""In the beginning," said the Aztecs, "the white men came in one boat,"" "Nearly 500 years ago," "Spanish adventurers landed on a small island off the coast of Mexico," "It was the first contact between the civilisations of the old world and the new," "The prelude to one of the greatest events in history," "It's a story of almost incredible endurance, heroism, greed and brutality." "And all the more poignant today as we see its long-term effects unfolding across the globe." "It's known still in the Americas as the conquest, the "Conquista"." "And the larger-than-life men who achieved it are the conquerors, the "Conquistadors"." ""Most mighty prince," wrote Hernan Cortes to the King of Spain," ""Let me begin at the beginning, We sailed our ships to the land called Yucatan, "" "Cortes was a poor boy from a small town, trained in law, not war," "But he had dreams," "A self-made man, he'd financed his own expedition - 11 ships, 500 soldiers," "Like Columbus, he didn 't know what lay ahead" "He thought the land they could see beyond Cuba was just islands, through which they could sail to China," "It was April 1519," "Gracias!" "It's hard for us to imagine the shock of the new for people of the 16th century," "For us, it would be like landing on another planet," "To discover that the New World also had great civilisations, with law, writing and architecture, this was a revelation," ""What rational beings live here?" Wrote Cortes," ""This is the best and richest land that ever there was, "" "The awe-struck conquistadors christened one place "El Gran Cairo"," "Cortes headed west to the Tabasco river, the frontier of the Mayan and the Aztec-speaking worlds," "Still perhaps unsure of his next move, he landed in Frontera," "The key to any close encounter is language," "But Cortes couldn 't talk to the Aztecs," "(SPEAKS SPANISH)" "He'd already found a Spanish sailor who spoke Mayan," "Then, here in Frontera, he had his lucky break," "Cortes was given a slave girl by a local chief" "Her name was Malinali, but here in Mexico everyone calls her "Malinche"," "Malinche spoke Mayan and Nahuatl, the Aztec language," "Through her, he could talk to them," "(W0MAN SPEAKS SPANISH)" "(TRANSLATl0N) Malinche was treated well by the Spanish." "Especially by Cortes." "Some say she fell hopelessly in love with him." " Afrodisiaco, #si?" " Si." "Yes, some say she was dazzled by the power of Cortes." "And how she's paid for itl" ""Traitor, whore, goddess of death,"" "For nearly 500 years, Mexicans have argued about Malinche and her relationship with Cortes," "But Malinche was the one who would lead Cortes to his destiny," "Cortes sails on up the coast, Malinche at his side," "He keeps asking about gold" "And everywhere they tell him of a mysterious empire in the interior," "A land called Mexico," "He anchors at an island off the coast, "The Isle of Sacrifices"," ", just off the modern port of Vera Cruz," "And it was here that Cortes had his first encounter with the Aztecs," "In his letters, you can still feel his sense of wonder," "Since then, the tale has become a myth, It's even immortalised in the movies," "0n Easter Saturday 1519, a magnificent embassy arrived from the ruler of Mexico," "Even more strange, they seemed to have been expecting Cortes," "Dona Marina, find out who honours us in this royal manner." "Yes, my lord." "(THEY SPEAK NAHUATL)" "Malinche translates their Nahuatl," "Tell the royal ambassador I am pleased to welcome him to my camp." "To his amazement, the Aztecs offer him wonderful gifts of gold" "Though Cortes was pretending to be the ambassador of a great king, he couldn't respond in kind and as gifts to the Aztecs, he scraped up a chair, some trinkets and a velvet cap which their ambassador accepted, though he looked at them as if they were excrement!" "Then came the crucial moment in the conversation." ""Do you have more gold?" says Cortes." ""Because we suffer from a disease of the heart that can only be cured by gold."" ""Yes, we do," said the ambassador." "There could hardly have been a more dangerous admission." "Cortes now gave the Aztecs a show of his power," "He fired his guns, rode his horses down the shore," "The Aztecs were stunned They'd never seen such things before," "Their ambassador had his artists paint them, as we would take photographs," ""The strangers," he said, "have sticks which spurt fire," ""They ride deer, high as a house, which snort and foam, "" "Cortes was invited to make a camp, He built a base here at Villa Rica," "You can see it all from here." "The little bay, the little headland where they built their fort." "Tiny, isn't it?" "Just a first enclave in the New World." "But it all started from here." "And perhaps it was only now that Cortes dreamed up the plan to go to the city of the Aztecs," "Could he somehow get them to bow to Spain?" "Those nights by the sea, the locals told him of what lay ahead" "How the Aztec empire was built on fear and tribute," "A tribute not only of things, but of people, 0f human hearts," "The name of the Aztec ruler was Montezuma," "But Montezuma was haunted by a prophecy, a legend of an exiled