The Mexico Podcast: History & Present: Recent Episodes
Brandon Springer
In this episode we examine the "1994" docu-series on Netflix.
Check out https://www.digitalnomad.mx/spanish before January 7, 2020 if you want to join the How to Master Spanish course and get 41 billion bonuses for a price so low that I would get fired if I were working for someone else. After January 7, the price goes up. You can still join the course after January 7, but you won't be able to send me an email saying, "Seriously, Brandon, you're undercharging like crazy. And in fact, the low, low price is making me extremely upset. How dare you."
Sources and links This disclaimer is unnecessary, but I’m gonna include it anyway: We all know how the internet works. Any of the links included here might disappear from existence at any time. The Wayback Machine is usually pretty good at archiving things, but not always.
-Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. John L. Stephens. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SRVTN2T/
(I can’t vouch for the quality of this version of Incidents of Travel. I found a physical copy of the first 2 volumes. Since the book is in the public domain, anybody can republish it with zero quality control.)
-Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya. William Carlsen. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0105V62Z0/
-History of Belize: From Mayan Settlement To Melting Pot. Kathleen Peddicord. https://medium.com/liveandinvestoverseas/history-of-belize-from-mayan-settlement-to-melting-pot-58205831902
-Ancient Mayan civilisation 'was WIPED OUT by deforestation.' https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1005952/Ancient-Mayan-civilisation-deforestation-science-world?fbclid=IwAR0EbLUTGcW7V2euZrqtf98IFUbeIa-iFvIk3Iqiv64NKd2NhsMlNWNfMiM
-What happened to the ancient Mayans? https://www.history101.com/mayan-mystery/?fbclid=IwAR0yv8v29E_GlvS_LI8S_4mHIvF0CTXBi5l4_5_UJojGUGl13LKQ0IPI5Jk
-There aren’t any good videos about Tonina that I could find. It’s a relatively unknown place. The first two videos below are in Spanish and the second two have no narration.
-Tonina documentary by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb6xzOvDEPo
-This video makes you feel like you’re taking a guided tour of Tonina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWEkXoJDiU
-Or if you prefer no talking, check out this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZjzWy-S2Hc
-Drone footage, no narration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxGS_Cxu7RY
-Daguerreotype video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Ambe4FwQk
The Mayan Soul. https://yucatanliving.com/culture/the-mayan-concept-of-soul?fbclid=IwAR2oUkG2moHkmteDCnY6uMdu3lecbdtYOPdtXOh0qme8wY67Rt2mESeVqbM
Sources and links This disclaimer is unnecessary, but I’m gonna include it anyway: We all know how the internet works. Any of the links included here might disappear from existence at any time. The Wayback Machine is usually pretty good at archiving things, but not always.
-Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. John L. Stephens. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SRVTN2T/
(I can’t vouch for the quality of this version of Incidents of Travel. I found a physical copy of the first 2 volumes. Since the book is in the public domain, anybody can republish it with zero quality control.)
-Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya. William Carlsen. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0105V62Z0/
-History of Belize: From Mayan Settlement To Melting Pot. Kathleen Peddicord. https://medium.com/liveandinvestoverseas/history-of-belize-from-mayan-settlement-to-melting-pot-58205831902
-Ancient Mayan civilisation 'was WIPED OUT by deforestation.' https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1005952/Ancient-Mayan-civilisation-deforestation-science-world?fbclid=IwAR0EbLUTGcW7V2euZrqtf98IFUbeIa-iFvIk3Iqiv64NKd2NhsMlNWNfMiM
-What happened to the ancient Mayans? https://www.history101.com/mayan-mystery/?fbclid=IwAR0yv8v29E_GlvS_LI8S_4mHIvF0CTXBi5l4_5_UJojGUGl13LKQ0IPI5Jk
-There aren’t any good videos about Tonina that I could find. It’s a relatively unknown place. The first two videos below are in Spanish and the second two have no narration.
-Tonina documentary by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb6xzOvDEPo
-This video makes you feel like you’re taking a guided tour of Tonina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWEkXoJDiU
-Or if you prefer no talking, check out this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZjzWy-S2Hc
-Drone footage, no narration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxGS_Cxu7RY
-Daguerreotype video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Ambe4FwQk
The Mayan Soul. https://yucatanliving.com/culture/the-mayan-concept-of-soul?fbclid=IwAR2oUkG2moHkmteDCnY6uMdu3lecbdtYOPdtXOh0qme8wY67Rt2mESeVqbM
Sources and links This disclaimer is unnecessary, but I’m gonna include it anyway: We all know how the internet works. Any of the links included here might disappear from existence at any time. The Wayback Machine is usually pretty good at archiving things, but not always.
-Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. John L. Stephens. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SRVTN2T/
(I can’t vouch for the quality of this version of Incidents of Travel. I found a physical copy of the first 2 volumes. Since the book is in the public domain, anybody can republish it with zero quality control.)
-Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya. William Carlsen. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0105V62Z0/
-History of Belize: From Mayan Settlement To Melting Pot. Kathleen Peddicord. https://medium.com/liveandinvestoverseas/history-of-belize-from-mayan-settlement-to-melting-pot-58205831902
-Ancient Mayan civilisation 'was WIPED OUT by deforestation.' https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1005952/Ancient-Mayan-civilisation-deforestation-science-world?fbclid=IwAR0EbLUTGcW7V2euZrqtf98IFUbeIa-iFvIk3Iqiv64NKd2NhsMlNWNfMiM
-What happened to the ancient Mayans? https://www.history101.com/mayan-mystery/?fbclid=IwAR0yv8v29E_GlvS_LI8S_4mHIvF0CTXBi5l4_5_UJojGUGl13LKQ0IPI5Jk
-There aren’t any good videos about Tonina that I could find. It’s a relatively unknown place. The first two videos below are in Spanish and the second two have no narration.
-Tonina documentary by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb6xzOvDEPo
-This video makes you feel like you’re taking a guided tour of Tonina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWEkXoJDiU
-Or if you prefer no talking, check out this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZjzWy-S2Hc
-Drone footage, no narration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxGS_Cxu7RY
-Daguerreotype video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Ambe4FwQk
The Mayan Soul. https://yucatanliving.com/culture/the-mayan-concept-of-soul?fbclid=IwAR2oUkG2moHkmteDCnY6uMdu3lecbdtYOPdtXOh0qme8wY67Rt2mESeVqbM
Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TN7ZTXR/
Two friends sailed to Central America in 1839 looking for evidence of a lost civilization. Their journey took them through countries torn by civil war and controlled by bandits and rebels. When they weren't being held hostage, contracting malaria, or meeting Presidents and guerrilla leaders, they found themselves among mystifying ancient cities slowly being reclaimed by nature. Elaborately carved stone statues were buried by time, and massive pyramids were covered with incomprehensible hieroglyphics.
These two men were pivotal in the rediscovery of the Mayan civilization. Their books inspired generations of archaeologists to excavate and preserve Mayan sites like Chichen Itza, Palenque, and Tulum. And their illustrations were so accurate that they have been used to help decode the Mayan language even though the original stone hieroglyphics have been effaced and worn away.
Their names are John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood. They have been largely forgotten, but their story and their thrilling adventure is worth remembering.
Sources and links This disclaimer is unnecessary, but I’m gonna include it anyway: We all know how the internet works. Any of the links included here might disappear from existence at any time. The Wayback Machine is usually pretty good at archiving things, but not always.
-Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. John L. Stephens. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SRVTN2T/
(I can’t vouch for the quality of this version of Incidents of Travel. I found a physical copy of the first 2 volumes. Since the book is in the public domain, anybody can republish it with zero quality control.)
-Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya. William Carlsen. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0105V62Z0/
-History of Belize: From Mayan Settlement To Melting Pot. Kathleen Peddicord. https://medium.com/liveandinvestoverseas/history-of-belize-from-mayan-settlement-to-melting-pot-58205831902
-Ancient Mayan civilisation 'was WIPED OUT by deforestation.' https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1005952/Ancient-Mayan-civilisation-deforestation-science-world?fbclid=IwAR0EbLUTGcW7V2euZrqtf98IFUbeIa-iFvIk3Iqiv64NKd2NhsMlNWNfMiM
-What happened to the ancient Mayans? https://www.history101.com/mayan-mystery/?fbclid=IwAR0yv8v29E_GlvS_LI8S_4mHIvF0CTXBi5l4_5_UJojGUGl13LKQ0IPI5Jk
-There aren’t any good videos about Tonina that I could find. It’s a relatively unknown place. The first two videos below are in Spanish and the second two have no narration.
-Tonina documentary by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb6xzOvDEPo
-This video makes you feel like you’re taking a guided tour of Tonina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWEkXoJDiU
-Or if you
Wanna learn Spanish? (Or English?) Subscribe to my email list for a free guide that will show you the path. It's here: https://www.digitalnomad.mx/
If you're not interested in that, but you want to support the podcast, the best way is to buy The Fall of Tenochtitlan ebook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01E03WMQ2
But seriously, you should just join the email list even if you're not interested in learning Spanish. There's a LOT of Mexico-related stuff going down in the email list. Subscribe here: https://www.digitalnomad.mx/
The Malinche article is here: http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/spanish-conquest/dona-marina-part-1
And here: http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/spanish-conquest/dona-marina-part-2
Read Diane Douglas' article here: https://medium.com/a-remarkable-education/why-the-virgin-of-guadalupe-lives-in-every-heart-in-mexico-442e72aaea88
She wrote a series of great articles on the same website. Check them out if you have time.
Other sources:
Mexico: Biography of Power - Enrique Krauze
Life and Times of Mexico - Earl Shorris
Read the article here:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/chapultepec-the-mexican-castle-that-drove-a-belgian-princess-to-madness-and-an-austrian-archduke-to-the-firing-squad
The article can be found here: https://medium.com/@ibiworld/how-to-pronounce-el-paso-the-fine-art-of-pronouncing-foreign-words-e69bc8592a98
Video mentioned: https://www.facebook.com/perolike/videos/1822194667867916/
Check out the new Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mexicopodcast
The 1908 article about Porfirio Diaz can be found here: http://www.emersonkent.com/historic_documents/creelman_interview_1908_pdf.htm
Check out the new Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mexicopodcast
The 1908 article about Porfirio Diaz can be found here: http://www.emersonkent.com/historic_documents/creelman_interview_1908_pdf.htm
The resources for this episode are:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170725-the-confusing-way-mexicans-tell-time
https://www.mexperience.com/pride-and-prejudice-the-naco-versus-the-fresa/
I also quoted from the book "The Life and Times of Mexico" by Earl Shorris, which is very good.
And go check out the article from today's episode: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180527-the-mexican-art-of-double-entendre
Spain and England colonized the Americas in very different ways. That led to different cultural values, which led to different constitutions. Mexico has had to update and rewrite the Constitution several times since the first one in 1824, because that one was a disaster. So let’s talk about how that constitution came to life.
Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, and sent the nation into a crisis. In September of that year King Ferdinand was captured, and he abdicated the throne. In response to this, several Spanish administrators declared themselves the new government, basically a government in resistance to the French. They formed a parliament that produced the Cadiz Constitution in 1812, which called for equality under the law, and a more democratic legal system.
Now the rulers of Latin America had to decide how to respond to this. They had been loyal to the Spanish Crown, which had put them in the positions they were in. But now Spain was preoccupied with the invasion, and so the Latin American rulers were given a little more space to make their own rules.
Independence and The Constitution But Spain wasn’t totally distracted. A wave of independence spread over Latin America. The first movement was in La Paz, Bolivia in 1809. Spain sent troops from Peru to crush that one.
The Mexican response to the Spanish crisis was complicated by a movement in 1810 led by a priest called Miguel Hidalgo. Hidalgo and his men sacked the city of Guanajuato and then started killing every white person they could find. The line between class warfare and ethnic cleansing totally disappeared. Mexico’s elite at that time was largely white, and as they watched that little example of popular participation in local politics, they remembered the Cadiz Constitution, which called for even more popular participation. They could never embrace that kind of document.
