Hernán Cortes

Actually Cempoal formed their alliance with Cortez not out of any great trust in the Spanish but out of fear of the Aztecs. One way or the other Cempoal would be conquered by someone. Until Cortez landed with his free booters the most likely canidates were the Aztec, the most powerful Nation in the region.

The Aztecs had caused a great deal of discontent thru taxations and war on other people and that not the " Gee these Spanish fellas are really nice guys." attitude paved the way for the alliances against the Aztecs. These same people would latter be put into serfdom by the Catholic Missions and the Spanish Landowners to follow.

During the Siege of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) small pox did breakout in the latter stages. Whether or not it was purposeful or not, it did much to shorten the siege .

As far as cannibalism all research has shown that what was practiced was ritual cannibalism as opposed to sustanice cannibalism. That is to say the consumption of human flesh was done in conjunction with religious ceremonies.
 
It's important to understand what the aztecs were doing by cutting hearts out all day, so they could replenish the sun god, i believe. But it's hard to justify the deaths of thousands for rituals seeing how none of the other tribes at the time were noted for doing it. I think the aztecs were a well organized and advanced indian civilization, but wouldn't those practices be considered mass murder in any logic?
 
no no no no no, white man is always bad.

90s revisionist history.


As with most things in history, and human nature, there are very few wars that are a 100% good guy against a 100% bad guy. If not for the holocaust even WW2 wouldn't be a white hat black hat ordeal, and that wasn't discovered until the end of the war. The point is, Cortez was after gold and glory and Montezuma spent his time "harvesting" humans from rival tribes and executing astrologers and civic leaders that give him an answer he disagreed with.
 
03USMC said:
As far as cannibalism all research has shown that what was practiced was ritual cannibalism as opposed to sustanice cannibalism. That is to say the consumption of human flesh was done in conjunction with religious ceremonies.
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I agree with everything you say except with the canibalism issue.

I think that fatting people,sacrifice them,remove their heart,cut up the body in pieces and eat it is not something that a "civilizated"empire does. At least from my point of view.
Bernal Diaz Del Catillo( a Corte´s soldier) wrote a book about the conqueor of Mexico. He tells how they founded prisions full of prisioners, the aztecs were fatting them in order to have a succulent lunch, I really do not care in what context was it done, religious, magical or whatever...They could sacrifice thousands of prisioners each day(I have readen that once up to 30.000), just to be sure that Bichilobo was happy :shock:
 
Through cannibalism, the Aztecs appear to have been attempting to reduce very particular nutritional deficiencies.
Bernal Díaz described when his companions were sacrificed before his eyes in Tenochtitlán:

"Then they kicked the bodies down the steps, and the Indian butchers who were waiting below cut off their arms and legs and flayed their faces, which they afterwards prepared like glove leather, with their beards on, and kept for their drunken festivals. Then they ate their flesh with a sauce of peppers and tomatoes."
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http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/aztecs/sacrifice.htm
 
staurofilakes said:
03USMC said:
As far as cannibalism all research has shown that what was practiced was ritual cannibalism as opposed to sustanice cannibalism. That is to say the consumption of human flesh was done in conjunction with religious ceremonies.
Click to expand...

I agree with everything you say except with the canibalism issue.

I think that fatting people,sacrifice them,remove their heart,cut up the body in pieces and eat it is not something that a "civilizated"empire does. At least from my point of view.
Bernal Diaz Del Catillo( a Corte´s soldier) wrote a book about the conqueor of Mexico. He tells how they founded prisions full of prisioners, the aztecs were fatting them in order to have a succulent lunch, I really do not care in what context was it done, religious, magical or whatever...They could sacrifice thousands of prisioners each day(I have readen that once up to 30.000), just to be sure that Bichilobo was happy :shock:
Click to expand...

Never said it was civilized, but there is a distinct difference between ritualized canibilism and canibilism done to support life. For my part I would look at the total information available not just the Del Catillo book. You need to remember that his manuscript had to pass the litmus test of the Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown. Their goal was colonies in Latin America and they needed public support.

Whispering Death, It's not revisionist history it's looking at events from both angles. I never said "Spanish Bad. Aztec Good." IMO both sides were brutal towards their enemies.
 
I sincerely do not believe that people at that time knew how to transmit a virus on purpose.

They were still giving viral names to bacterial diseases in the early 1900's.

Nobody asked about the viral outbreak. It happened in the Korean War. Around 3,500 US troops died of it - quickly.
 
what abouut sieges that flung dead bodies into towns that would cause disease, didn't they have that during the medieval ages? Couldn't the same concpet have been used on the natives.
 
