The Fall of the Aztecs
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What students do
- Read Bernal Diaz's 1519 eyewitness account of first seeing Tenochtitlan from the causeway
- Map the Spanish approach to Tenochtitlan alongside the role of Tlaxcalan allies
- Argue against the classroom claim that Spain conquered the Aztec Empire alone
- Explain how smallpox and tens of thousands of Tlaxcalan warriors decided the siege of 1521
What it covers
- Bernal Diaz's firsthand description of the causeway approach to the Aztec capital
- Why the fall of Tenochtitlan depended on Tlaxcalan allies and a smallpox epidemic, not Spanish arms alone
- Key vocabulary including conquistador, causeway, and siege
Learning targets
- Explain who Hernan Cortes and the Spanish conquistadors were and how they reached the Aztec island capital of Tenochtitlan in 1519.
- Describe what the soldier Bernal Diaz saw and felt on the causeway approach to Tenochtitlan, using his eyewitness account.
- Explain that the Spanish did not conquer the Aztecs alone - tens of thousands of Tlaxcalan allies and a devastating smallpox epidemic were decisive in the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521.
From one teacher to another
The causeway into Tenochtitlan is where I start this one, with water on both sides and a city rising out of the lake that stopped Bernal Diaz's soldiers cold in 1519. I use his actual account of that walk so students don't take his word alone, they weigh it against Tlaxcalan allies numbering in the tens of thousands, plus a smallpox epidemic that did more to end the 1521 siege than any Spanish weapon. Most retellings hand Cortes all the credit for bringing down the Aztec Empire, and I made this one specifically to put that credit where it actually belongs.
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