So Mexico’s elite stayed loyal to the Spanish Crown. In 1815 Napoleon’s empire collapsed and King Ferdinand took the throne again. But he now faced mutinies and was forced to recognize the Cadiz Constitution as well as the parliament that had written it. The parliament was now becoming more radical and was calling for the abolition of slavery.
The Mexican elites watched this as well. They no longer had an ally in the Spanish Crown, so they decided independence was a better fate than adopting the Cadiz Constitution.
Those elites wanted Mexico to become its own independent constitutional monarchy. The man who led their independence movement decided that he should be the emperor. And he wasted no time giving himself dictatorial powers. He didn’t last long, but the cycle of dictatorship, coup, dictatorship, coup haunted Mexico for about a hundred years.
During those hundred years Mexico endured the disastrous misrule of Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, the guy who attacked The Alamo and lost the Mexican-American War.
The extreme political instability in Mexico during the 1800s was, obviously, disastrous. Mexico lost about half of its territory during this period, including basically all of the American southwest.
Since the arrival of the Spanish, the Mexican elite had structured their society entirely around slave labor and monopolies, AKA extractive economic institutions.
So after hundreds of years of those extractive policies, by the time the Industrial Revolution rolled around, Mexico was in no place to take advantage of it.
In the United States in the early 1900s, people from most walks of life could get a patent to develop products. Once you had a patent, you could get a loan from a bank to start a business. By 1914 there were almost 28,000 banks in the U.S., and the competition was fierce. In Mexico at that same time, there were about 40 banks, and no competition among them, meaning there was no incentive for a bank to provide a better service than the bank down the street. Since there was no competition, t
Intro Before we get into today’s episode, I want to take a second to plug a pretty cool thing I made that can really help out anybody who has learned a little bit of Spanish and wants to go much deeper. It is the Mexican Spanish Master course.
It’s 90 minutes of video lessons about Mexican slang, culture, and profanity. You can download the videos, the audio files, as well as the transcripts, and listen to the course in your spare time.
This course did not exist when I needed it to exist, but it does exist now, and you don’t have to spend hundreds of hours listening to people say these words but not understanding them, and then slowly putting together a vocab list of new words that your teachers never bothered to tell you about because they were teaching you a generic international Spanish.
If this sounds interesting, check out digitalnomad.mx and scroll down right below the email signup form, and you can join The Mexican Spanish Master Course.
That’s it. Let’s get into the show.
Nogales VS Nogales My research for The Mexican Revolution took me on several detours. One of those detours was the Labyrinth of Solitude. Another detour was Why Nations Fail.
If I could go back in time to when I was 18 or 19, when I was deciding to go to college and thinking about majoring in Global Studies, which is the ridiculous Marxist version of Poli Sci and International Relations, I would say tell myself first of all not to major in Global Studies because it would be a colossal waste of time, and I would tell myself, “If you really want to understand global development, college will not explain it to you. You should start with two books. One of those books is Why Nations Fail. The other is Guns, Germs, and Steel.”
In college I had to read a ton of irrelevant nonsense: Postmodern imbeciles like Horkheimer and Adorno, Foucault, and a bunch of other people whose appraisal of global development is so flawed that it’s honestly baffling to me that anybody takes them seriously in the 21st century.
These two books basically took my Bachelor’s degree, threw it in the garbage, set it on fire, and then spit in my face. They showed me that my degree is EVEN LESS VALUABLE than a Gender Studies degree. I graduated with a piece of paper that’s worth less than Comparative Literature.
But Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson, and Jared Diamond have at least helped me stop believing the total nonsense I believed in my 20’s. I can’t turn back the clock, but I can hopefully serve as a warning to anybody who’s thinking about going down the same stupid road I went down. Don’t do it. Just read the two books I mentioned.
Why Nations Fail and Guns, Germs, and Steel offer arguments that in some ways compete with each other and in some ways complement each other.
Right away in the first chapter of Why Nations Fail, they smacked me so hard that my face still hurts.
The simplest way to understand the basic argument of the book is to look at the differences between Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. And then North Korea vs South Korea.
The differences between those places are not explained by geography or culture. These are places separated only by a little fence, not by oceans and not by cultures. Just a fence.
There are differences in culture, especially between North and South Korea, but they didn’t start that way. And those cultural differences didn’t cause the South Korea to win and North Korea to fail.
Acemoglu and Robinson argue that the real determining factors in a country’s prosperity are its economic and political institutions. To put it in as plain language as I can, the countries with good institutions are prosperous while the countries with bad institutions fail. To be clear, Acemoglu and Robinson aren’t calling them “good” and “bad” institutions. I am. The language the authors use is inclusive institutions and extractive institut
This is part 2 in a 2-part series on Labyrinth of Solitude.
In this episode I’m going to perform a quick medical diagnosis of one of the best books written about Mexico. And also one of the most self-indulgent and cringeworthy books ever written. First we’re gonna talk about teenagers, then we’re gonna talk about Coca-Cola, and then we’re gonna talk about the major, glaring flaw with this book, because huge parts of Octavio Paz’s masterpiece are completely unreadable, while other parts are completely perfect.
This is not an attempt to summarize the book. If you’ve ever read it, you probably understand how difficult a task that would be. If you haven’t read it, it’s an impossible task.
So rather than condensing it, I’ll instead point out some of the parts that were most interesting to me.
The Pachuco and Other Extremes Paz writes that many of the thoughts that inspired him to write Labyrinth of Solitude came to him when he was in the United States. He wanted to understand American culture, but he kept seeing himself reflected in his questions about American customs.
He writes about a chicano subculture called Pachucos. They got their style of dress from a character called Tin Tan, played by the actor German Valdes, in the early 1950s. The guy was somewhere between The Fonz from Happy Days, Charlie Chaplin, and Robert De Niro’s take on The Godfather, as opposed to Marlon Brando. Octavio Paz says the Pachuco style came as a response to being Mexican in racist-Post War America. Pachucos were adolescents who didn’t want to go back to being Mexican, but also didn’t want to try to pass as white.
And in my own estimation the Pachuco falls into the trap every adolescent falls into: Trying to prove his/her distinctness and individuality by totally conforming to the rigid rules of whatever subculture or counterculture they gravitate towards.
