"Mexico–Spain relations Mexican–Spanish relations refers to the bilateral relations between Mexico and Spain. Like many other Latin American nations, despite having achieved independence, Mexico retains a stable relationship with Spain. Both nations are members of the G-20, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Organization of Ibero-American States. The Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés led an expedition to what is now Mexico in 1518, establishing the city of Veracruz on his arrival. Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire, fell to Spain in 1521. It was renamed Mexico City, the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Viceroyalty had a stratified"
"heard rumours of the rich empire of the Aztecs on the mainland to the west of their Caribbean island settlements and, in 1519, Hernán Cortés set sail to explore the Mexican coast. By August 1521 the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had fallen to the Spanish. The Spanish conquered a large part of Mexico within three years, extending as far south as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The newly conquered territory became New Spain, headed by a viceroy who answered to the Spanish Crown via the Council of the Indies. The conquest of Central America that followed was effectively an extension of"
"and the second in 1519 under the command of Hernán Cortés, which led to the Spanish exploration, military invasion, and ultimately settlement and colonization known as the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and subsequent Spanish colonization in present-day Mexico. Hernández did not live to see the continuation of his work; he died in 1517, the year of his expedition, as the result of the injuries and the extreme thirst suffered during the voyage and disappointed in the knowledge that Diego Velázquez had given precedence to Grijalva as the captain of the next expedition to Yucatán. The importance given to"
"domination over the islands of the Caribbean Sea, and used these as a staging point to launch their campaigns of conquest on the continental mainland of the Americas. From Hispaniola, the Spanish launched expeditions and campaigns of conquest, reaching Puerto Rico in 1508, Jamaica in 1509, Cuba in 1511, and Florida in 1513. The Spanish heard rumours of the rich empire of the Aztecs on the mainland to the west of their Caribbean island settlements and, in 1519, Hernán Cortés set sail to explore the Mexican coast. By August 1521 the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had fallen to the Spanish."
"and the Pacific Ocean. After landing in Veracruz, Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés advanced upon Tenochtitlan with the aid of many of the other native peoples, arriving there on November 8, 1519. Cortés and his men marched along the causeway leading into the city from Iztapalapa, and the city's ruler, Moctezuma II, greeted the Spaniards; they exchanged gifts, but the camaraderie did not last long. Cortés put Moctezuma under house arrest, hoping to rule through him. Tensions increased until, on the night of June 30, 1520 – during a struggle known as ""La Noche Triste"" – the Aztecs rose up against"
"set sail, thus beginning the expedition of exploration and conquest. The Spanish campaign against the Aztec Empire had its final victory on August 13, 1521, when a coalition army of Spanish forces and native Tlaxcalan warriors led by Cortés and Xicotencatl the Younger captured the emperor Cuauhtemoc and Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire. The fall of Tenochtitlan marks the beginning of Spanish rule in central Mexico, and they established their capital of Mexico City on the ruins of Tenochtitlan. Cortés made alliances with tributaries city-states (""altepetl"") of the Aztec Empire as well as their political rivals, particularly the"
"loyalists to the Triple Alliance. By 1519, the Aztec capital, Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the site of modern-day Mexico City, was one of the largest cities in the world, with an estimated population between 200,000 and 300,000. The first mainland explorations were followed by a phase of inland expeditions and conquest. The Spanish crown extended the Reconquista effort, completed in Spain in 1492, to non-Catholic people in new territories. In 1502 on the coast of present-day Colombia, near the Gulf of Urabá, Spanish explorers led by Vasco Núñez de Balboa explored and conquered the area near the Atrato River. The conquest was of"
"to explore the Mexican coast. By August 1521 the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had fallen to the Spanish. The Spanish conquered a large part of Mexico within three years, extending as far south as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The newly conquered territory became New Spain, headed by a viceroy who answered to the Spanish Crown via the Council of the Indies. The discovery of the Aztec Empire and its great riches changed the focus of exploration out of Panama from the south to northwest. Various expeditions were then launched northwards involving notable conquistadors such as Pedrarias Dávila, Gil González Dávila,"
