In the end. Cortez’ invasion, unwittingly, brought a far worse fate. For what ultimately defeated the Aztecs (and allowed Cortez to finally capture Tenochtitlan), was the plague of European diseases that the Spaniards unknowingly brought. And it spared no one among his allies. It is estimated that, in the end, 90% of the American Indian population of the New World (NINETY - you read that right) was wiped out by these diseases.
This is why, incidentally, when the English colonists arrived in numbers on the East Coast, they found comparatively few Indian tribes where stories of a few earlier expeditions talked of thriving cultures - the plagues brought by those initial explorers had, within a couple of decades, wiped them out.
Ah, a little Leyenda Negra for breakfast. Curiously enough, the major take-over activity of the Spanish seems to have been marrying the Indians after they had been Christianized, as you can see from the large mixed race population of Latin America. This was not true of the English population or their heirs, who managed to either kill or drive out almost all of the indigenous population from the areas where they settled. In the 18th century British colonists from Georgia and South Carolina wiped out the peaceful Franciscan Indian missions of Florida and Georgia, killing or enslaving thousands of Indians. The British settlers were angry at the Spanish because escaped slaves could gain their freedom if they crossed the border into Spanish Florida.
Everthing was fine Before the White Man Came with their poisoned blankets and stuff and stolt all the land. But Cortez was HISPANIC so it’s really ok.