Spanish Impact

The Spanish imprint on the landscape included a rapid decline in the native population (extrapolated numbers of 15 to 25 million prior to contact, down to 2.5 million in just one hundred years). Much of the lake that surrounded the Aztec capital was drained off by the Spanish to create farmland. Today, Lake Texcoco is a shell of its former self. Deforestation occurred as wood was used for construction instead of stone that the natives used. Many trees and other native crops were lost due to introduced grazing animals (i.e. cattle and sheep) and wheat instead of corn as a staple food. Catholicism became the dominant form of religion in the New World.

Political instability in the Aztec Empire and the arrival of the “White Gods” brought down the Aztec in Middle America. The Aztec believed the white god Quetzalcóatl would return from the east across the ocean the very year Hernán Cortés got off his boat. The lightly complexioned, blue-eyed conquistadors numbered 509 soldiers. They fomented rebellion in the conquered peoples of the Aztec realm, not all of which were Aztecs. Together with guns, horses, and fighting dogs, (and Spanish reinforcements) the conquerors overpowered the mighty Aztec Empire. Later, it was diseases like smallpox, mumps, typhoid fever, measles, chicken pox, and influenza that took its toll on the Native American population.

Lake Texcoco