"him with trickery and had therefore been punished. In one of his responses to Cortés, Moctezuma blamed the commanders of the local Aztec garrison for the resistance in Cholula, and recognizing that his long-standing attempts to dissuade Cortés from coming to Tenochtitlan with gifts of gold and silver had failed, Moctezuma finally invited the conquistadors to visit his capital city, according to Spanish sources, after feeling as though nothing else could be done. On 8 November 1519, after the fall of Cholula, Cortés and his forces entered Tenochtitlan, the island capital of the Mexica-Aztecs. It is believed that the city"
"Tlaxcalteca and Texcocans, a former partner in the Aztec Triple Alliance. Other city-states also joined, including and polities bordering Lake Texcoco, the inland lake system of the Valley of Mexico. Particularly important to the Spanish success was a multilingual (Nahuatl, a Maya dialect, and Spanish) indigenous slave woman, known to the Spanish conquistadors as Doña Marina, and generally as La Malinche. After eight months of battles and negotiations, which overcame the diplomatic resistance of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II to his visit, Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan on November 8, 1519, where he took up residence with fellow Spaniards and their"
"and one, Juan de Argüello, captured. As was traditional in Aztec society, Argüello and the captured Totonacs were sacrificed, the Spaniard's head being sent to Moctezuma as a trophy. Cortes later suggested in a letter, as justification for the death of Qualpopoca, that these men were not killed or captured in battle, but instead had been sent by the Spanish as emissaries and guides to Qualpopoca who had had them seized and sacrificed. When word of the battle reached Tenochtitlan on 14 November 1519, there was consternation. Hernán Cortés and his force of 300 conquistadors and several thousand Totonac and"
"kill them. In October 1519, Cortés and his men, accompanied by about 1,000 Tlaxcalteca, marched to Cholula, the second largest city in central Mexico. Cortés, either in a pre-meditated effort to instill fear upon the Aztecs waiting for him at Tenochtitlan or (as he later claimed, when he was being investigated) wishing to make an example when he feared native treachery, massacred thousands of unarmed members of the nobility gathered at the central plaza, then partially burned the city. By the time he arrived in Tenochtitlan the Spaniards had a large army. On November 8, 1519, they were peacefully received"
"intruders. This was soon followed by news that the great Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had fallen to the ""conquistadores"". A mixed embassy that included Chiapanecas, K'iche's and Kaqchikel Maya visited Hernan Cortés in the recently conquered Aztec capital, and were well received. In 1522, Spanish ships explored the Pacific shore of Chiapas when Andrés Niño followed the coast from Panama northwest to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. In December that year, Cuzcacuatl, who was lord of the Tzotzil Maya town of Zinacantan, travelled to the Spanish settlement at Villa del Espíritu Santo (modern Coatzacoalcos) to pledge an alliance with the newcomers."
"emperor Ahuitzotl, between 1497 and 1502. Although, they were not fully conquered. The Mixtecs and Zapotecs allied together and were able to survive. The Oaxaca Valley was subsequently subsumed within the Aztec Empire. The Aztec empire collapsed when their capital, Tenochtitlan, fell to the Spanish in August 1521. Several months later, on November 25, 1521, Francisco de Oruzco arrived in the Oaxaca Valley to claim it in the name of the conquistador Hernán Cortés. Cortés, who had been granted Oaxaca as his prize for conquering New Spain by the Spanish crown, was thereafter named ""Marques del Valle de Oaxaca"". In"
"de las Banderas. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire began in February 1519 when Hernán Cortés arrived at the port in Veracruz with ca. 500 conquistadores. After taking control of that city, he moved on to the Aztec capital. In his search for gold and other riches, Cortés decided to invade and conquer the Aztec empire. When the Spaniards arrived, the ruler of the Aztec empire was Moctezuma II, who was later killed. His successor and brother Cuitláhuac took control of the Aztec empire, but was among the first to fall from the first smallpox epidemic in the area"
"shipped for Havana as a young man and joined forces with Hernán Cortés in New Spain in about 1520 as a conquistador crossbow man. In the conquest of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) in 1521 Cortez directed Cabrillo to build thirteen boats to fight on the lake then in the center of Tenochitlan. Rapidly advancing in rank under Cortez's direction he participated in the conquest of El Salvador and Guatemala and was rewarded by being granted an extensive Encomienda (a feudal grant of land including the occupants on it) controlling vast land and Native American resources in Guatemala."