Paz writes that the adolescent cannot forge himself, because when a person finally forges themselves, they are no longer an adolescent.
According to Paz, the Pachuco is the product of two irreconcilable worlds: Mexico and the United States. In my opinion the adolescent mind is tortured by that supposed dichotomy and therefore lashes out. The adolescent wants to fit in somewhere, because an adolescent is still a child and still wants someone to protect him. By taking on the outward appearance of a particular subculture, the adolescent hopes that subculture will protect him from the hardships of the world.
This is possibly why pop stars like Selena as well as academics find themselves struggling incessantly with biculturality. Selena was 23 when she died. That’s only slightly older than a college graduate. And anyone who spends their entire life in a college will probably not mature very much beyond that point. So we find people like Gloria Anzaldua who are much older than people like Selena but who still write about how tortured they are by being between two cultures.
The adolescent mind of a pop star in their early 20s and the adolescent mind of a career academic need to go through a long process before forging themselves into adulthood.
I’m reading another book about Mexico…which, duh, obviously. But I came across something by another writer that completely validates Octavio Paz’s explanation of mexicanness. It’s about Coca-Cola.
Oppenheimer/Coca-Cola If you want to be politically fashionable in Western liberal democracies in 2017, you can never even imply that a gigantic multinational corporation could ever be right about anything in any way. Ever.
Well, since I turned 30 I’ve stopped caring about the contemporary political orthodoxy. So screw it.
Coca-Cola is right about something.
They wanted to boost sales of Diet Coke in Mexico, so they did a study. When a huge corporation has billions of dollars on the line, their studies aren’t arbitrary and they don’t play
This is part 1 in a 2-part series on The Labyrinth of Solitude.
The differences between the U.S. and Mexico go back long before Europe discovered North America. In what is now Mexico, there were massive and complex civilizations. Farther north there were mostly nomadic tribes. The Aztecs and Maya were economically richer than, say, the Apache and the Cherokee. Spain and England were also different, though not as different as the Aztecs and the Cherokees. The south, Mexico, had different natural resources than the north did.
I’ll talk more about the divergent paths that the U.S. and Mexico took in a future episode, but for this one we’re again talking about Labyrinth of Solitude. The author, Octavio Paz, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990, and I’d be surprised if anybody who’s ever taken a Spanish class hasn’t at least heard his name.
Paz says there’s one fundamental difference that helps to explain the modern differences between Mexico and the U.S. “In England the Reformation triumphed, whereas Spain was the champion of the Counter-Reformation.
Spain had been under Islamic oppression since roughly the year 700 until 1492, when Arab domination of the Iberian Peninsula ended. But after 700 years of something, a culture can’t really help but internalize some aspects of it. And so conversion by the sword as well as crusades and holy wars and inquisitions had become a fact of Spanish life and it became part of Spain’s brand of Catholicism, which Spain then exported to Mexico.
Paz writes that conquest and evangelization are as fundamental to Spain and to Catholicism as they are to Islam. For them, conquest meant occupying foreign lands, subjugating the people, and forcing them to convert. The conversion then legitimized the conquest.
English colonization was different in that evangelization was not quite as important.
Mexico was conquered by people who were orthodox, inflexible, dogmatic, and authoritarian about their faith, and extremely violent. The United States was conquered by people who were also very religious, but who were largely dissidents and who felt that religion should be read and understood by everyone, not just by a priestly class. Broadly speaking, the American vision was one of Protestant Reformism, while the Mexican vision was one of Catholic Orthodoxy.
Mexico’s Catholic orthodoxy was defensive rather than critical, it resisted modernity. It prevented examination and criticism.
Paz writes that these two styles of religious thought are irreconcilable, the rigidly dogmatic and the interpretive. And that irreconcilable difference played out in the structure of the religions.
The hierarchy of the Catholic church is complex, and the mass itself focuses mostly on ritual and sacrament. In the Protestant tradition, scripture is freely discussed and examined and questioned, hierarchy between the clergy and the believers is less, and the focus of mass is more on delivering an ethical message than ritual.
This difference comes from the Reformation, which was a criticism of European religion. The Reformation led to the Enlightenment. Spain closed itself off from the Reformation, and the Enlightenment never happened in Spain.
That’s going a bit too far maybe, but when anyone thinks of the Enlightenment, no Spanish names come to mind, whereas several French and English names are immediately recognizable. John Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu. Immanuel Kant was German.
For Octavio Paz, Mexico’s vision of progress comes from looking to the past, whereas America’s vision of progress comes from looking toward the future. The founding of the United States was done with a promise of a better future.
One major difference is that in Mexico there are still millions of indigenous people. In America there are few, and even then, most native people are corralled into reservations and forgotten. America was founded as a land w
Cuauhtemoc was the last Aztec emperor. I’ve captured one sliver of his life in my series Fall of Tenochtitlan, but obviously he was around before and after the Spanish invaded and destroyed his city. By the way, I’m not making any moral judgements about the Spanish or the Aztecs when I say invaded and destroyed. Invasion and destruction are pretty common themes in history.
Historians don’t know exactly when and where he was born, exactly who his parents were, and they don’t know where he was buried. One town in the state of Guerrero claims to have his bones, but others say it’s not him. He was born sometime around 1500 to a noble family. He was named emperor in 1521, and he was hanged by the Spanish in 1525.
He had a wife and at least one child.
If there were any official documents about him, they were lost or destroyed during the destruction of Tenochtitlan.
After the emperor Cuitlahuac died of smallpox, Cuauhtemoc was named emperor and put in charge of the city’s defense.
When he finally accepted that he couldn’t save the city, he and some advisers tried to flee and find a better place to continue the war. He was captured and brought to Cortes. He asked to be sacrificed, because that was the expectation of any captured soldier. Before the Spanish arrived, the typical battle strategy was to capture as many people as possible rather than killing them. Live prisoners could be sacrificed to the gods. After death, the soldier would ascend to the heavens and accompany the setting sun.
The Spanish soldiers hadn’t been paid yet, and Cuauhtemoc said there was no more gold left. It’s likely that Cortes had kept most of it for himself, and when he did offer his men a bit of gold, the amount was so tiny that they all refused to take it.
