Mayan glyphs, on the other hand, are ideograms, not an alphabet, and are much more complex in appearance than Roman or Phoenician letters (pictures instead of lines and dots).
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Posted on 04/18/2007 6:52:55 PM PDT by Dallas59
'Butchered' thousands and thousands? LOL. Are you aware that as Cortez marched towards the Aztec capital he only had 400 men with him? Are you aware that Cortez was joined by thousands of local Indians who hated the Aztecs because they had been conquered and oppressed by them? Are you aware that the Aztecs were not only a child-killing people, but a brutal people of conquest who vanquished every other native tribe who stood in their way? Cortez and his 400 men conquered the great Aztec nation because the bitter enemies of the Aztecs fought with them.
Anyway, what have you got against European explorers taking on a massive tribe of barbarians who slaughter women and children in "sacrifice" to their pagan gods, to the tune of about 10,000 human sacrifices per year? The progenitors of the Aztecs should be greatful for Cortez and the Catholic Church, because it wasn't long after Cortez that the Catholic Church converted 9 million Aztecs to Christianity and brought them out of the bronze age into modernity. So think twice before claiming that Cortez "butchered thousands and thousands" of these child burning demoniacs. And don't let your erroneous sense of history and your public school brainwashing get the best of you.
The Spanish abused the natives in all sorts of horrifying ways. That is why Las Casas suggested that it would be more humane for them to import African slaves.
The conquest entailed the death of at least 75% of the native population, mostly through disease but also through maltreatment and violence.
The Aztecs were more modern than the Spanish in a number of respects. Their agriculture was much better. Tenochtitlan was a larger, more impressive and better designed city than any in Western Europe. Aztec art is also very impressive.
The Aztecs and the Spanish were both brutal civilizations. The Spanish were plenty barbaric - especially once they expelled the Jews and Muslims.
“The progenitors [you mean progeny] of the Aztecs should be greatful for Cortez and the Catholic Church, because it wasn’t long after Cortez that the Catholic Church converted 9 million Aztecs to Christianity...”
The Spanish method of saving souls was not a gentle, kind process, by the way. They would have been much better off if the Spanish hadn’t been so concerned.
The point is, the history of Mexico is not some black and white lesson where the good Europeans saved the ignorant brute natives from themselves.
I believe that this was found engraved on a tomb wall depicting the child sacrifice in great detail: http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/Partial-Birth_Abortion.jpg
This just can’t be true. They were just nature-loving indigenous people. The Spaniards probably did this just to make them look bad.
And the Aztecs framed the Spanish for burning people alive at the stake...
Cortes did the Mexicans a huge favor by destroying their murderous religion. His main goal was to christianize Mexico, against overwhelming odds. Many of the Aztecs were so badly attached to their religion that many thousands of them died from starvation during the last seige of Mexico. And Cortes continually offered them a peaceful end of the fighting. Montezuma himself acknowledged that the Spaniards were the prophesied people spoken of by their oracles and he willingly humbled himself to Cortes and the Spanish crown. However, the whacko Aztec priests and people wouldn’t go along with that and were the ones who actually killed Montezuma as he was speaking to thousands of them trying to talk some sense into them.
Christianity as practiced by 16th-century Spaniards was hardly kinder than the Aztec religion. See above...
Also the Aztecs fought battles for prisoners, not to kill their enemies. They killed them after the battle instead of during.
As for Montezuma’s death, the best source - the Florentine codex - simply says that the king’s body was found in the street three days after the nobles were massacred (the massacre in the Main Temple of May 10, 1520).
The Ramirez codex says that the Spanish didn’t administer the last rights for Montezuma because they were busy looking for gold.
Probably the Spanish had no more use for him because he couldn’t control his people anymore.
Actually it is. Practically every case of civilization beginning in a particular country started with some superior (and many times very violent) invading foreign army going in and destroying the existing culture and nation. It happened to my ancestors (when the Romans came in), and it probably happened to yours. I'll state unequivocally that the best thing to ever happen to Mexico was when the Spaniards came in and destroyed the Aztec civilization. One brutal modern culture uprooting a brutal primitive one.
