🪶 1519 | Spanish in Mexico (Part I) What you’re seeing: Hernán Cortés lands at Veracruz in April 1519 with 11 ships and roughly 500 men. He marches inland, nearly loses everything to Tlaxcala, then turns that crisis into the alliance that will help destroy the Mexica Empire. Where is this? The Gulf coast of modern Mexico, the highlands of central Mexico, and the Valley of Mexico, territory dominated by the Mexica-led Triple Alliance. Who are these people? The Mexica, often called Aztecs, were the dominant power in central Mexico. The Tlaxcala were a confederation of 4 small kingdoms that had resisted Mexica conquest for generations. Cortés had the Spanish. But Malintzin, also called Doña Marina, made the diplomacy possible through translation. What was the Triple Alliance? A military coalition of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan, led by the Mexica. By 1519 it ruled through tribute extraction, not unity. Many subject peoples hated it. Why did Tlaxcala join Cortés? They had foug...