Editing History of Mexico (section)

==Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire==
{{Main|Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire}}

[[File:Batalla de Centla.jpg|thumb|Battle of Centla, the first time a horse was used in battle in a war in the Americas. Mural in the Palacio Municipal of Paraíso, [[Tabasco]]]]

A phase of inland expeditions and conquest followed the first mainland explorations. The [[Spanish monarchy|Spanish crown]] extended the [[Reconquista]] effort, completed in Spain in 1492, to non-Catholic people in new territories. The first Europeans to arrive in modern-day Mexico were the survivors of a Spanish shipwreck in 1511. Only two survived, [[Gerónimo de Aguilar]] and [[Gonzalo Guerrero]], until further contact was made with Spanish explorers years later. On 8 February 1517, an expedition led by [[Francisco Hernández de Córdoba (Yucatán conquistador)|Francisco Hernández de Córdoba]] left the harbor of [[Santiago de Cuba]] to explore the shores of southern Mexico. During this expedition, many of Hernández's men were killed, most during a battle near the town of [[Champotón Municipality|Champotón]] against a [[Maya civilization|Maya]] army. Hernández himself was injured and died a few days shortly after his return to Cuba. This was the Europeans' first encounter with a civilization in the Americas with buildings and complex social organizations that they recognized as comparable to the [[Old World]]. [[Hernán Cortés]] led a new expedition to Mexico, landing ashore at present-day [[Veracruz, Veracruz|Veracruz]] on 22 April 1519.

The Spanish conquest of Mexico denotes the conquest of the central region of Mesoamerica, where the Aztec Empire was based. The fall of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521 was a decisive event, but the conquest of other regions of Mexico, such as Yucatán, extended long after the Spaniards consolidated control of central Mexico. The [[Spanish conquest of Yucatán]] was a much longer campaign, from 1551 to 1697, against the [[Maya peoples]] of the [[Maya civilization]] in the [[Yucatán Peninsula]] of present-day Mexico and northern [[Central America]].

[[Smallpox]] (''Variola major'' and ''Variola minor'') began to spread in Mesoamerica immediately after the arrival of Europeans. The indigenous peoples, who had no [[Immune system|immunity]] to it, eventually [[Cocoliztli epidemics|died in the millions]].<ref name="Fenner_1988">{{cite book |title=Smallpox and its eradication |vauthors=Fenner F, Henderson DA, Arita I, Ježek Z, Ladnyi ID |date=1988 |publisher=World Health Organization |isbn=978-92-4-156110-5 |series=History of International Public Health |volume=6 |location=Geneva |pages=209–44 |chapter=The History of Smallpox and its Spread Around the World |hdl=10665/39485 |access-date=14 December 2017 |chapter-url=https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/blaw/bt/smallpox/who/red-book/9241561106_chp5.pdf |archive-date=12 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191212171449/https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/blaw/bt/smallpox/who/red-book/9241561106_chp5.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> A third of all the natives of the Valley of Mexico succumbed to it within six months of the Spaniards' arrival.

[[File:El suplicio de Cuauhtémoc.jpg|thumb|"The Torture of [[Cuauhtémoc]]", a 19th-century painting by [[Leandro Izaguirre]]]]

Tenochtitlan was almost destroyed by fire and cannon fire. Cortés imprisoned the royal families of the valley. To prevent another revolt, he tortured and killed [[Cuauhtémoc]], the last Aztec Emperor; Coanacoch, the King of Texcoco, and [[Tetlepanquetzal]], King of [[Tlacopan]].

The small contingent of Spaniards controlled central Mexico through existing indigenous rulers of individual political states (''[[altepetl]]''), who maintained their status as nobles in the post-conquest era if they cooperated with Spanish rule. Cortés immediately banned [[human sacrifice]] throughout the conquered empire. In 1524, he requested the Spanish king to send friars from the mendicant orders, particularly the [[Franciscan]], [[Dominican Order|Dominican]], and Augustinian, to convert the indigenous to Christianity. This has often been called the "spiritual conquest of Mexico."<ref>Robert Ricard, ''The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders of New Spain, 1523–1572,'' Trans. by Lesley Byrd Simpson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. First published in French in the 1930s.</ref> Christian evangelization began in the early 1520s and continued into the 1560s. Many of the mendicant friars, especially the Franciscans and Dominicans, learned the native languages and recorded aspects of native culture.<ref>Ida Altman, et al., ''The Early History of Greater Mexico'', Pearson, 2003 pp. 117–125.</ref> The Spanish colonizers introduced the ''[[encomienda]]'' system of forced labor. Indigenous communities were pressed for labor and tribute but were not enslaved. Their rulers remained Indigenous elites who retained their status under colonial rule and were useful intermediaries.<ref>Ida Altman, et al., ''The Early History of Greater Mexico,'' Pearson, 2003, p. 145.</ref> The Spanish also used forced labor, often outright slavery, in mining.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Arias|first1=Luz Marina|last2=Girod|first2=Desha M.|date=2014|title=Indigenous Origins of Colonial Institutions|url=https://www.economics.uci.edu/files/docs/thdworkshop/marina2011.pdf|journal=Quarterly Journal of Political Science|volume=9|issue=3|pages=371–406|doi=10.1561/100.00013135|via=Now Publishers}}</ref>