How was the Conquest for which López Obrador asked the King of Spain to apologize

August 13, 1521, Mexico Tenochtitlán fell into the hands of Spanish conquerors. This event gave way to the establishment of the colonial regime which would later give way to Mexican Métis.

Two years before, Hernán Cortés he had landed on the Mexican coast with 400 infantrymen, 15 horsemen and 7 guns, who would go into history as those responsible for the collapse of the Aztec empire.

The triumph of Cortes was not cemented in the incorporation of the indigenous population into their ranks. To this the tumult of prophecies that hit pre-Hispanic culture concerning the arrival of these "white and bearded men of the East".

Another ingredient was the weapons and tactics of war that Europeans used against the Mexica empire. At that time steel, gunpowder and the use of horses provided the numerical disadvantage conquerors. Various historians have also pointed out that their fighting tactics helped to defeat the Mesoamerican people, who considered that the death of a general meant the end of the battle.

These events marked the beginning of the Spanish conquest, after which the disappearance of a high percentage of the Aboriginal population, the destruction of indigenous temples, the imposition of a religion foreign to the practices of peoples of origin and to the development of the disease until then nonexistent on the American continent.

Epidemics that almost end with a population

At the time of the conquest, smallpox spread throughout the city, causing the tumult of the Indians, for whom this disease was totally unknown.

Miguel León-Portilla said in "The vision of the vanquished" that the plague "was a very destructive disease, many people died from it." Nobody could walk, They were just lying, They had to stay in bed. Nobody could move, could not turn the neck, could not do body movements; he could not lie on his back, lie on his back or move from one place to another. And when they moved something, they shouted. For many he gave the sticky death, hard grain disease. "

Before this disease spread across the continent and extended to the south, there was evidence that the natives Healthy and dense population. Even Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, who has traveled all over the country, does not mention case of malaria and other diseases before the arrival of the Spaniards.

Historian Antonio de Herrera has documented that when natives fall ill with measles, smallpox, colds or fever, they bathed in the rivers without waiting for the disease to subside, so they died. Added to this is the fact that the Christian doctrine did not allow them to have more than one woman, whereas before polygamy was accustomed. This imposition made it difficult for them to increase the population.

All these epidemics, the war and exploitation by the Spaniards caused the indigenous population descending from 65 million to 5 millions of dollars between 1550 and 1700, as reported by Ricardo Pacheco Colín.

Imposition of a religion and destruction of temples

Theto the destruction of temples and sacred sites It was a systematic practice of the colonizers to impose their ideology. The Templo Mayor, symbolically representing the center of the mexica cosmovisionit has been destroyed at its foundations; the same thing happened with the city of Tenochtitlan

Fray Toribio de Benavente, better known as Motolinía, compared this destruction to sores of Egypt.

In addition to the temples, colonization has resulted in eradication of ancient religious doctrines. The ancient deities were forbidden and replaced by the Catholic religion. Historians point out that the appropriation of Catholicism this was possible among the natives, for there was not in them a principle of intolerance so characteristic of the European peoples.

The existence of saints, virgins and apostles they came to replace all the gods worshiped by the Aztecs, which facilitated their indoctrination.

After winning the war, the Spaniards and their new gods showed their power, beating not only the warrior people, but also their great Huitzilopochtli deity. This reasoning in which the force of war went hand in hand with the divine power also helps to explain the establishment of the Catholicism in Mexico.

These are some of the general characteristics of the conquest of Mexico. Five centuries have pbaded since the events mentioned here, however, the years of domination they always represent an open wound.