He was brutal, too-supposedly even in Spain-fond of hanging captured enemy prisoners from trees and gallows on the field-tied so that they suffocated very slowly-he executed Cuatemoc, the last Aztec emperor that way, too-hanged him from a tree after he was captured. rather than take him back to the capital city and have a formal execution-bad practice by most standards...
His was a brutal age. We do historical figures a disservice when we judge them by our own standards.