Observatoire des droits humains (anglais seulement)

The Aztec empire’s collapse shows why ruling through coercion and force fails

(Version anglaise seulement)

par Jay Silverstein, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Forensics, Nottingham Trent University

When Aztec emissaries arrived in 1520 to Tzintzuntzan, the capital of the Tarascan Kingdom in what is now the Mexican state of Michoacán, they carried a warning from the Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc.

They cautioned that strange foreigners – the Spaniards – had invaded the land and posed a grave threat. The emissaries requested an audience with the Tarascan ruler, known as the Cazonci, King Zuanga. But Zuanga had recently died, most likely from smallpox brought by the Spaniards.

Relations between the…

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