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Dwarkesh Podcast · 3 min instead of 1 h 37 m · Oct 1, 2026
The Tlaxcalans used Cortés, not the other way around
Si Sheppard
Military Historian
Dwarkesh PatelHost · Host, Dwarkesh Podcast
Co-wrote The Scaling Era, an oral history of AI; named to TIME100 AI.
About this segment
Sheppard explains why Cortés survived La Noche Triste: Tlaxcalan allies took him in and drove a hard bargain. The Aztec empire was a hated imperial construct, so the final assault force was about 0.5% Spanish.
From “How did a few hundred Spanish soldiers topple two empires? – Si Sheppard”, Oct 1, 2026. Watch the full episode
“the force that marches on Tenochtitlan, the total numbers, the conquistadors were maybe one-half of one percent in raw numbers of that force.”
Takeaways
- Tlaxcalans demanded territory and a fortress in Tenochtitlan as their price
- Subject peoples like the Totonacs and Chalco saw the Spanish as a way out
- Conquistadors were about 0.5% of the force that marched on Tenochtitlan
In this episode
Full episode- 31:56The natives adapted fast, but the learning curve was too steep2:53
17:21The Tlaxcalans used Cortés, not the other way around2:45
Transcript
Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.
- 17:24
None of them would have made it back to the coast. But the Leshcalans see for their own reasons, not out of any generosity or humanitarian impulse to welcome back the conquistadors. They still see we are committed to these people and to our alliance. So they give Cortes shelter. He recovers physically, begins to rebuild his strength, and is determined to go back to Tenochtitlan. And for round two, and this time, we're not going to be indulging diplomatic niceties. The Lashkalans, their own perspective on this, if you go to Lashkala territory today, the governor's mansion there has murals on the wall. And these depict the Cortes and the conquistadors from the Lashkalan point of view. And it's fascinating to look at how the relationship is not between a superior and a inferior. It's between equals. You see them
- 18:08
depicted in the same scale, engaged in diplomacy between partners, not between subordinates and and dominant figures. The Lashkalans drove a hard bargain. We want territory carved out of the Aztecs. We want our own fortress in Tanashtitlan after this is over. They saw this as them using the conquistadors, not the other way around, which is very important to bear in mind that the Aztec empire from a distance, if you look at a map, seemed impressive. But this was an imperial construct and not just the remaining independent entities like the Lashkalans, like the Tarascans, who we can discuss later, were hostile to the Aztecs, so were so many of their subordinated peoples. The Tottenhacks on the coast, the Chalco states on the shores of Lake Texcoco, they chafed under Aztec hegemony and authority. And they too saw the conquistadors as an
- 19:00
opportunity to finally shrug off the authority, the demands of the Aztecs and get revenge in a lot of ways. So as Cortes builds up for the final campaign against Tenochtitlan, against the new Huey Latawani, Kuitlahuek, and then after he died, his brother, the last of the Huey Latawani's, Kautomac, he has indigenous people flocking to his banner from all over Mesoamerica. He's emphasized that he's still in the fight. He still has those advantages. More reinforcements are arriving at the coast and they're being integrated into the conquistador army. But the force that marches on Tenochtitlan, the total numbers, the conquistadors were maybe one-half of one percent in raw numbers of that force. The overwhelming majority were other Mesoamerican peoples who see this as their final reckoning with the Aztecs. And this is the integration,
- 19:53
again, of the technology with the diplomacy. Cortes knows to take the city, he has to control the lake. the innovations. They need sulfur for their gunpowder. They have guns useless without gunpowder.