god who one day would return to reclaim his throne," "So the Aztec spies urgently looked for signs," "The strangers' white food Was it food of the gods?" "Their pale faces, could they be divine?" "It sounds incredible, and it probably sounded incredible to the Spanish, but Aztec gods weren't like Christian ones." "They were more like the gods of the ancient Greeks, capricious, wilful, mercurial, cruel." "And the most enigmatic of them all was Quetzalcoatl." "And according to the legend, when Quetzalcoatl was expelled from Mexico, he promised that one day he would return and regain his kingdom." "That he'd come back across that sea out to the east, back here, with his chalky white face and his beard in the Aztec year 1-Reed." "By an amazing chance, 52 to 1 chance this was that year!" "And for the Aztecs, nothing happened by chance," "Cortes's men are getting nervous now, They know a great empire lies inland, and they know Cortes wants to go there," "And now Cortes faces mutiny," "He acts fast, Kills the ringleader," "Then, so no one can get away, he decides to pull his ships up on the beach and scupper them," "It's a gambler's throw, isn't it, destroying your own ships!" "They won't talk about going home any more." "Typical piece of Cortes." "He knows what he needs to know about the Aztecs." "But to persuade his men into the interior, he needs to hitch them to his dreams." "To leave them, as he put it, with nothing to rely on but their own hands and the assurance that they must either conquer or die." "The hesitation was over, Cortes heads inland with some native allies from the coast who were keen to throw off the Aztec yoke," "He took a back road towards Montezuma's capital, Tenochtitlan, hoping along the way to find friends among Montezuma's enemies," "The towns they came through are still here - Coatapec, Xico," ""Every place we passed through," says the conquistador Bernal Diaz," ""we saw altars for human sacrifice, By some, there were thousands of skulls, "" "The Christian in Cortes was revolted" "Here in Xico, he told the people they must give up their idols," "Speaking in Nahuatl, the Aztec language," "Malinche gave a potted history of Christianity." "Then she explained to the people the pope gave the King of Spain authority over their lands in the name of God." "There's a story that two chiefs who heard this were prepared to believe that there was one all-powerful God, but as for the idea that the pope had given their lands to somebody else, the pope must have been drunk!" "The Spaniards were still trying to make sense of confusing signs," "The stench oo blood mingled with the scent of flowers," "Familiar European categories of life and death, nurture and feeding, were upside - down," "To quench their thirst, the Spaniards were given juice bled from the fleshy white heart of the Mage cactus," "Wow!" "It's absolutely beautiful." "0nly to learn this was the drink given to sacrificial victims to dull the senses of those who were about to die," ""Every, day,"says Bernal Diaz, "we were told they'd kill us" ""and eat our flesh with chillies," ""And the warm drink made from the cacao bean," ""which the Aztecs call "xocolatl" - chocolate " ""was prepared for the eagle warriors who feasted on the flesh of their enemies, "" "Whilst human sacrifice is long gone, chocolate is still drunk here at religious feasts," "And the Aztec language still survives," "(W0MAN SPEAKS NAHUATL)" "That's "Buenas tardes"?" "How do you say "Gracias"?" "(SHE TRANSLATES T0 NAHUATL)" "Amazing!" "And with the language, hints of Aztec attitudes to love and sex," "For all their obsession with death, the Aztecs still loved life," "(IN NAHUATL)" "We'd better not... (HE REPEATS HER W0RDS)" "I can't tell you what that means!" "Cortes pushed on," "And now we had to follow him on foot," ""Ahead of us, " says Cortes, "we saw a great range oo beautiful mountains," ""the peaks so white we think they must be covered with snow, "" "With him, Cortes had 300 conquistadors, 40 of them crossbowmen, 20 musketeers," "There were several hundred Indians, and Cuban servants," "And, of course, his precious horses - 15 of them," "After a summer on the Caribbean coast, the Spaniards were in for a shock," "0ne of the conquistadors, Bernal Diaz, said when they came into the mountains, it rained and rained." "The path turned into torrents." "All they had was their cotton armour for the tropics." "They were unprepared for the change of temperature, going up 11,000 feet." "Soaking wet and freezing cold, some of their Indian servants died." "So far as we know, Cortes had no military, training," "But he never lost the respect of those who marched with him," "The thing you have to remember about the conquistadors is that, putting themselves through this, they were all volunteers." "They were in it not for religion but a share of the profits." "They were free men." "They acknowledged their leader's authority but he had to pay attention to and respect them." "And they called each other "compadre"." "Comrade." "They're all in it together." " Is that the path up here?" " Eh?" " That's the path, is it?" " Yes." "That