# Cortés's Indian Allies: The Indigenous Conquest of Mexico

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/cort-s-s-indian-allies-the-indigenous-conquest-of-mexico
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/cort-s-s-indian-allies-the-indigenous-conquest-of-mexico.md
Podcast: [The Conquistadors: Exploration, Greed, and Destruction — Fexingo History](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470)
Published: 2026-07-09T03:05:02+00:00
Episode link: https://audio.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/episode-0143.mp3
Audio file: https://audio.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/episode-0143.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/episodes/cort-s-s-indian-allies-the-indigenous-conquest-of-mexico
Duration seconds: 403

## Resource

When Hernán Cortés marched on Tenochtitlan in 1519, his Spanish army was tiny. The real fighting force was tens of thousands of Indigenous allies — Tlaxcalans, Totonacs, Huexotzincans, and others who saw the Spanish as a weapon against Aztec domination. This episode examines the complex alliances that made the conquest possible: the motives of each Indigenous group, the role of Cortés's interpreter Malintzin in forging these pacts, and the long-term consequences for allied communities who expected freedom but got colonial rule instead. We look closely at the Tlaxcalan-Xicotencatl family's internal debate over allying with the strangers, the Totonac revolt at Cempoala that opened the door, and how the Spanish used divide-and-conquer tactics to pit Mesoamerican peoples against each other. The conversation also touches on the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, a post-conquest pictorial manuscript that shows the conquest from the Tlaxcalan perspective. Far from a simple story of European victory, the fall of the Aztec Empire was an Indigenous civil war, and the 'conquistadors' were just the tip of the spear. #Cortés #Tlaxcala #Malintzin #Xicotencatl #Cempoala #Totonac #Huexotzinco #AztecEmpire #Mesoamerica #ConquestOfMexico #LienzoDeTlaxcala #IndigenousAlliances #SpanishConquest #HernánCortés #MoctezumaII #divideandconquer #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo

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