The 'seductive drug' of endless silver meant Spain never developed functional capitalism, capital markets, or banking systems like its rivals. This easy money led to massive inflation and long-term economic stagnation, a historical example of 'Dutch disease' on an imperial scale.
Facing a critical shortage of sulfur for gunpowder, Cortés’s men demonstrated extreme resourcefulness. They undertook a dangerous expedition to a volcano, dangling men inside the caldera to scoop out the raw materials they needed, showcasing a culture of radical improvisation to solve mission-critical problems far from any supply lines.
The Spanish were a tiny fraction of their own fighting forces. Their victory was a political achievement, leveraging deep-seated resentments of subjugated peoples against the Aztec and Inca empires, turning local populations into the primary military asset.
The Spanish conquest was an iterative process. Pizarro explicitly learned from and followed Cortés's playbook a decade later. In contrast, the Inca likely didn't even know the Aztecs existed. Europeans operated within a connected world, accumulating knowledge, while American empires were informationally isolated and vulnerable to repeated strategies.
Cortés and Pizarro were entrepreneurs who fundraised for their expeditions, recruiting 'compañeros' (colleagues), not 'soldados' (soldiers). These were essentially startups driven by profit, pooling assets for risky ventures. This structure incentivized extreme risk-taking and improvisation, with leaders often defying their original investors.
The Aztec military doctrine and status system prioritized capturing enemies alive for ritual sacrifice. This cultural imperative repeatedly led them to try to seize Cortés and other Spaniards rather than kill them on the spot, providing crucial moments for the conquistadors to be rescued and escape certain death.
The Spanish forces were so confident in their advantage that they fought civil wars among themselves while actively conquering empires of millions. This reveals they didn't see the natives as a true existential threat, a fatal miscalculation by Aztec and Inca leaders who failed to exploit these divisions.
Moctezuma's decision to let Cortés into his capital, often seen as a fatal error, was arguably his best option. It was better to monitor a disruptive force as a 'guest' within his seat of power than to let it roam freely, fomenting rebellion among resentful subjects.
The Aztecs' and Incas' centralized, hierarchical structure was their greatest vulnerability. By capturing a single leader—the emperor—the Spanish could destabilize or control the entire system. In contrast, dispersed peoples like the Maya required a long, grinding war of attrition to subdue.
Early firearms inflicted minor physical damage, but the psychological impact was immense. To the Inca, who had never heard gunpowder, the Spanish appeared to control thunder. This shock, combined with cavalry, induced panic and collapse in veteran armies, creating lopsided victories with near-zero Spanish casualties.
Even if the Aztecs and Incas had won initial military victories, the long-term demographic collapse caused by Old World diseases like smallpox was unavoidable. This 'great dying' would have shattered their societies' functional capacity, fragmented their empires, and ultimately enabled European colonization regardless of short-term military outcomes.