little path up to the top," "Cortes called it "Nombre de Dios" - "The name of God."" "(RAIN DR0WNS 0UT W0RDS) 13,000 feet!" "Can't see..." "~Muchas gracias!" "Those nights, the native women he'd brought from the coast made them tortillas," "Some compensation," "We have tents tonight and we are certainly going to be soaking, cold and miserable, just as Hernan Cortes and his men were, as Bernal Diaz tells the story." "Those clouds are not going to lift." "As they marched deeper inland, they heard more about what lay ahead" ""The locals said that to capture Mexico would be impossible, " says Bernal Diaz," ""and we would all die," ""But the more they told us that, the more we longed to try, our fortune, "" "After the mountains, though, things got no better," "Through autumn hailstorms, they trekked across a desolate plain of salt lakes with no food or water," "Cortes was heading for the fertile land of Tlaxcala," "Tlaxcala was an independent city state," "They hated the Aztecs," "Cortes was hoping they'd shelter him, but his luck was out," "They attacked him in a savage battle, 0n the battlefield, they still plough up the debris," " Buenos dias." " Buenos dias." "Estoy buscando la ruta de Hernan Cortes." "#La batalla?" "#Es aqui?" "Ah!" "~Si, si, si!" "Looks like glass, but this is obsidian." "See the sharp edge?" "They had a row of these things set into the wood of the clubs that they used." "Nasty wound, but nothing like Spanish steel." ""There were 149,000 of them," Cortes wrote to the King, in Julius Caesar mode," "It was touch and go, He hung on grimly on this little hill for two weeks," "Then, with their own losses mounting to the Spanish guns, the Tlaxcalans offered him a deal," "They welcomed him to their town and laid on a fiesta, even offered their daughters in marriage," "The Tlaxcalans had realised that these strangers with their guns could help free them from the Aztecs," "Ever since, they've been accused by other Mexicans oo betraying their country," "But of course, that's not how they see it," "(MAN SPEAKS IN SPANISH)" "(TRANSLATl0N) Xicotencatl, the elder, reaches for Hernan Cortes who returns the embrace, but doesn't let go of his sword." "The old Xicotencatl knew the future of his people was at stake." "He believed this alliance would ensure that Tlaxcalans would not disappear from the map, would not disappear from history." "The alliance of the Tlaxcalans is the turning point of the whole story, the turning point in the history of the New World." "With them, Cortes found allies who hated the Aztecs and would fight them to the death." "Allies who would give him support, provisions and manpower." "The possibility of conquering Mexico was now on." "So Cortes marched on, with several thousand Tlaxcalan warriors behind him," "To the greatest pilgrimage city in the Americas, Cholula, under the volcano Popocatepetl," "These were friends of the Aztec ruler Montezuma, and the Tlaxcalans warned Cortes to expect trouble," "As the Spanish moved through the town, they saw roadblocks in the side streets." "Piles of stones heaped on the rooftops, women and children evacuated." "Then Malinche heard a story that a plot was being hatched to ambush Cortes." "He decided on a pre-emptive strike." "He summoned the 100 lords of Cholula to meet him in the temple of Quetzalcoatl - it's now the Church of San Gabriel - and there Malinche told them in Nahuatl that they'd committed treason and they'd die." "The doors were closed." "The Spaniards killed them all." "And they killed 3,000 more Cholulans assembled outside." "Then their Tlaxcalan allies sacked the town." ""And so death came to Cholula," says the Aztec account," ""When we got the news, we were seized with fear," ""It was as if the earth itself were shaking,"" ""My heart burns as if it 's been washed in chillies, " said Montezuma," "From Cholula, Cortes continued up the old track through the forests of P opocatepetl," "It was erupting then, as it is now," "into the valley of Mexico," "In the distant haze, they began to make out a vast blue lake," "And then, at last, far away, approached on immense causeways, was the city of Cortes' dreams," ""It seemed like an enchanted vision," wrote one of his men," ""Indeed, some of our soldiers asked whether it was not all a dream," ""It was so wonderful" ""that I do not know how to describe this first glimpse" ""of things never heard of seen or dreamed oo before," ""The city had traders and warriors, priests and lawyers," ""musicians, jugglers, courtesans and scribes," ""It was the most beautiful thing in the world, " wrote Cortes," "Believe it or not, that's where the causeway came in in the 16th century!" "This is where the lake ended and the city began." "This is where Cortes walked that November 1519." "The Aztec city started here." "To find the place where Cortes and Montezuma met, you have to go right into the commercial heart of modern Mexico City," "The site today is inside the Hospital of Jesus," "To get there, you have to go through Accident and Emergencyl" "The Aztecs led the Spanish into a great courtyard framed by a beautiful building that was