[viciousvoxel]

Sewage was taken out of the city by boat via the system of chinampas, i.e. canals cutting through the man-made patches of reclaimed land within the lake. Almost all of this was destroyed/filled in under Spanish occupation and is likely one of the major factors in the spread of disease and decimation of the native population.

[ecocentrik]

That is tragic. Europeans, with inferior civil engineering skills but superior military weapons, decimate a civilization instead of transferring and absorbing their technology and then take a few hundred years to catch up. It's a tech lesson that some of us still fail to understand.

[kykeonaut]

Turns out that Tlaxcaltecas did most of the work in conquering the Aztecs. They also had vast privileges granted by the Spanish once the conquest was over. For example, they were granted the title of Don. Not as black and white as it might seem.