The Aztec Chronicles: The End of the World

Hernan Cortez

These foreigners were reported to have skins resistant to arrows and could join with gargantuan deer to make great thunder noises and run on four feet.  Great fire was also seen shooting from thunder sticks they carried and devastation followed them as they moved.  Surely, without a doubt, gods had arrived. 

As was the case 14 years latter with Atahualpa, the Inca ruler of Peru, Moctecuhzoma was convinced he was witnessing the enactment of an ancient prophecy handed down by his ancestors.  He believed Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent had returned to claim his thrown.  Aztec pottery and surviving monuments depict the scene of Quetzalcoatl’s imminent return over and over.

Quetzalcoatl image

The European invaders were received in Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital with ceremony.  They were so impressed that they described the city with magnificent palaces and gardens on floating islands, as a second Venice.

The soldiers were at first considered divine messengers and were presented with gifts and tributes such as Aztec masks of pure gold.  As soon as it became apparent that great quantities of gold were present the Spaniards astutely and cynically took Moctecuhzoma prisoner, and in a series of bloody battles crushed the last pre-Columbian empire of Mesoamerica.

The Aztec civilization along with its written records, material culture, and traditions was mercilessly eradicated within just a few years.  Of the approximate 25 million inhabitants of the Aztec Empire only 1 in 10 survived.  The population was wiped out by war and disease, even Cuahutemoc the last ruler defending the Aztec empire, after the Spanish strangled Moctecuhzoma died of smallpox.

Indeed, for the Aztecs, the end of the world had arrived.