1. 2/15 Aim: How did the Conquistadores conquer the Aztecs and the Incas?
Do Now: Analyze the painting to the left. Describe what you see happening. Then, complete the journal entry on your handout.

2. The Conquistadores (conquerors)
Lured to the new world by rumors of gold.
Hernando Cortes, of Spain, hears that the Aztecs have a wealthy empire in central Mexico. He conquers Montezuma and his empire with 600 men and with the help of Aztec enemies from surrounding villages.
1533 Francisco Pizarro, also of Spain, conquered the Incan empire with 200 men.

3. How did they do it?
The Spanish had superior weapons including guns and cannons. The Natives had only bows and arrows.
Disease including measles, mumps, and smallpox, killed hundreds of thousands by the time Cortes Launched his counter attack. A similar situation occurred with Pizarro and the Incas.
Cortes, with the help of his translator La Malinche, learned that some natives resented the Aztecs and he convinced the Natives to fight on his side.
The Aztecs may have believed that Cortes was a god, and invited him in to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.