The Conquest of Mexico
 

The Aztec Road to Empire
by Jesús Balsinde

Release date: December 12, 1998 (v2.0)
 
 
 

 
   
  "Friends, let us follow the Cross, and under this sign, if we have faith, we shall conquer"

--Hernán Cortés' motto

 

 

    The Aztecs entered Anáhuac (the Valley of Mexico) in the mid-thirteenth century, but it was not until 1325 when they founded their capital city, Tenochtitlán, in the place where an eagle was sighted killing a snake on a cactus. Gradually the Aztecs transformed their capital from a miserable village of thatched huts to a grand city with adobe houses and stone temples. Paralleling the sophistication of their city, the Aztecs put themselves on the road to empire. Aggressive expansionism and wise alliances allowed the Aztecs to establish an empire that encompassed most of Anáhuac, and a population that numbered in millions. But the Aztec empire, cemented on hatred and tyranny, was soon destined to meet its doomsday. Bearded white men from across the seas terminated with the Aztec imperial illusions in only two years. Would you be able to create an empire in Anáhuac strong enough to hold off the devilish Spaniards?
 

    This scenario does not deal with the conquest of Mexico by a bunch of rude Spanish conquistadores! It deals with the conquest of Mexico by the Aztecs! Of course the conquistadores have a few words to say later in the scenario, but that is not the main point of it. Thus this scenario separates a bit from the concept around which all my scenarios revolve, i.e. the history of Spain.
 
    "In Mexico, the Spaniards encountered history as well as geography. That history is still alive: it is a present rather than a past. The temples and gods of pre-Columbian Mexico are a pile of ruins, but the spirit that breathed life into that world has not disappeared; it speaks to us in the hermetic language of myth, legend, forms of social coexistence, popular art, customs".

--Octavio Paz, Speech of Acceptance of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature