Logistics and supply

Food, water, porters, ammunition and medical stores. What ran out, and who carried it.

Documentaries

EP 01 · Central Mexico · 1519

The Road to Tenochtitlán

About five hundred Spaniards reached Tenochtitlán in November 1519, but they did not walk the road alone. This episode follows the interpreters, the Totonac and Tlaxcalan allies, and the porters who carried the expedition inland, and the people of Cholula who paid for decisions made by others.

Translators and intermediaries
Logistics and supply
Civilians and refugees

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In the Knowledge Base

DysenteryAn infection of the bowel that causes bloody diarrhoea, fever and dehydration, and has followed armies wherever latrines, water and food were not kept apart.
Tlameme (porter)The professional carriers of the Nahuatl-speaking world. With no draft animals or carts, central Mexico moved goods, tribute and armies' supplies on human backs, held by a strap across the forehead.