Centuries of ethnocentric accounts of the Conquest of Mexico have typically lionized Cortes as a great conqueror, one who vanquished the vastly greater in numbers Aztecs through superior military strategy and weapons. Recent scholarship on Cortes benefits from a more balanced account of this complex man, whose personal ambitions often made his protestations of serving Spain suspect. These accounts also reveal that, in Mexico and against the Aztecs, Cortes benefitted from many factors that led to victory. Chief among these was the significant factionalism among native groups in Mexico and their willingness to aid Cortes against the often feared and despised Aztecs. As such, contemporaries like Bernal Diaz and Cortes himself portrayed his role as central to the Conquest of Mexico, but, with time, historians have provided a more nuanced interpretation where Cortes' role was less central to the Conquest.
This analysis will offer a discussion of these conflicting views of Cortes' role in the conquest of Mexico, showing how modern historians f
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