There had been a few mutinies and conspiracies before the battles of Tenochtitlan, and now that Cortes wasn’t paying up, his men were getting unruly again. But Cortes had to keep them active, and so he sent them to explore and colonize other parts of Mexico and Central America.
In 1524 one of Cortes’ men, Cristobal de Olid, who had been sent to conquer Honduras, rebelled against Cortes. So Cortes went to put down the rebellion. He needed to take Cuauhtemoc with him because if he had left him behind, the emperor could have started up his own rebellion.
Along the way many of them died of hunger, and others were bitten by venomous snakes.
Eventually they got to a Mayan village in the state of Campeche. Today it’s an archeological site called El Tigre. They were received by the son of the chief. There were about 100 of them still alive. At some point during the stay in that village, Cuauhtemoc was executed.
The motives aren’t completely clear. It’s possible that he was organizing a rebellion, but it’s also possible that Cortes just wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to isolate the emperor from his people and then just get rid of him.
What happened with his body after that is an open question. The tradition for rulers of Tenochtitlan was cremation. It’s possible that his ashes were placed in an urn that his captains and advisers decided to leave in an important building at El Tigre. Or maybe he was buried in a Mayan crypt, which has since been forgotten.
But the sources I’m using are pretty certain about what did not happen to his remains.
An old church in the town Ixcateopan in the state of Guerrero, which has since been converted to a museum, claims to be Cuauhtemoc’s final resting place.
There is a skeleton under glass surrounded by paintings of the emperor. At one of the main entrances to the town there is a statue of him standing next to an eagle with a snake in its mouth perched on a cactus.
The eagle on the cactus represents Tenochtitlan’s foundational myth.
The people of the town don’t much care for the scientific studies showing that the bones are indeed not Cuauhtemoc. Th
Hey, remember how the last episode had a happy ending? Welcome to Episode 3.
The Congress that was elected in the fraudulent elections of the year before, 1910, stayed in power as part of the negotiations between Diaz and Madero. They did everything they could to undermine the new President, blocking most of his initiatives.
The press, which had fawned over Diaz during his dictatorship, now reveled in their new freedom of speech and slammed Madero.
Madero won the election, but not much changed. Most of the people in government were holdovers from the Diaz regime, and they resented the new President. Then there were the young and ambitious government workers who were disappointed at the relative lack of change.
Labor had been Madero’s biggest supporters in the election, but their working conditions hadn’t improved with the new presidency.
Other supporters wanted land reform. Chief among them was Emiliano Zapata.
Zapata
The Zapata family had been defending themselves from basically nonstop attempts to steal their land since the Spanish Conquest in the 1500s. If anyone was born to carry on a family tradition, it was Emiliano.
He became an orphan at 16 but managed to support himself by taking odd jobs. He used mules to haul corn into town and to haul bricks and lime to construction workers. He farmed. Was always proud of earning his own living. Great on horseback.
In September 1908 the people in his village named him president of their defense committee. He and his secretary, Franco, spent the next 8 days poring over the documents they were in charge of.
In 1910, before Madero published the Plan of San Luis, Zapata had already launched a tiny revolution to get back land that had been stolen in 1607. He was successful. He went back to farming until he heard about the upcoming nationwide revolution. The passages in Plan of San Luis about returning land stolen by plantations resonated with the people of Zapata’s village, and they sent a representataive to Madero in Texas.
It was time for Zapata to join the Revolution. His people gathered in the town plaza to begin their march. Zapata was in the middle of the plaza, on horseback. A shot rang out. Zapata felt his hat shift on his head. He took it off and saw a hole in it.
The crowd saw a man in the town hall begin to run away. Zapata told his people not to move, and he rode toward the building. He went around the building but didn’t find the assassin.
One of his biggest local enemies was a plantation owner from Spain. The man had sent Zapata a message that was probably meant to intimidate, but it provoked the opposite reaction. The message stated that if Zapata were “so brave and so much a man, we have thousands of bullets and enough guns waiting to welcome you and your men as you deserve.”
When he heard the message, Zapata ordered an attack on the Chinameca plantation. It was his first military action. After the fight he and his men loaded up on supplies and marched on. With each town they passed, their army grew bigger.
They slowly pushed the government out of the state of Morelos. By May 1911 only two cities, Cuatla and Cuernavaca, had a strong government presence. The fighting at Cuatla went on for days, but by May 19 the Zapatistas had won.
Later on in Porfirio Diaz’s life he would reflect on those early days of the Zapatista revolt and say, “I was calm until the south rose.”
Foreign land ownership had exploded during the Porfiriato. Now that Porfirio Diaz was gone, Zapata wanted recognition from Madero’s government. The Zapatistas had dealt violently with plantation owners and land grabbers, so the elite of Morelos were now complaining to Madero. The president himself came from one of Mexico’s wealthiest families. Madero would face big problems no matter what he did or did not do about the land.
With respect to that,
Francisco Madero is described by all my sources as a spiritualist rather than a revolutionary or a military leader or political theorist or philosopher. He came from a wealthy family. As a boy he was often sick.
He studied in the US, lived in France for a few years, and traveled through Europe. It was there that he adopted the ideas of Spiritualism (with a capital S). Spiritualism was based on communicating with spirits of the dead.
It was big. By 1854 there were more than 3 million Spiritualists worldwide. Madero writes the he didn’t just read Spiritualist books, he devoured them.
He finished business school in Paris and then studied a year in Berkeley, improving his English and learning agriculture. The constant illnesses of his childhood had made him deliberately work on becoming physically strong. He wrote a pamphlet on water rights that Porfirio Diaz praised him for. He did charity work as well, giving out homeopathic…..concoctions as well as money to sick people.
At his hacienda he fed about 60 kids, and he paid his staff well. He married in 1903, and they gave out scholarships and created schools, hospitals, and community kitchens.
