Spanish invasion of Mexico
Month-by-month guide to the quincentennial
of the Spanish invasion of Mexico...
IN THE NEWS: epidemic, self-isolation
and the preservation of memory
Could this be the very first image
of Africans in the Americas...?
A time to celebrate the achievements and advances
of Mesoamerca prior to the Spanish invasion...
The Spanish demonised the Aztec underworld
Mictlan - turning it into a place of torment...
IN THE NEWS: the gender pay gap -
see just how wide it was in 1550s New Spain...!
How wise spiritual leaders of Nahua communities
ended up branded as charlatans by the Spanish...
Malinche and Pocahontas: the stories of two women
who survived through a time of great crisis...
Experts offer some provocative thoughts
on the impact of the Spanish invasion...
The Spanish invasion of Mexico
- the perspective of women...
The skills of Aztec artists
were judged ‘razor-sharp’ by Europeans
The Spanish-Aztec War was
a ‘failure of basic understanding’...
A new resource for GCSE students
on the Aztecs & the Spanish Conquest
‘The Aztecs & the Spanish Conquest’
for GCSE: Part Two
‘The Aztecs & the Spanish Conquest’
- arguments and controversies...
Conquest, Invasion, or just
‘Spanish-Aztec War’...
The Spanish conquest was a campaign won
mostly through politics and diplomacy...
![The burning of [Maya] books](https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/images-7/769_00_0.jpg)
‘Memory cannot be burned’ - it finds refuge
‘in mouths that sing the glories of men and gods...’
Why would a Catholic priest
decide to build an Aztec pyramid?
How would the world be different
if the Aztecs had defeated the Spanish?
English pirates secured new homes
for Mexican gold in our museums...
‘Syncretism’: how the Mexica (Aztecs)
became Christians in the sixteenth century...
The Spanish Conquest and
the ‘Stranger Effect’...
The ‘Manuscript of a Dogging’ is a lasting memorial
to the violence of spiritual as well as military conquest...
Did any pre-Columbian dances
survive the Spanish Conquest?
Follow the road taken by Cortés
to reach Tenochtitlan in 1519...
Hear Professor Davíd Carrasco explain for us
how the Aztecs viewed the Spanish invaders
Doña Marina -
a study in survival...
Doña Marina -
a study in survival - Conclusion
What happened to the Aztec/Mexica gods
after the Spanish Conquest? (2)
What happened to the Aztec/Mexica gods
after the Spanish Conquest? (2) - Conclusion
Did the Aztecs really know
of their impending doom?