Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Who conquered the Aztecs in Guns, Germs, and Steel?

The conquest of the Aztecs is not discussed in great detail in Jared Diamond’s book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. The main focus is, instead, on the conquest of the Incas by Spaniards who were led by Francisco Pizarro. This is the subject of Chapter 3 in the book. We do, however, see brief mentions of the conquest of the Aztecs. The Spaniards who conquered the Aztecs were led by a man named Hernan Cortes.


We see references to Cortes in various places in Chapter 3 of Guns, Germs, and Steel. For example, Diamond tells us on p. 80 that the Aztecs thought that Cortes was a god (because of their mythology) and “the result was that Cortes… went on to conquer Tenochtitlan and the Aztec Empire.” From this, we can see that the Aztec Empire was conquered by Spaniards who were led by Hernan Cortes (and who had a great deal of help from Indian allies who hated the Aztecs).

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