{"podcast":{"title":"The Conquistadors: Exploration, Greed, and Destruction — Fexingo History","slug":"the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470","podcast_index_feed_id":7864470,"rss_url":"https://feeds.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors.xml","website_url":"https://www.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/","image_url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/cover.png","author":"Fexingo","episode_count":182,"summary":"From the moment Hernán Cortés burned his ships on the Veracruz shore to the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521, the Spanish conquistadors remade the Americas through a volatile mix of courage, cruelty, and greed. Lucas and Luna guide listeners through the brutal collision of two worlds, examining not only the well-known figures—Cortés, Pizarro, Moctezuma, Atahualpa—but also the indigenous allies, enslaved Africans, and forgotten women who shaped the conquest. Each episode dissects a specific campaign or cultural encounter: the siege of Tenochtitlan, the conquest of the Inca Empire, the protracted Maya resistance, and the lesser-known expeditions into Florida and the Amazon. They explore the legal and moral debates of the Valladolid Controversy, the devastating impact of Old World diseases, and the encomienda system that bound native peoples to Spanish lords. The show also confronts the long legacy: how conquest myths were constructed, how indigenous memory survives, and how modern movements grapple with statues, repatriation, and historical memory. This is not a simple story of heroes or villains—it is a search for understanding amid the rubble of empires. Can we truly grasp the scale o…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-29T06:20:17.143281+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470"},"episode":{"title":"The Siege of Tenochtitlan's Secret Weapon: Smallpox and Epidemics in the Conquest","slug":"the-siege-of-tenochtitlan-s-secret-weapon-smallpox-and-epidemics-in-the-conquest","published_at":"2026-07-01T15:57:20+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/the-siege-of-tenochtitlan-s-secret-weapon-smallpox-and-epidemics-in-the-conquest","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470","url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/episode-0129.mp3","audio_url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/episode-0129.mp3","summary":"When Hernán Cortés and his Indigenous allies besieged Tenochtitlan in 1521, they had a secret ally they barely understood: smallpox. This episode explores the role of epidemic disease in the fall of the Aztec Empire, focusing on the 1520 smallpox outbreak that killed Moctezuma's successor Cuitláhuac and devastated the city's defenders. We discuss the arrival of smallpox with the Pánfilo de Narváez expedition, the cocoliztli epidemics that followed, and how disease may have killed more people than swords and arquebuses combined. Drawing on the Florentine Codex and modern paleopathological research, we examine how native populations with no prior exposure suffered mortality rates as high as 50%, while the Spanish carried partial immunity. The conversation also touches on the biological exchange of the Columbian Exchange and the ethical questions it raises. A sobering look at how microbes shaped the conquest as much as men did. #Smallpox #Cocoliztli #Tenochtitlan #HernanCortes #Cuauhtemoc #Cuitlahuac #FlorentineCodex #Pandemic #Mesoamerica #AztecEmpire #ColumbianExchange #Epidemic #BernalDiaz #Narvaez #History #FexingoHistory #NewSpain #Conquistadors Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo","meta_description":"When Hernán Cortés and his Indigenous allies besieged Tenochtitlan in 1521, they had a secret ally they barely understood: smallpox. This episode explores…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":493,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/episodes/the-siege-of-tenochtitlan-s-secret-weapon-smallpox-and-epidemics-in-the-conquest/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/the-siege-of-tenochtitlan-s-secret-weapon-smallpox-and-epidemics-in-the-conquest.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}