I’m beginning to think that in their own way, the Majority of civilizations have been brutal in their own way.
OF COURSE some were worse than others.
But the Spanish were up there with the best of them at that time :)
Do I give a #### what they did when they came to the Americas? No.
But they were brutal.
As for the Aztecs, they slaughtered their own people in TREMENDOUS numbers. And other people.
Not a good way to support population growth :)
Tough as Hell as well. In "The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Diaz, one of Cortez's soldiers, he tells of one battle where an officer was wounded seven times, "only one being severe, where the air escaped from his chest" (wounded?). Vivid writing as well, where he describes the darts thrown by the Aztecs whizzed by his head, sounding "like locusts in the field".
Evidently they treated cut wounds by searing with a hot iron and sealing them with grease. When they ran out, they cut open "a fat indian" and used his body fat. Yikes!