Steel or Smallpox? A Debate on the Spanish Conquest

Debate Night: Why Did Two Empires Fall So Fast?

1The eighth-period history class is holding a formal debate on this resolution: "The Spanish conquered the Aztec and Inca empires mainly because of their weapons and horses." Before the speeches, the moderator, Ms. Adebayo, reads the background card. The Maya built cities such as Tikal and Chichén Itzá in southern Mexico and Central America. They never formed one empire; many city-states each had a king of their own. Maya scribes wrote in glyphs, and Maya astronomers kept careful calendars that used a symbol for zero.

2The Mexica, often called the Aztecs, founded their capital, Tenochtitlan, on an island in Lake Texcoco in about 1325. Causeways linked it to the shore, and historians estimate it held about 200,000 people by 1519. An emperor ruled from the capital, and conquered city-states sent him tribute such as cloth, feathers and food. Far to the south, the Inca ruled the largest empire in the Americas from Cusco, high in the Andes. The Sapa Inca, or emperor, linked his lands with thousands of miles of stone roads, and officials kept records on quipus, cords tied with knots.

3Diego Ramos opens for Team A, which supports the resolution. "Look at the battlefield. Spanish soldiers had steel swords, armor, guns and horses. Aztec and Inca warriors fought with slings, spears and wooden clubs edged with obsidian, a sharp volcanic glass. In 1532 Francisco Pizarro and about 168 men captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa at Cajamarca. Weapons like these let a small force beat far larger armies."

4Tomás Herrera opens for Team B, which opposes it. "Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico in 1519 with only about 500 soldiers. Thousands of Indigenous warriors joined him, especially the Tlaxcalans, who had fought the Aztecs for years and had never been conquered by them. Then, in 1520, smallpox, a disease brought from Europe, swept through Tenochtitlan and killed many people, including the new emperor, Cuitláhuac. When the city fell in 1521, the Spanish were far outnumbered by their own allies."

5Hannah Kowalski answers for Team A. "Allies helped, but they are not the whole story. The enemies of Tenochtitlan had fought it for generations and never taken it. The city fell only after the Spanish built boats armed with cannons and attacked across the lake. That is why we say weapons made the difference."

6Amara Osei closes for Team B. "The Inca story follows the same pattern. Smallpox reached the Andes before Pizarro did and probably killed the emperor Huayna Capac in the 1520s. His sons Atahualpa and Huáscar then fought a civil war for the throne, and Pizarro arrived just as it ended."

7Ms. Adebayo ends with a reminder. Most written accounts of the conquest come from Spanish soldiers and priests, though some Mexica writers also recorded their memories in the years after. And these peoples did not disappear: millions of Maya people still live in Mexico and Central America, and millions of people in the Andes speak Quechua, the language of the Inca.