The Conquistadors: Fall of the Aztecs True or False?
______1. Cortez was no snob. He was always kind to “little people.”
______2. The native peoples of the Americas no longer speak their ancient languages.
______3. Bernardino Sahagun is important because he recorded the Aztec version of
the Conquest.
______4. Malinche spoke both the Mayan and Aztec languages.
______5. When Cortez first met the Aztecs, it was Cortez who gave the Indians gold.
______6. Cortez told the Indians, “I and my men suffer from a disease of the heart that
can only be cured by gold.”
______7. The Aztec ambassador said of the Spanish, “They ride deer high as a house.”
______8. According to legend, in the same year as the arrival of Cortez, the Aztec god
Quetzalcoatl was supposed to return.
______9. Cortez pulled his ships onto the beach to keep them safe for a possible escape.
_____ 10. Two Indian chiefs said they could believe in one God, but the Pope must be
drunk.
_____ 11. The juice of the Maguey cactus was given to victims about to be sacrificed.
_____ 12. Chocolate was drunk by Aztec women and children but never by Aztec
warriors.
_____ 13. Cortez had about 3,000 conquistadors and 50 horses.
_____ 14. As the Spaniards marched inland and ascended to 11,000 feet, they were
shocked by the rain and freezing cold.
_____ 15. From their first encounter with Cortez, the Tlaxcala Indians welcomed him
peacefully and treated him as friend.
_____ 16. In the long run, the alliance between Cortez and the Tlaxcala Indians was not
that important to the Spaniards.
_____ 17. Cortez forgave the Lords of Cholula for their treason and spared their lives.
_____ 18. After Cortez’s conquest of Cholula, Montezuma said, “My heart burns as if it’s
been washed in chiles.”
_____ 19. When the Spaniards first saw the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, they thought it
was primitive and unimpressive.
_____ 20. Today the Hospital of Jesus stands on the site of the palace of Montezuma.
_____ 21. Montezuma told Cortez, “You have come to your city of Mexico which I have
guarded for you for a little while.”
_____ 22. The Spaniards saw a statue of the Aztec war god Huitzilopochtli, in front of
which was a brazier full of human heads.
_____ 23. Montezuma was pleased and grateful that Cortez wanted to put a picture of the
Virgin Mary in Huitzilopochtli’s temple.
_____ 24. When Cortez arrested Montezuma, the Aztec king went with the Spanish
quickly, even willingly.
_____ 25. Montezuma was executed by Cortez at the request of his soldiers.
_____ 26. The Spaniards built a portable wooden bridge to escape from Tenochtitlan.
_____ 27. The Aztecs sacrificed their Spanish captives to Huitzilopochtli.
_____ 28. After the escape, Cortez asked for almost all his men by name.
_____ 29. Cortez built a fleet of ships at Veracruz near the ocean.
_____ 30. Cortez’s siege of Mexico City, which starved women and children, was a new
kind of war for the Aztecs.
_____ 31. Cuauhtemoc was the last leader of the Aztecs.
_____ 32. The Aztecs expressed their grief at being conquered in Lamentations, which
have been preserved and come down to us.
_____ 33. The narrator calls Cortez “the gambler who gambled everything and won.”