I'd have to strongly disagree with the presumption that the people of Europe did not know how to intentionally spread deadly diseases. Sure, they didn't know why things worked the way they did, but catapulting disease infested corpses as well as dead lifestock, is an age-old practice going back to well before Spain was ever a nation. It would not be surprising if we were to find that the Spanish used such methods. I do not have any sources to offer to confirm or deny whether such methods were used by the Spanish Conquistadors. War Machine is quite correct, Europeans had used primative biological warfare.

Still, more importantly, they were blessed to come across an Empire that was bitterly hated by the peoples that it had conquered. Bear in mind, they were the ones being "volunteered" for human sacrifice and cannibalism. Much of the ritual practice of such things predates the Aztecs, but it seems that the Aztecs were ... overzealous in their practice of it. And if you belonged to a nation full of potential human sacrifices, its seems that you'd jump at the opportunity to change matters. Cortez was masterful at playing the conquered against the conquerers, throwing the Aztec Empire into chaos and then coming out on top in the end.
 
03USMC said:
staurofilakes said:
03USMC said:
As far as cannibalism all research has shown that what was practiced was ritual cannibalism as opposed to sustanice cannibalism. That is to say the consumption of human flesh was done in conjunction with religious ceremonies.
Click to expand...

I agree with everything you say except with the canibalism issue.

I think that fatting people,sacrifice them,remove their heart,cut up the body in pieces and eat it is not something that a "civilizated"empire does. At least from my point of view.
Bernal Diaz Del Catillo( a Corte´s soldier) wrote a book about the conqueor of Mexico. He tells how they founded prisions full of prisioners, the aztecs were fatting them in order to have a succulent lunch, I really do not care in what context was it done, religious, magical or whatever...They could sacrifice thousands of prisioners each day(I have readen that once up to 30.000), just to be sure that Bichilobo was happy :shock:
Click to expand...

Never said it was civilized, but there is a distinct difference between ritualized canibilism and canibilism done to support life. For my part I would look at the total information available not just the Del Catillo book. You need to remember that his manuscript had to pass the litmus test of the Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown. Their goal was colonies in Latin America and they needed public support.

Whispering Death, It's not revisionist history it's looking at events from both angles. I never said "Spanish Bad. Aztec Good." IMO both sides were brutal towards their enemies.
Click to expand...

You have to remember that the Catholic church(De las Casas,the monk), were the biggest defensor of indians. He strongly critized the way indians were treated.
I do not see any difference btw eating people because of the religion or due to being hungry... :? Actually, many people think thay had to practice canibalism due to nutritional reasons, so probably the religon was just the perfect excuse
 
godofthunder9010 said:
I'd have to strongly disagree with the presumption that the people of Europe did not know how to intentionally spread deadly diseases. Sure, they didn't know why things worked the way they did, but catapulting disease infested corpses as well as dead lifestock, is an age-old practice going back to well before Spain was ever a nation. It would not be surprising if we were to find that the Spanish used such methods. I do not have any sources to offer to confirm or deny whether such methods were used by the Spanish Conquistadors. War Machine is quite correct, Europeans had used primative biological warfare.
.
Click to expand...

I do not think that doing that would have been very intelligent. Remember that Cortés had thousands of indian allies in his troops(ex, Cempoal);if he would have spread a disease, his allies would have died as well.
 
staurofilakes said:
You have to remember that the Catholic church(De las Casas,the monk), were the biggest defensor of indians. He strongly critized the way indians were treated.
I do not see any difference btw eating people because of the religion or due to being hungry... :? Actually, many people think thay had to practice canibalism due to nutritional reasons, so probably the religon was just the perfect excuse
Click to expand...

One Monk does not the Catholic Church make. You need to remember that it was the Catholic Church that branded the Aztecs, Incas etc. Devil Worshipers. If the Natives converted and followed what the Church demanded then all was well and good those who choose to follow their former religion were subjected to the skills of clerics well schooled in the class of inquisition. This is the reason that many of the festivals and holy days as practiced in Latin America are much different than those practiced in the European Church. Native religion cloaked in Catholism.

Many cultures have practiced cannibalism in their history. Whether ritual of for survival. Do I agree with it ? Not for me to say, not my culture. However I believe your throwing it out as a " What Cortez did was okay because they were cannibals and needed to be converted." To me that doesn't wash.

