Posted on 08/12/2021 2:02:01 PM PDT by Borges
Was the 1521 surrender of the great Indigenous empire to the Spanish crown a triumphant conquest, an existential tragedy—or even a genocide?
The remains of a massive cypress tree sits inside a small plaza in Mexico City, surrounded by fencing and illuminated by four spotlights at night. An old sign explains its significance: “This is the tree where Hernán Cortés wept after being defeated by the Aztec defenders.”
We Mexicans call it El Árbol de la Noche Triste, or The Tree of the Sad Night, and learn about it since grade school from government-issued history textbooks. The story goes something like this: In March 1519, a couple of hundred Spaniards, led by a stubborn but resourceful man with some legal training named Hernán Cortés, appeared on the Gulf of Mexico coast. They established contact with the mighty Aztecs of central Mexico and, after exchanging messages and gifts, made their way to the Valley of Mexico and the Aztec stronghold of Tenochtitlan (downtown Mexico City).
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalgeographic.com ...
I just entered a made up address.
They defeated the Incas through trickery! They killed the leader and the Empire fell apart because it wasn’t setup to function with the leader.
Thought they verified the address before letting you go on.
No one talks about Cortes’ allies among the tribes the Aztecs had conquered and whose blood and still beating hearts fed the Sun Cult. His little band of Spaniards alone could not have pulled off La Conquista.
Tell that to Pizzaro. Read about the battle of Battle of Cajamarca. Spanish forces armed with iron weapons and superior skill could and did defeat indian forces 10 and 20 times their number. The casualty count were unbelievably lopsided. It happened on several occasions. Indians had no concept or ability to operate against a European army.
It’s trendy these days to belittle and blow off the accomplishments of the Spanish soldier in those days, But that’s mostly revisionist anti western thinking.
Trickery and tricking a few thousand Incas into getting killed by them. And that’s my point. They were smart, well armed and damned tough soldiers that the Indian raiding type army had no solid repeatable ability to defeat.
The author is a self-proclaimed “professional historian”
but ignores the most authoritative source of information on the conquest of Mexico written by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who was with Cortes.
He exactly described what you said - the tribes enslaved by the Aztecs were quite willing to join the Spaniards and risk a revolt against the Aztecs.
The other thing I found interesting about his description of a society that was completely untouched by “corrupting” European influence - they had very traditional gender-roles, men were warriors and priests, women were homemakers or went to market, women were “exchanged” in marriage to tie families, clans and kingdoms together, gold and silver were money, religious beliefs formed the basis of their culture, conquered people were enslaved, etc.. Woke leftists should hate the Aztecs!
Let’s see just how complicated this is:
The whatevers came from Asia and killed all the mega fauna, then moved down from North into Central and South America, destroying flora and fauna and nearly each other along the way;
Then other whatevers came from Asia and killed any remaining mega fauna and killed or enslaved the earlier whatevers;
Then the whatevers all killed, raped, destroyed, attacked, and took over one another, leaving a set of whatever across the Americas, including Central America;
The the Olmec whatevers figured out how to grow corn and destroyed the jungle to grow corn and built huge stone tablets to celebrate their awesomeness;
Then the Maya whatevers took over from the Olmec whatevers and destroyed more jungle to grow more corn to raise more slaves who built huge stone temples to celebrate their awesomeness;
Then the Aztec whatevers came from the North, took over some lake in modern Mexico and killed any of the other whatevers who didn’t do as they say, and just to make sure they would, they stole girls from those other whatevers, raped them and ripped their hearts out while alive;
Then the Spanish whatevers came and killed the American whatevers because they had cooler weapons of destruction, such as steel, horses, and small pox;
Then Mexico became Mexico based upon the dominant Spanish whatevers who controlled and continue to control the leftover remnants of the previous whatevers.
In other words, somebody did something. Not complicated.
But the Spanish didn’t just conquer the Aztecs. They went on to oppress the same people that the Aztecs had oppressed. And the Spanish-descended elite went on ruling over them after independence. So, yeah, they should not love the Aztecs, but they are always going to hate the Spaniards.
They Spanish ruled the area the same way they ruled any vassalage in Europe.
I think Western Civilization is throwing itself into a volcano to appease the liberal gods.
That is correct.
I see what you did there.
And then after words went totally to the evil side and attacked their own allies.
More Stalin and the USSR rather then the US and UK.
This is Feudalism we’re talking about. They did what every other power of the time did with conquered land/people.
It was not a tragedy for other nations the Aztecs conquered and sacrificed.
This article does not mention the main cause of the conquest of the Aztec Empire—smallpox!!!!
https://www.pastmedicalhistory.co.uk/smallpox-and-the-conquest-of-mexico/
One of my favorite memes is the Chrstopher Columbus "Dear Conquered People" one. And he's right. No other race or region of people have contributed more to humanity than Europeans.
No they had the Inca.
It was a civil war were one sides friendly allies turned out to be not so friendly.
And the Inca had so broken up their conquered people that there was no local not Inca leadership to fight off the Spanish.
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