on this spot." "The tale of that momentous meeting is told by the Aztec eye-witnesses," "This is where the two worlds met." "It's where Montezuma addressed Cortes." ""0h, my lord," he said," ""you are fatigued, you are weary after your long journey." ""At last you have come down to earth." ""You have come to your city of Mexico which I have guarded for you for a little while." ""They said you would return, and now you have done so." ""But first, go to your palace and rest." ""And go in peace."" "Mysterious words, but what do they mean?" "Was this the language of Aztec diplomacy?" "0r Montezuma's acceptance of destiny?" "No one knows," "But in the Aztec calendar, that day, the 8th of November, was 1-Wind, the day of Quetzalcoatl, a day of robbery violation and deceit," "And the Aztecs knew that nothing ever happened by chance," ""It was as if we'd all eaten stupefying mushrooms, " say the Aztec witnesses," ""We kept our children off the streets and the city went to sleep" ""in a fearful slumber,"" "The city woke as it always had" "In the streets of the modern world, we can only dimly imagine its splendour," "The flutes and conch shells greeting the dawn, the bustle of merchants, the thousands oo blooms carried each day to markets drenched in the scents of the Americas," "The Spaniards were open-mouthed at the sights, the gleaming stucco of the palaces and pyramids," "They wandered the courtyards, gawped at strange gods," "But on the wind, with the scent of flowers, they caught the ever-present smell of death," "And in their hearts, they feared that Cortes the gambler had led them into the jaws of hell," "Montezuma, though, was still unsure who Cortes was, and who his master was, the great King Charles across the sea," "So now Montezuma proudly shows Cortes the pyramid of the war god on whose summit thousands of captives had had their hearts cut out," "Perhaps the gods would recognise each other?" "Trying hard to appear calm, the Spaniards entered the chamber," "The first thing the Spanish noticed when they came inside was the disgusting smell." "As their eyes got used to the darkness, they saw the eyes of the Aztec gods staring at them, gleaming with precious stones." "The war god, Huitzilopochtli, was sitting down with a golden bow and arrow." "In front of him was a brazier full of human hearts, still warm." "All around, the walls were encrusted with dried blood." "Cortes then said this to Montezuma " ""I don't understand how a prince as great as you" ""and a man as intelligent as you, could think that these are gods." ""They are bad things called devils" ""and I'd like your permission to put a cross and a picture of the Virgin Mary in here."" "Montezuma took offence at that." ""If I thought you were going to be so insulting to our gods," ""I would never have brought you to see them." ""We hold these things to be good." ""They bring us health, harvest, rain and water" ""and we must sacrifice to them." ""So please don't mention this again."" "It was quite a gulf" "For the Christians, God gave his blood to redeem mankind" "For the Aztecs, mankind must give its blood to redeem the gods," "A week passed Cortes had to act," "He raises the stakes with an unbelievable gamble," "At gunpoint he arrests Montezuma," ""What we want you to do is to come over to the palace where we're lodging." ""Quietly and with no fuss." "If you raise the alarm, we will kill you."" "Montezuma is amazed." "Nothing he learned in the Palace of Nobles prepared him for this." ""My person cannot be taken prisoner," he says to Cortes." ""Even if I were to like it, my people would never accept it."" "The argument goes on for four hours, Montezuma in tears at one point." "All the while, Cortes's captains are pacing up and down, getting more and more nervous." "0ne of them says, "Either he comes with us now or we kill him now."" "And when Malinche translates that, Montezuma caves in." "Montezuma was now in Cortes' power, maybe under his spell," "He continued to issue orders as if things were normal, but he'd lost the trust of his people," "The tale has been told many times," "How the angry, mob besieged the Spanish, how Cortes bullied poor broken Montezuma to plead with them," "But Montezuma's aura had drained away and his people killed him," "The Spaniards were trapped inside the city, food and water cut off," "His dream slipping from his grasp, Cortes was forced to give the order to escape," "You have to remember the city was on an island completely surrounded by water, linked to the mainland only by three great causeways." "All the bridges had been broken by the Aztecs." "So in those final few hours, the Spaniards built a portable wooden bridge out of the ceiling beams of where they were staying." "They would leave at midnight." "The night was clear, with a gentle rain," "The Spaniards marched in silence, hugging their gold" "Half-way into the lake, they were spotted" "The alarm was raised and the city woke," "Cortes was trapped" "The Aztec witnesses name the place," "Today it's by the little post office on the Tacuba road" "Three quarters of the Spaniards were left behind - 800 men - killed, drowned or captured." "The captives could expect only one fate at the hands of the enraged Aztecs." "They were taken back into the city to the Great Pyramid." "There their hearts were cut out and offered to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war." "0n the far shore, Cortes gathered the survivors by a huge ceiba tree," "It's still there," "Malinche, they say, showed no emotion," "But Cortes, for once, couldn 't control his feelings," "They said there were tears in Cortes' eyes that night," ""the night of tears"." "But of all his comrades who died, he asked after only one " "Martin Lopez, the shipbuilder." "When Cortes heard that Lopez had survived, although badly wounded, he said, "Vamos." "Que nada nos falta."" ""0K, let's go." "For we lack nothing."" ""And when the Spaniards had thus gone," say the Aztecs," ""we thought they had gone for ever and would never return, "" "But across the mountains, the Tlaxcalans stood by Cortes," "And what he does now is one of the most amazing things in history," "In the middle of the land, he builds a fleet," "That's why he needed Martin Lopez," "They're going to build 13 brigantines." "All of them are more than 40 feet long." "Then they'll take them to bits and carry them to Mexico City!" "What does the maestro think about this?" "(TRANSLATl0N) They disassembled the fleet as there are no navigable rivers round here." "For Mexicans, Cortes was a very cruel man." "But from a buccaneering point of view, he was great!" "Cortes would not let go of his dream," "And now, inexorably, the net began to tighten around the Aztecs," "Cortes transports his prefabricated fleet, carried in pieces by a train of 8,000 Tlaxcalan porters," "Across the mountains and back to the lake," "0n the lake shore, he waited, reinforced now by thousands of hative allies," "It was May 1521," "Cortes' moment of destiny had arrived" "It was to be nothing less than a war of the worlds," "Cortes' plan was to lay siege to the city and cut off its food and water supplies," "Then, supported by his ships, he would attack it along the causeways, whose line is still marked today by the main routes into the city," "It was a new kind of warfare for the Mexicans, involving the ordinary population, women and children, starving them." "This wasn't part of war in ancient Mexico, but Cortes was a modern man." "It was total war, The siege lasted for 80 days," "A quarter of a million people were reduced to eating lizards and grass," "Devastated by European diseases, the Aztecs under their new king, Cuauhtemoc, still refused to negotiate and the Spanish had to win the city street by street," "In the last battle, the Aztecs were squashed into the warren of streets round the Great Pyramid in the north, in Tlatelolco," "I'm looking for the ancient barrios of Mexico City, not the modern ones." "I want to go to the area of Tepito." " Tepito?" " Yeah." "Do you know it?" "Yes, but it's a little dangerous." "You don't care?" " Well..." "You know it?" " Yeah." " Yacacoco?" " No." " Lacolchoko?" "Amashak?" " No, I don't know anything about it." " Do you have a map?" " Yes." "Show me." "Maybe I can help..." "Jesus Christ." "What kind of map is that?" " It's from 1772!" " You have a rum deal, man!" "Mexico City's got a bit bigger since then!" "0K." "It seems crazy, but this map, drawn in 1772," "Mexico City is still inside what was the old island." "You can still see the network of canals and the main roads of the Aztec city are still there." "To the end, the Mexicans viewed the Spaniards as contemptible people who killed brave warriors at a distance with guns," "In the Aztec calendar, the final day was 3-Serpent, the beginning of the time of lamentation and remembrance," "The day human beings were reminded of their place in the remorseless cycle of time," "This is where the war ended, the exact spot." "This little church was built on the place where Cuauhtemoc surrendered." "I find the Aztec version of this story as powerful and moving as Homer's "Iliad", the tale of Troy." "The Aztecs accept their fate without a trace of self-pity." "It's as if, in their vision of time and destiny, the cycle of history, the bundle of years, had just been loaded against them." "The Aztec lamentations have been handed down to us," ""Broken spears line the streets," ""We have torn our hair in grief" ""0ur houses are roofless now," ""our walls red with blood" ""0ur inheritance, our city, is lost," ""The shields of our warriors were its defence" ""but they could not save it," ""0ur heritage is gone,"" "A year or two after the conquest, while a new Mexico was rising on the ruins of the old," "Cortes founded a hospital for the good of his soul on the spot where Montezuma had welcomed him," "By then, the King of Spain had showered him with honours," "The poor boy from Medellin had become the most famous man in Christendom," "His talents served him well." "The gambler who gambled everything and won." "But maybe in the end it was a hollow victory." "For in achieving his dream, he had to ruin it." "It's given to few people in history single-handedly to destroy a civilisation."