He felt his mission as a Spiritualist was to be a medium for the spirits of the dead. Specifically a writing medium. He wanted the spirits to speak through him in his writings. Soon he was claiming that his brother Raul, who had died at age four in a fire, was visiting him daily. Francisco gave up smoking, became a vegetarian, and destroyed his wine cellar. His wrote, by way of Francisco, “You can have the only happiness there is in this world solely through practicing charity in the broadest sense of the word.” He later wrote, “Aspire to do good for your fellow citizens . . . working for a lofty ideal that will raise the moral level of society, that will succeed in liberating it from oppression, slavery, and fanaticism.
As government repression in Mexico increased in the first decade of the 1900s Madero came to believe that “charity in the broadest sense” meant politics. He was now seeing his future a little more clearly.
Revolution begins
In the previous episode, Francisco Madero had called for a revolution. He said it would happen on November 20, 1910. Photo ops on November 20 made it look like spontaneous uprisings were happening all over Mexico, and there were, but they were mostly small, isolated groups. In fact, it began so gradually that by January 1911 the government thought the danger had passed.
The Revolution was on though, especially in Chihuahua, a northern state. The armies of Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa were winning battles against the federal army.
Revolutionary fever slowly spread thanks to a weak federal army and widespread social discontent. Small groups of men on horseback rode into villages and towns. They went to the town square and read aloud Madero’s Plan of San Luis, inviting the men of the town to join them. They took the local government’s cash reserves, guns, and horses. They freed the prisoners. Then they went to the next town and did it again. And again.
The Federal army was weak. It relied on conscription – the draft – and didn’t have a single full battalion or regiment. The leaders didn’t know the terrain. Corruption was everywhere. And they were not prepared to fight small, nimble forces. By the time they arrived at a place that was being attacked, the attackers had already disappeared and were in a different area.
As the months wore on, the army had become concentrated in the areas with the most fighting, which left other places basically free of soldiers. In the states of Nayarit, Colima, and Michoacan, the revolutionaries took over the government without firing a single shot.
By May 1911 there was fighting in 26 states and the Federal District – Mexico City.
Earlier, in March, Madero attacked Casas Grandes wi
This episode is an intro, explaining the factors that led to the Revolution, and then ending just before the Revolution officially began.
The best way to explain the structure of this series is to compare it to TV shows that have seasons and episodes. Like TV shows, the individual episodes in a season will come out regularly, but the seasons will be spaced out a little more. In between the seasons, we’ll have shorter one-off episodes, some of which will be related to the Revolution but not part of the greater narrative, like an episode about an individual person in the Revolution, and there will be episodes completely unconnected to the Revolution, such as the execution of the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtemoc, or about the Cathedral in Mexico City, or news and culture. I also want to feature more pieces by other people, like I did with the mezcal episodes.
Okay, that’s it. Let’s get to work.
Leadup
The Mexican Revolution wasn’t one thing. It was a series of civil wars, betrayals, assassinations, and reforms that encompass 5-7 years in some senses, and about 20-30 years in a broader sense. Then there’s the romantic (and true) idea that the reverberations are still being felt today.
There weren’t two opposing forces fighting for clear objectives. It was more like Game of Thrones: multiple factions of idealists, opportunists, and freedom fighters making temporary alliances and then turning on each other. And almost every major figure gets assassinated. Spoiler alert.
It’s disorienting and convoluted, with several people taking the role of president, claiming the last guy was illegitimate for X reason, and then doing X.
The wars weren’t fought all over the country. They were more localized. The states of Morelos and Chihuahua were the most violent. Mexico City and the center of the country saw frequent fighting. But most of the country didn’t see much violence.
The most obvious way to explain the conditions that led to the Revolution is to talk briefly about a man called Porfirio Diaz.
He led a coup against a President who he said had served too many terms. He thought a leader should get one term and then step down. Diaz declared himself interim president. Elections were held. Diaz won.
Then he served just one term in 1876 and stepped down when his term was up in 1880. Then he served another just-one-term in 1884. Then another in 1888, 1892, 1896, 1900, and 1904.
Some sources call him a dictator, but it’s important to remember that in a few of those elections he did actually have to face an opponent. That opponent was an astrologer who lived in an expensive private mental institution. The bills were paid for by… Porfirio Diaz.
So the man who said presidents should serve one term ended up ruling for about 30 years.
What happened in those 30 years is described as both dictatorship and development. He stole vast amounts of land, violated property rights, granted monopolies to his supporters, and he made it so that the only way to remove him from power was the same way he had taken it: By force.
During his rule electricity, railroads, trolleys, and the telephone all arrived in Mexico. Gross National Product greatly increased. Life was very good for the coutnry’s elite, who were allowed and encouraged to take land and export natural resources to industrializing nations. Porfirio was stabilizing some aspects of the country, but the trade he made was modernization and increased wealth for the upper classes in exchange for returning Mexico to colonial status: The country almost literally belonged to foreign investors.
The people who worked on haciendas and ranches lived basically as slaves, even if that word wasn’t used. Whipping was a common punishment. Workers were forced to buy from the company store on the ranch or farm. Prices were much higher in those stores than in the nearby towns. Workers who didn’t purchase
Thanks to Alvin Starkman for his article. Check out his website: http://www.mezcaleducationaltours.com/
The full article is here: http://www.oaxaca-mezcal.com/alvins-blog/-mezcal-and-dogmatism-in-oaxaca-harmful-or-just-blowhardism
This post can be found at http://mezcalistas.com/mezcal-101/
Thanks to Max Garrone for granting permission to use the article.
Fall of Tenochtitlan ebook: https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Tenochtitlan-Brandon-T-Springer-ebook/dp/B01E03WMQ2
Get the entire Fall of Tenochtitlan story as an ebook: http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Tenochtitlan-Brandon-T-Springer-ebook/dp/B01E03WMQ2
Part 7
Tenochtitlan was the largest city in the world, according to some of my sources. The Spanish conquistadors described it as being more beautiful and organized than anything in Spain at the time. You can look up artist renditions online of how the city might have been in the early 1500s. You’ll see paintings of massive pyramids with temples on top. You’ll see floating bridges. You’ll see palaces. None of that exists today. The Spanish completely destroyed the city.
So, supported by nearly 150,000 native warriors, they crossed the causeways again and got to work. They battled the remaining Aztecs for a few days. The enemy had now holed up in the marketplace, where they were about to make their last stand.
