Cortes and the Aztecs - A History of the Spanish Civil War

Cortes wasn't a battering ram. He was a door stop, a convenient wedge between the fragile tensions and the region that allowed an insurrection to detonate in the heartland of the aztecs. By the merit of their presence alone, the spaniards had triggered a civil war. The elite warrior class of the city belonged to special orders called the eagle knights and the jaguar knights. They dressed up in elaborate costumes that featured eagle feathers and jaguar skins. One concistador testified they wore things like heads of serpents or lions or tigers inside their jaws as though it were devouring him. But there was one thing that the Aztecs would