"870 men. Having prevailed with the assistance of allies and reinforcements from Cuba, Cortés besieged Tenochtitlán and captured its ruler Cuauhtémoc in August 1521. As the Aztec Empire ended he claimed the city for Spain, renaming it Mexico City. A first attempt to explore western South America was undertaken in 1522 by Pascual de Andagoya. Native South Americans told him about a gold-rich territory on a river called Pirú. Having reached San Juan River (Colombia), Andagoya fell ill and returned to Panama, where he spread news about ""Pirú"" as the legendary El Dorado. These, along with the accounts of success"
"and Bernal Díaz del Castillo as ""Tendile"". As the Spaniards approached Tenochtitlan they made an alliance with the Tlaxcalteca, who were enemies of the Aztec Triple Alliance, and they helped instigate revolt in many towns under Aztec dominion. Moctezuma was aware of this and he sent gifts to the Spaniards, probably in order to show his superiority to the Spaniards and Tlaxcalteca. On 8 November 1519, Moctezuma met Cortés on the causeway leading into Tenochtitlan and the two leaders exchanged gifts. Moctezuma gave Cortés the gift of an Aztec calendar, one disc of crafted gold and another of silver. Cortés"
"1519, the year Hernán Cortés began his Conquest of Mexico, only two from the original shipwreck remained alive: Gonzalo Guerrero, who by this time had become famous in the Mayan world as a war leader for Nachan Can, Lord of Chactemal (which included parts of Mexico and Belize); and Gerónimo de Aguilar, who had taken holy orders in his native Spain. Guerrero had by then married Nachan Can's daughter Zazil Há and had fathered the first mestizo children in the region. Cortes also learned that it was Guerrero's suggestion which led to the earlier attack on Cordoba's expedition. On arriving"
"Crown to conquer the newly discovered lands in return for tax revenues and the power to rule. In the first decades after the discovery of the new lands, the Spanish colonised the Caribbean and established a centre of operations on the island of Cuba. They heard rumours of the rich empire of the Aztecs on the mainland to the west and, in 1519, Hernán Cortés set sail with eleven ships to explore the Mexican coast. By August 1521 the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had fallen to the Spanish. A single soldier arriving in Mexico in 1520 was carrying smallpox and"
"controlled the whole Lake Texcoco area. The Aztecs hired themselves out as mercenaries in wars between the Nahuas, breaking the balance of power between city states. Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan formed a ""Triple Alliance"" that came to dominate the Valley of Mexico, and then extended its power beyond. Tenochtitlan, the traditional capital of the Aztec Empire, gradually became the dominant power in the alliance. It should be noted that the Chichimeca, a wide range of nomadic groups that inhabited the north of modern-day Mexico, were never conquered by the Aztecs. In 1519, the native civilizations of Mexico were invaded by"
"ordered Tlacotzin be dressed as a Spaniard, given a sword and a white horse as symbols of his new position as Tlatoani. Tlacotzin was also baptized by the Spanish as don Juan Velásquez. He accompanied Cortés on his three year expedition, but died in 1526 (8 Tochtli) while on it, of an unknown sickness in Nochixtlan. Cortés immediately chose Andrés de Tapia Motelchiuh as his successor. Juan Velázquez Tlacotzin Juan Velázquez Tlacotzin was an Aztec leader in Tenochtitlan, during the final decades of the Aztec Empire. He then was the first post-Spanish conquest ""Tlatoani"" (Aztec ruler) from 1525 to 1526."
"the Cerro (large hill) del Fortín to keep an eye on the Zapotec capital of Zaachila and secure the trade route between the Valley of Mexico, Tehuantepec and what is now Central America. When the Spanish arrived in 1521, the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs were involved in one of their many wars. Spanish conquest would end this fighting. The first Spanish expedition here arrived late in 1521, headed by Captain Francisco de Orozco, and accompanied by 400 Aztecs. Hernán Cortés sent Francisco de Orozco to Oaxaca because Moctezuma II said that the Aztec's gold came from there. The Spanish expedition"
"great king in another land. Because the Spaniards arrived in 1519, Moctezuma knew this was the year of Ce Acatl, which is the year Quetzalcoatl was promised to return. Previously, during Juan de Grijalva's expedition, Moctezuma believed that those men were heralds of Quetzalcoatl, as Moctezuma, as well as everyone else in the Aztec Empire, were to believe that eventually Quetzalcoatl will return. Moctezuma even had glass beads that were left behind by Grijalva brought to Tenochtitlan and they were regarded as sacred religious relics. The Spanish had established a permanent settlement on the island of Hispaniola in 1493 on"
"Diaz: On meeting a group of inhabitants from Cempoala who gave Cortes and his men food and invited them to their village: Cortés was the Spanish conquistador whose expedition to Mexico in 1519 led to the fall of the Aztecs, and led to the conquering of vast sections of Mexico on behalf of the Crown of Castile. Cortés wrote of Aztec sacrifice on numerous occasions, one of which in his ""Letters,"" he states: The Anonymous Conquistador was an unknown travel companion of Cortés who wrote ""Narrative of Some Things of New Spain and of the Great City of Temestitan"" which"
