> the aztecs carved their own end by brutalizing everyone else. listen, personally i don't get angry when europeans don't know the details about native american history because, well, it is expected. pre-columbian history doesn't get too much attention, not even here, even less in europe lol. so, i'll proceed to explain that the aztecs weren't as brutal as people usually say. their vassals only had to send tribute (cotton, jewels, produce, cacao beans, etc) to tenochtitlan and acknowledge tenochtitlan's hegemony. that's it. ofc, if they rebelled against aztec's authority, they were invaded, had their capital looted and their elite killed and replaced by a more agreeable leader. but that was the custom throughout mesoamerica, it wasn't the aztecs the ones who started it, not the only ones doing so. when it comes to sacrifices, i should also say that everyone in mesoamerica did engage in human and animal sacrifice. even the peoples that sided with the conquistadors did sacrifices before and after europeans came into the picture. the reason why peoples like the tlaxcallans and many others sided with the spanish was because of geopolitics, plain and simple. corts (an admirable man, imo) was lucky because malintzin, one of the female slaves given to the conquistadors by the putn maya was the daughter of a chief, and she knew how diplomacy worked in mesoamerica. she was corts' translator and mentor on mesoamerican geopolitics. a very clever woman doing whatever it took to survive and be freed from slavery.
Mexico