Cortes feigned a retreat to lure them into an ambush. Ten cavalrymen got their attention. The Aztecs chased them to an open square, where 30 more cavalry were waiting. Cortes gave the attack order. The horses were devastating. Great numbers of Aztecs fell.
Meanwhile, Alvarado was attacking the marketplace. They encountered heavy resistance even though the opposing army was divided and starving and literally losing their minds. The Tlaxcalans burned Cuauhtemoc's palace to the ground.
On July 1 Alvarado sent up smoke, indicating that he had taken the marketplace. All that was left to do now was to slaughter the holdouts, including women and children.
Cortes climbed the temple and saw the severed heads of his soldiers and allies on skull racks. He stood at the edge of the pyramid, hoping that any Aztecs who saw him there would give up. But pockets of Eagle and Jaguar knights still resisted. They were the most elite members of the Aztec military. For them, surrender was simply not in their vocabulary. They refused to submit.
The siege had gone on for three months, but the Aztecs remained defiant. They had taken refuge in houses on stilts along the lake shore.
A man in Cortes’ army knew how to build catapults, and he thought they could easily use one to tear down the buildings on the lake. They built it on top of a pyramid for dramatic effect. But as they loaded stones into the sling, the catapult failed. The stones fell out and tumbled uselessly to the ground. They tried some repairs, but they just couldn't get it right. Cortes ordered them to dismantle and hide it. Not wanting to look like fools, the Spanish taunted the Aztecs by saying they removed the catapult out of compassion for them, sparing their lives.
By now so many of the city's inhabitants had died from hunger or thirst that the stench of decomposing bodies filled the air. In the ensuing days the Spanish claimed to have killed or enslaved more than 50,000 Aztec men, women, and children. Several Spanish accounts claim that 12,000 people were killed or captured in one day. Most of them put up no resistance.
Cortes sent several messages to Cuauhtemoc, wanting to speak with him, but was rebuked every time. So they continued their raids.
Houses all over the city were filled with the dead and dying. Children wandered the streets crying. Women screamed and pounded their fists on walls.
It was a city in its final throes. One of the world's biggest and, in some ways, most advanced civilizations had faced torture and starvation for months and was now dying.
In the ransacking of Tenochtitlan, the Tlaxcalans were more than happy to brutalize their historic enemy. They murdered anyone they found in the streets.
Cuauhtemoc must have known his empire was done. It had been happening for months. His army was forced out of their own city while the Spanish smashed everything. But he sent one of his greatest warriors to... I don't know... mayb
Get the ebook on Amazon. THE SIEGE OF TENOCHTITLAN When the two combined divisions of Olid and Alvarado reached the city of Acolman at the end of May 22 (the first day of the siege against Tenochtitlan), fighting broke out among the Spanish. The town was deserted and there were strong disagreements about which division would get the privilege of spending the night in the nicest houses.
A soldier galloped back to Texcoco and told Cortes about the situation. Cortes sent a priest to read the bickering soldiers a letter of reproach and to order Alvarado and Olid to stay focused on the mission. Still, the men barely slept that night.
On day two they marched to another abandoned town and spent the night. The next day they stopped at another abandoned town.
Then they got to Tacuba, also abandoned, and stopped marching. They had raided all the houses the last time they had passed through.
Aztec soldiers were already at the causeway. The Spanish could not take it without a fight, but it was near dusk and the soldiers stuck to Cortes’ plan. They fought minor skirmishes, but didn't attempt to win the bridge.
Even if they could have fought their way across, that wasn't part one. First they had to destroy an aqueduct that was Tenochtitlan's major lifeline. The aqueduct was heavily guarded and the fighting was fierce. Diaz says the enemy had better ground, but his people were able to force them to retreat.
The Spanish smashed the conduits, severing the capital’s access to fresh water. Olid then took his division south to Coyoacan, which was deserted. When Cortes got word that the two ground divisions were in place, he sent division three to take Iztapalapa, 25 miles away. They marched the full distance in one day, driving away groups of attacking Aztecs.
Cuauhtemoc barely put up a fight to defend the three cities that Cortes now controlled. He assumed – correctly – that he would need most of his men to defend against the warships. He consulted with his priests and then made special sacrifices. Two of the victims were the young Spanish pages captured during Cortes’ mission of encirclement.
On June 1, Cortes boarded his flagship, La Capitana, and sailed for Iztapalapa to support the ground troops. On a small island in the lake there was a communications post sending smoke signals to Cuauhtemoc. Cortes took 150 soldiers to smash it.
Twenty five Spaniards were wounded in the skirmish, but their mission was a success. They looked out on the lake and saw canoes racing toward them. They ran to their ship, ready for a fight. Cortes waited until the canoes came within two crossbow shots. He unfurled the sails. They caught a strong draft and sped straight at the Aztecs, smashing the tiny wooden boats and sending large numbers to flail and drown in the water. They fired volley after volley from cannons, splintering and sinking more canoes. The crossbowmen and musketeers did their work, too, and soon parts of the lake were filled with bodies.
The Aztecs realized that it was useless to shoot arrows and spears at the hulls of the ships, and they retreated. But for six miles the Spanish pursued them.
The ground divisions saw this and were emboldened. The soldiers under Olid pushed forward across a causeway. They finally drove back the enemy after Cortes arrived in his ship.
He disembarked with 30 men and smashed two temples. Looking out at the city he saw the lake filled with returning canoes, and he saw the causeway from Xoloc to Tenochtitlan teeming with warriors. He had three cannons unloaded off his ship and aimed at the foot soldiers. During the barrage one of his me
PART 5
In Texcoco, discontent brewed among Cortes’ men. There was a conspiracy against him. The plot was to kill him and all his captains while they were in a meeting and then sail for Cuba. Cortes found out about the plot and confronted the leader (a man called Villafaña) and found a letter signed by about 300 co-conspirators. In the confrontation he took the letter, but told his men Villafaña had swallowed it before he could read the names. This strategy ensured that he could keep an eye on the ones who signed it, while at the same time putting them at ease.
As a message, Villafaña was hanged. Cortes then used a full time bodyguard and slept in his armor at night.
