Mexican president apologises to Indigenous for Spanish conquest

Marking the 500th anniversary of the fall of the Aztec capital to Spain, President Lopez Obrador asks for forgiveness.

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday asked the country’s Indigenous Mexica Peoples for forgiveness for the abuses inflicted on them during the bloody 1521 Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire. Lopez Obrador spoke in front of a large replica temple built to commemorate 500 years since the fall of the ancient Aztec capital Tenochtitlan to Hernan Cortes, the leader of the invading Spanish forces and the armies of his Indigenous allies. Cortes and his allies defeated the Aztec leaders and the Mexica people who lived in Tenochtitlan, which later became Mexico City. They then looted and razed the city, ushering in three centuries of Spanish domination.