Yes the Aztecs were brutal and had tendencies toward excessive violence and repugnant practices. But the Conquistadors were just as brutal and trying to gloss over that under the vail of religion and western morals does not do history justice.
 
Which Archbishop was it that ordered all the records of the Maya burned? We may never know how much knowlegde was lost in a single stroke there.

While I agree that many of the cultural practices were detestable, we must be careful to not forget that the Maya especially were more advanced than Europe in many areas. It was much like China: never properly used. The complete erasing of a people's cultural identity -- which is what the Catholic Church was attempting -- is a very poor practice. There is no doubt at all that the Native Americans were much worse off for the Spaniards having conquered them, canabalism and human sacrifice notwithstanding.
 
godofthunder9010 said:
Which Archbishop was it that ordered all the records of the Maya burned? We may never know how much knowlegde was lost in a single stroke there.

While I agree that many of the cultural practices were detestable, we must be careful to not forget that the Maya especially were more advanced than Europe in many areas. It was much like China: never properly used. The complete erasing of a people's cultural identity -- which is what the Catholic Church was attempting -- is a very poor practice. There is no doubt at all that the Native Americans were much worse off for the Spaniards having conquered them, canabalism and human sacrifice notwithstanding.
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The Bishop was Diego de Landa. He also carried out a mini inquisition as the provincal of the Yucatan against the Mayans under his charge. Using the Spanish Crowns edict against idolatry.
 
Some histories imply a Cortez brought small pox to Latin America on purpose. They didn't have a clue as to how to control the disease, and he and his men could be just as susceptible to infection as his enemies or his indian allies.

I think they brought it inadvertently.

There are some sites that say it was brought in by a 2nd group of Spaniards who had slaves from Africa, and that it was a slave who first died of the disease.

Does anybody know if any of his men died of small pox?
 
there's probably a good chance that his men were affected by the disease seeing how we have no cure today for it. But i think there was something of an immunity to the disease for europeans because the virus wiped out millions in the americas, but i never heard of it killing a huge number of people in europe. Maybe it was because of the black plague, idk.
 
We shouldn´t be that surprised concerning what happened in America.
I am gonna give awiard example.
Imagine this situation in today´s world:

One day is discovered thatsome country from the third world practice Canibalism, they do human sacrifice, thay kill thousand a year this way....What do you think that would happen?? Probably we will bomb them from 10.000 meters high in the name of human rights.
The spanish empire also had their prejudice, it was religion, they were very fanatic at that time. today we have other prejudice and moral.So why do we expect Cortés to act a different way that we would have done??
Concerning the inquisition...yes, it was vey mean and bad, in today´s world, we would have send them to Abu Ghraib school or to Guantanamo´s University

Concernig the smalpox...I also read that it was brought to america by a slave in an expedition of a man called Narvaez.
 
Remember that one of the biggest reasons that Black slaves from Africa were brought in to replace the Native American slaves in the Americas: The Natives kept dying too damn fast. Mostly from diseases that the Spaniards and others brought with them. There is certainly plenty of those that, like tuberculosis, a survivor is a carrier of the disease for the rest of their life. I'm not entirely sure, but I think Small Pox was one of those that was carried throughout one's life.

Black Slaves were hardy in terms of resistence to disease. Consider that Africa is one of the two big sources of new diseases and most Europeans who tried to explore Africa died from them. East Asia is you other big source.
 
Yes, that is probably one of the reasons..the other might be that african people are lots stronger than indias.
Slavery was not set up in America until 1521. The reason was that Cortés lost a lot of gold in Mexico´s lake when he had to get out of there(he destroyed some idols and the indians got really mad) and he needed slaves to take it back. The first slaves were prisioners from an enemy tribe(can´t remember the name now, but i´ll write it down later..)
 
staurofilakes said:
Yes, that is probably one of the reasons..the other might be that african people are lots stronger than indias.
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I don't know if "stronger" is the right word for it. Hardier, with bodies more capable of surviving prolonged forced labor. It's hard to say how much of that was simply due to death of Natives from diseases.

Slavery was not set up in America until 1521. The reason was that Cortés lost a lot of gold in Mexico´s lake when he had to get out of there(he destroyed some idols and the indians got really mad) and he needed slaves to take it back. The first slaves were prisioners from an enemy tribe(can´t remember the name now, but i´ll write it down later..)
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Interesting how Cortez managed to play his cards so well. I don't really think of him as a military genius so much. I see him more as an extremely gifted con man. One of the most gifted ever.
 
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