Interesting, thanks for posting.
I purchased the same book off of ebay and I definitely enjoyed reading Bernal’s first-hand account.
If you enjoy first-hand historical writings - as I do, then I would highly recommend reading this book.
Fascinating stuff. Unbelievable how a Cortez took a small group of conquistadors and was able to subdue the Aztec empire of Montezuma. Of course, he couldnt have done it without the help of neighboring groups who hated the Aztecs and also with a lot of deceit & trickery.
It is an enlightening book, my dad had originally recommended it to me many years ago.
If you havent read “The DeSoto Chronicles” then I would urge you to do so. I have the 2 volume set. It’s a compilation from several authors of DeSoto’s expedition thru the southern US.
In addition, there is “The LaSalle Expedition To Texas.”
The first-hand account of Henri Joutel.
Both great reads in the same genre as Bernal’s.
Also available here for free
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32474/32474-h/32474-h.htm
Fascinating read.
I read the book last year. It was well worth the time.
One observation in the book is that the crossbowmen were scarier and more effective than the musketeers. The Mexicans got used to the noise of the muskets quickly but the crossbows reloaded much faster and actually had more effective range.
I suspect that the Aztec ritual of eating the beating heart of a sacrificial victim was at least in part a consequence of the consumption of peyote, common among the priestly class in ancient Mexico. The self-justification and detachment necessary to perpetrate such ritual abominations were consequent to the sense of inviolable certainty and purpose psychedelic drugs do elicit.
European knowledge of hallucinogenic cacti from the Western Hemisphere was first published in 1570 Spain in the Florentine Codex. Again I suspect that its usage was not uncommon among the aristocratic class of Europe since that time, only later filtering down to the artistic community as is suggested in French impressionism.
Bernal Diaz was a very interesting man who wrote the narrative some twenty years after the event. I alway thought one of the more intriguing passages was about the Noche Triste. Apparently, Diaz had what he called “a familiar spirt” which warned him to be ready that night and it saved his life.
Two other books well worth reading are by Thomas Hughes, The Conquest, and one by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America. De Vaca was a conquistador who survived a shipwreck off the east coast of Florida about five years after The Conquest. He then spent the next seven years wandering around from Florida to Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, as a captured slave and finally as a sort of prophet. It reads almost like science fiction, and is available in PDF for free on the internet.
Shouldn’t Spain give Mexico back to the original indigenous dwellers...the Aztecs?
I read this book back in 1961. an excellent read! Later read THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO AND PERU by Prescott. He tells how the Spanish climbed the volcano to obtain sulfur for making gun powder and got their first glimpse of the Aztec capitol from the top.
I found Beral Dias’ book again a few years back in a used book shop and reread it. Still a great work! So good I donated it to my local library. I later found they had tossed it. They prefer modern romances to real history.
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I would say the book was re-published six years ago. It’s been around for hundreds of years. The book is simply fantastic. It’s not the product of an academic, pontificating about everything, having a political agenda. It’s literally a soldier in his army writing the good the bad the ugly, their encounters with Indian women, the battles, the hardships and successes. Very nuts and bolts. Great book! Probably the best from that era.
The conquistadors were heroes. It’s shameful the way people trash them today. Them showing up in the land of the Aztecs was about like the allied armies rolling in the Nazi death camps.
Cortez' letters were essentially reports of a Conquistador commander seeking favor, and explaining his actions, which were mostly extralegal.
What part of Cortez' actions were extralegal? And according to which set of laws and which jurisdictions? Thanks.