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into the shallow lake bottom to impale boats.
17 The dike system in the basin of Mexico was selectively destroyed in an effort to drown the enemy in low-lying areas.18 |
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Most of the innovative tactics adopted were static, however; the Spaniards had to be drawn into an appropriate position or maneuver. Thus, feints were used against the Spaniards, as they had been in traditional Mesoamerican warfare, and they were adapted to the circumstances of the day. During the siege of Tenochtitlan, for example, the Aztecs lured the Spaniards into positions on the causeways where they were open to attack from canoes19 (see figs. 31 and 32). The Aztecs also subjected the attacking Spaniards to coordinated assaults by land and water,20 warriors often firing from armored canoes (chimalacalli) that were impervious to gunfire. |
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Moreover, the circumstances of the Conquest led to night actions by the Aztecs, despite their previous rarity. Night was a time of harassment during which the Aztecs yelled, whistled, and subjected the Spaniards to showers of arrows, darts, and stones from both land and canoes.21 But these attacks proved to be neither very committed nor sustained,22 although they had a significant psychological impact. |
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Another explanation of the Spaniards' success focuses on competing ideologies: the Spaniards represented a dominant culture and viewed themselves as having a superior place in the world. In other words, Christianity is seen as naturally triumphing over the paganism of the heathen Indians, or Western Enlightenment over native superstition. But while perceptions on both sides played a role, appeals to grand clashes are unnecessary to explain the events of the Conquest. |
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The Spanish conquest is now seen as a major watershed in the history of the New World: the transition from the pre-Columbian world to the post-Columbian. But at that time and to the people involvedat least to the indigenous peoplesit was not. The Spaniards were simply another group, albeit an alien one, seeking to gain political dominance in central Mexico, and one that ostensibly did not represent a danger to the Tlaxcaltecs. When they first met, the Tlaxcaltecs could probably have defeated the Spaniards, and they certainly could have after the Spaniards' initial flight from Tenochtitlan. They did not because the Spaniards presented an opportunity. Here was a potential ally, and in customary Mesoamerican fashion |
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