"Veracruz) in 1519, one of his first acts was to overthrow Aztec dominion by seizing Aztec tribute collectors in the town of Quiahuiztlan and only returning them after a personal request from the Aztec Emperor. He then routed the Aztec garrison at the town of Tizapancingo and returned the state to the native Totonacs under their leader Tlacochcalcatl of Cempoala. To restore the province to Aztec control, Moctezuma despatched Qualpopoca with instructions to defeat the Totonacs and their Spanish allies. Arriving in October 1519, Qualpopoca demanded that the Totonac towns pay their regular tribute to the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. The"
"rings provide further evidence of the intellectual curiosity and architectural ingenuity of the early Mesoamericans."" Cempoala was a prosperous city in 1519, in which the Spaniards under Hernan Cortes arrived in Mexico and established alliances with some groups to go towards the capture of Tenochtitlan, the city of Cempoala then numbered approximately 20,000 inhabitants and was the most important ceremonial and commercial center of the Aztec empire, more so than Tlatelolco, the Spaniards called it in Villa Viciosa, meaning fertile village by the many festivals and vast orchards and gardens available and festive and joyful inhabitants character, was later known"
"Initially, the center and south areas were under the control of Tenochtitlan with Texcoco dominant in the north. Aztec domination continued until the Spanish Conquest. Hernán Cortés entered Puebla state in 1519, along with his indigenous allies from Veracruz, on his way to Tlaxcala. The Spanish takeover of the Puebla area was relatively easy. Many of the peoples here were under Aztec domination and saw the foreigners as a way to escape. One notable exception was the city of Cholula. While negotiating with the city's leaders, Cortés was told of a plot to attack him and his men. Cortés ordered"
"archaeologists have nonetheless attempted to identify a geographic place of origin for the Mexica. Friar Diego Durán (c. 1537–1588), who chronicled the history of the Aztecs, wrote of Aztec emperor Moctezuma I's attempt to recover the history of the Mexica by congregating warriors and wise men on an expedition to locate Aztlán. According to Durán, the expedition was successful in finding a place that offered characteristics unique to Aztlán. However, his accounts were written shortly after the conquest of Tenochtitlan and before an accurate mapping of the American continent was made; therefore, he was unable to provide a precise location."
"Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés led an expedition to what is now Mexico, which resulted in the total destruction of the Aztec Empire within just two years (February 1519 – August 1521). Notwithstanding the Europeans' superior weaponry and Horses, it is believed that the arrival of smallpox in the Americas in 1520 weakened the resistance the Aztecs people were able to mount. In 1607, English settlers arrived in North America and established the Jamestown colony in Virginia. Though at first it seemed the colonists would not survive the harsh conditions of the New World, ultimately it was the natives who could"
"camp."" He died when the Aztec army attacked the Spaniards as they fled the city of Tenochtitlán, during the La Noche Triste. Juan Velázquez de León Juan Velázquez de León was a Spanish conquistador, who along with Hernán Cortés participated in the third Spanish expedition to continental America (present day Mexico) in 1519. He was distinguished by being relative of the then Governor of Cuba Diego Velázquez, but overall served Hernán Cortés and the cause of the Conquest. Cortés gave Juan the daughter of Maxixcatzin, baptized as Doña Elvira, after the Tlaxcallan's made peace with the Spanish. Juan had a"
"navy to the mainland, where they conquered Mexico and Peru respectively. The navy also carried explorers to the North American mainland, including Juan Ponce de León and Álvarez de Pineda, who discovered Florida (1519) and Texas (1521) respectively. In 1519, Spain sent out the first expedition of world circumnavigation in history, which was put in the charge of the Portuguese Commander Ferdinand Magellan. Following the death of Magellan in the Philippines, the expedition was completed under the command of Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1522. In 1565, a follow-on expedition by Miguel López de Legazpi was carried by the navy from"
"his army to commit the Massacre of Cholula on 12 October 1519. This act terrified those who opposed the Spanish and they submitted. In 1520, after his initial defeat in Tenochtitlan (La Noche Triste) Hernán Cortés founded a Spanish settlement at Tepeaca, and took areas such as Huaquechula and Itzocan. Many natives leaders then provided men and supplies for the conquest of Tenochtitlan in 1521, and later to go with Pedro de Alvarado to Guatemala. Local indigenous governments survived in the very early colonial period, subject to the Spanish. These included Tuchpa, Tzicoac, Metztitlán, Tlapacoyan, Atotonilco, Tlatlaquitepec, Huaxtepec, Tepeaca, Tlacozautitlán,"