As spring began, a rumor circulated that an army was near Chalco, organizing an attack. Cortes sent Sandoval to drive them out.
As Sandoval got closer to the village he sent messages advising the leaders to leave peacefully rather than die in battle. As a response, the Aztecs sent a hail of stones and darts.
The Aztec encampment was at the top of a hill, which the Spanish stormed. The Aztecs sent boulders tumbling down. Sandoval was struck in the head during the charge, but his forces made it to the plateau, where the men fought to throw each other over the slopes. Eventually the Spanish won the struggle and returned victoriously to Texcoco.
In response to this humiliating defeat, Cuauhtemoc ordered reprisals against the villagers for having helped the enemy. Twenty thousand soldiers marched against the village. Chalco sent for Cortes's help.
When Cortes found out that that his men had left without ensuring the village's safety, he yelled at them and ordered Sandoval to return and defend Chalco.
Before Sandoval could get there, though, the villagers had mounted a successful defense and had sent the Aztecs running. Cortes took this as a sign that the enemy was slipping and losing their control over the region.
Sandoval returned again to Texcoco with 40 slaves, and, as they had in the past, the soldiers complained that the good-looking women had been hidden and kept for the captains.
The Aztecs were interrogated and they told Cortes that Cuauhtemoc would take no prisoners. All the Spanish would be killed.
Cortes decided to gain control of an even greater swath of Mexico, so he planned to circumnavigate the region and win more allies. They rode out, leaving Texcoco. First they stopped at a city called Chimalhuacan, where nearly 40,000 local warriors joined them.
Later they came upon a hilltop fortress. The base of the mountain was about three miles around and the Aztec soldiers above, as always, threw stones and spears down at them, shouting insults.
Cortes ordered his army to scale the face of the mountain. He sent about 60 soldiers up the steepest section, supported from below by rifles and crossbows. The Aztecs pushed boulders down at the climbing team.
Bernal Diaz writes that about eight of them were killed in the attempt, having been crushed by boulders. Many of them were injured. All were extremely thirsty. After far too long, Cortes called off the assault.
They hadn't had any water for the entire day, and when they went to sleep under the stars, they were “half dead with thirst.” The Aztecs in their fortress shouted down at them and played drums and trumpets all night.
The next morning a scout found water three miles away. After the horses had been watered, they again attempted to scale the mountain, this time trying the more gradual slopes. The fighting lasted for about half an hour.
Aztec women started waving cloaks in the air and making signs with their hands indicating they were willing to bake bread for the Spanish.
So Cortes met with a few chiefs, scolding them for fighting, but
PART 4
The people of Tenochtitlan were starting to feel the effects of a virus that had only recently been introduced to the population. And it has to be considered one of the major contributing factors that led to the fall of the city. Here, I’ll quote from Miguel Leon Portilla’s translation of an Aztec account of Tenochtitlan suffering smallpox:
“It lasted for seventy days, striking everywhere in the city and killing a vast number of our people. Sores erupted on our faces, our breasts, our bellies. No one could walk or move. The sick were so utterly helpless they could only lie on their beds like corpses, unable to move their limbs or even their heads. They could not lie face down or roll from one side to the other. If they did move, they screamed with pain.”
At first they cremated the bodies. Later on, so many people died that they gave up and just dumped them in the lake. When women contracted the disease, they got too sick to grind corn and cook, resulting in a severe food shortage. The emperor, Cuitlahuac, also grew ill.
The Aztecs had no knowledge of smallpox and, unlike the Spanish, no immunity against it. Their desperate remedies did nothing to stop the spread of what they called The Great Rash. They covered the wounds with obsidian powder and wrapped them in casts. To stop nosebleeds they put stones into nostrils. One remedy actually made things much worse. Steam baths, usually a treatment for sickness, were the perfect medium for passing the disease. I mean think about it: a dark, hot, wet environment. If you wanted to engineer the perfect smallpox-spreading weapon, you would just put people inside a big sauna for a couple minutes.
The virus made people so weak that they couldn’t get up to look for food, so they died of hunger in their beds. Many of those who survived were left paralyzed and blinded. The emperor Cuitlahuac died of smallpox on December 4, 1520.
Some estimates claim that half the city died. In the 16TH century alone (according to an estimate in Charles C Mann’s book 1491) as many as 100 million natives in the Americas may have died, from disease alone. To put that in other terms, it was roughly one in every five people on Earth.
Remember that Tenochtitlan at that time (as well as today) was one of the largest cities in the world. And activity there ground to a halt with so many infected. And that was just inside the metropolis. It also brought down the kings of nearby regions called Chalco, Cholula, and Tacuba. The Spanish, meanwhile, were all but immune to it, most of them were exposed to it as kids.
CORTES ON THE THRONE Enjoying his new found position of power over a mostly leaderless region, Cortes took time to write new legal documents solidifying his authority over Mexico (at least according to Spanish law). He wrote letters to King Carlos of Spain in an effort to preempt any legal actions against him (by, for example, Diego Velazquez, his direct superior).
Cortes even suggested a name for the landmass. He called it, redundantly, New Spain of the Ocean Sea. (Maybe “New Spain of the Ocean” was already taken.) He sent ships to procure supplies from Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. He sent one of his captains, Sandoval, to crush the towns of Jalacingo and Zauta in the same way they had done in Tepeaca.
In this episode the Spanish decide to flee the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. The ensuing midnight battle nearly crushes them. Those left behind are sacrificed. Later, Cuitlahuac looks for allies among the surrounding cities, as does Cortes.
Cortes's native allies have gotten some scorn for joining him, so I spend a moment considering the legacy they left behind.
Near the end of the episode, two of the most important factors that decided Tenochtitlan's fate are set into motion.
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A conquistador incites a massacre, the Aztecs retaliate, Moctezuma chooses a successor, and the Spanish get backed into a corner.
Get the Fall of Tenochtitlan book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01E03WMQ2
Many great civilizations have fallen mysteriously, the causes unknown. That's not the case with Tenochtitlan. In episode 1 a city is invaded, an emperor is taken hostage, and Tenochtitlan's last days of peace fade into the past.
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