page_title: History of Mexico
section_title: Mesoamerica on the eve of the Spanish conquest
hierarchical_section_title: History of Mexico / Spanish conquest / Mesoamerica on the eve of the Spanish conquest
caption_attribution_description: Español: Mural sobre la Batalla de Centla y la conquista de Tabasco, realizado por el pintor muralista Homero Magaña Arellano, y localizado en el Palacio Municipal, Paraíso, Tabasco.English: Mural on the Battle of Centla and the conquest of Tabasco, executed by the mural painter Homero Magaña Arellano, and located in City Hall, Paraíso, Tabasco.
context_page_description: The written history of Mexico spans more than three millennia. First populated more than 13,000 years ago, central and southern Mexico, saw the rise and fall of complex indigenous civilizations. Uniquely in the Western Hemisphere, Mesoamerican civilizations developed glyphic writing systems, recording the political history of conquests and rulers. Mesoamerican history before Europeans arrived is variously called the prehispanic era and the precolumbian era.
  The Spanish conquest of Mexico that toppled the Aztec Empire in 1521 with the aid of indigenous allies, created a political entity known as New Spain, now usually called "colonial Mexico." The Spanish victories were followed by expanded regions into the Spanish Empire. The Spanish crown established the Viceroyalty of New Spain with the site of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan becoming Mexico City. Mexico City became and remains the center of political rule.
context_section_description: The first mainland explorations were followed by a phase of inland expeditions and conquest. The Spanish crown extended the Reconquista effort, completed in Spain in 1492, to non-Catholic people in new territories. In 1502 on the coast of present-day Colombia, near the Gulf of Urabá, Spanish explorers led by Vasco Núñez de Balboa explored and conquered the area near the Atrato River.
  The conquest was of the Chibcha-speaking nations, mainly the Muisca and Tairona indigenous people that lived here. The Spanish founded San Sebastian de Uraba in 1509—abandoned within the year, and in 1510 the first permanent Spanish mainland settlement in America, Santa María la Antigua del Darién.
  The first Europeans to arrive in what is modern day Mexico were the survivors of a Spanish shipwreck in 1511.  Only two managed to survive Gerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero until further contact was made with Spanish explorers years later. On 8 February 1517 an expedition led by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba left the harbor of Santiago de Cuba to explore the shores of southern Mexico.
  During the course of this expedition many of Hernández' men were killed, most during a battle near the town of Champotón against a Maya army. He himself was injured, and died a few days shortly after his return to Cuba. This was the Europeans' first encounter with a civilization in the Americas with buildings and complex social organizations which they recognized as being comparable to those of the Old World. Hernán Cortés led a new expedition to Mexico landing ashore at present day Veracruz on 22 April 1519, a date which marks the beginning of 300 years of Spanish hegemony over the region.
  In general the 'Spanish conquest of Mexico' denotes the conquest of the central region of Mesoamerica where the Aztec Empire was based.  The fall of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521 was a decisive event, but the conquest of other regions of Mexico, such as Yucatán, extended long after Spaniards consolidated control of central Mexico. The Spanish conquest of Yucatán is the much longer campaign, from 1551 to 1697, against the Maya peoples of the Maya civilization in the Yucatán Peninsula of present-day Mexico and northern Central America.
caption: Battle of Centla, first time a horse was use in battle in a war in the Americas. Mural in the Palacio Municipal of Paraíso, Tabasco
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