In 1531, ten years after the Caucasion Invasion an encounter took place on the Hill of Tepeyac. A man whom the Spaniards called Juan Diego (He had a nahuatl name that the priests didn't record; Juan Diego was the name given to him after his conversion.) was worshipping our earth mother Tonantzin at an ancient shrine on top of Tepeyac hill. It is at this point that Tonantzin appeared to Diego and speaking in nahuatl, gave him a message to tell our people: she said that she had not forgotten our people and that she would always watch over us. Diego immediately went to his village and told everyone about the message but nobody believed him. Diego went back several times and repeatedly saw Tonantzin but he was unsuccessful in convincing the villagers of what he saw. The villagers then went to the hill with him to see her, but she did not appear. Diego now frustrated requested that Tonantzin provide him with evidence of her presence so that he may convince the villagers. Tonantzin then wrought a miracle: Diego looked down and saw roses in full bloom at her feet. The area in which the roses grew was a sterile area where only desert plants could grow. Diego then took the roses in his cloak and presented them to the villagers and when the roses fell, the image of Tonantzin appeared on his cloak. The villagers were then convinced of the validity of the message and they immediately traveled to Tepeyac hill to thank Tonantzin. The priests quickly heard of this and they devised a plan to trick our people. They saw that our people were devoutly making pilgrimages to the site and they announced that the image was not Tonantzin at all, instead they said it was the Virgin Mary. It was at this time that our resistance was strongest and the priests could not effectively convert us to catholicism and this is just what the priests needed to trick us. The priests immediately destroyed the shrine to Tonantzin and built in its place a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Bernardino de Sahagun had this to say of the new church:

"Now that the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been built
there, they call her Tonantzin too...the term refers..to that ancient
Tonantzin and this state of affairs should be remedied, because
the proper name of the Mother of God is not Tonantzin, but Dios.
It seems to be a satanic device to mask idolatry...and they come
from far away to visit that Tonantzin, as much as before; a devotion
which is also suspect because there are many churches of Our
Lady everywhere and they do not go to them; and they come from
faraway lands to this Tonantzin as of old." (Bernardino de Sahagun,
Historia general de las cosas de nueva espana I, lib 6)

As you can see by Sahagun's testimony, we worshipped Tonantzin and not the Virgin Mary. The Spaniards began placing churches on top of all of our shrines in a desperate attempt to convert us. In our holy city of Cholula for example our people had built 365 shrines for every day of the year. The Spaniards tore them down and now there are churches in their place (in most cases, they just built their churches directly on top of our shrines.) After hundreds of years of this, our people were slowly converted as there were hardly any shrines left. And as we made pilgrimages to these shrines as we had for thousands of years, we found ouselves no longer praying to an image of Tonantzin but to an image of the Virgin Mary replaced intentionally by the catholic priests.