But as brutal as the Spaniards were, they were a huge improvement over the Aztecs. Because they represented western civilization with began the still ongoing journey of Mexico into the modern world. I'm not making excuses (or maybe I am) for the cruelties exhibited by the Spaniards. But it was necessary for Mexico to jettison the primitive, bloody, and anti-modern ways of the Aztecs.
Mayan glyphs, on the other hand, are ideograms, not an alphabet, and are much more complex in appearance than Roman or Phoenician letters (pictures instead of lines and dots).
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This is just more black and white drivel that seems to permeate FR on a variety of topics.
Some Roman Catholic priests helped the Amerindians and fought for their rights. But they were the exception, and many of the early conquistadors were just about as cruel as the Aztecs, and subjugated far more people that the Aztecs did.
The Spanish were often very brutal. However, wasn't their policy not so much forcing Christianity (of the Roman Catholic variety) on the Amerindians, but rather forcing them to stop being pagans (the Aztecs, Maya, and other tribes in the region did have very savage religious practices)?
The book, 1491, states that some estimates of the pan-American death toll caused mainly from diseases transmitted from Europeans could have been higher than 90%.
Tenochtitlan was larger (in population) than the cities of Europe, with the potential exception of Constantinople. It was also constructed by the Aztecs in a shallow lakes as a collection of manmade islands connected to the mainland by some causeways. Pretty impressive.
It seems that there is the idea that if one civilization is the most advanced in one area, it must be the most advanced in all areas, probably because for the last couple of centuries or so the Western civilization has been on top basically across the board. However, as you point out, that often isn't the case. Tenochtitlan was grand, the Maya had a more accurate calendar than Europe and advanced maths, etc. Some of the Iroquois had what could be considered advanced medicine at that time.
Personally of the opinion that Spanish and Portuguese subjugation by the Muslim Moors for around half a millennium caused for some Islamic traits to rub off on them--chiefly the violence. Notably, the English and particularly the French (also Roman Catholics) didn't pressure the surrounding natives in their parts of the New World to adopt Christianity, although they were proselytized to.
The Moors are also a large part of why the Iberians were the leaders in the early years of the Age of Colonization--Iberia was one of the most scientifically advanced parts of Europe because of the Moors. Just something for freepers to note.
Columbus could have been the only Conquistador leader who seemed strongly into spreading the Gospel to the Amerindians.
There are other ways to modernize without subjugation—take Japan in the 1800’s, and the newly developed countries today, for instance.
Kudos to you for explaining things from a relatively rational viewpoint in responses to so many posts.
Phoenician letters.
Phoenician letters.
Mayan glyphs are apparently both logograms (rather than ideograms) and syllabic.
Actually Hernan Cortez DID have as a primary objective a missionary cause. He was well read in Latin, quoted Scripture often in his battles, and everywhere Indians were amazed that the FIERCE Army would stop and bow to a Mother and Child. He was a tender hearted man en route to Tenochitlan, had compassion for an Indian and almost killed his companion Pedro de Alvarado strangling him because Don Pedro stole a turkey. AFTER he assumed power, like so many others, pride, arrogance and haughtiness brought him down. His encounter of Panfil0 Narvaez, with over 1200 men, who came to take the lead position on behalf of the Crown, Cortez with 200, quoted Scripture going up the steps in the rain, Cortez obviously was impressed with the gold. MANY of his soldiers were driven by the acquiring of the same, but Cortez, WAS...a very religious man much part of the intent was to bring his version of the Gospel to this land.
I am not arguing that most countries that were subjugated violently wouldn't have been better off with less cruelty inflicted on them. What I'm arguing is that, unfortunately, that was the way it was for just about every conquered peoples or nations in history.
But the positive side to that is that the primitive was cast off and the peoples of the countries pushed into the future. The future, as in the case of Mexico, eventually meant modern western-style civilization with democracy and machines. That does not mean the countries like Mexico are necessarily equal in those respects to the U.S. or other first world countries. But I doubt too many Mexicans would like to go back to the days and practices of the Aztecs.
Like todays descendants of the countries violently conquered by the Romans, I'm glad the Romans did it. Too bad for my ancestors, but good for me and everybody else.
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