On Columbus Day, I am greeted with this charming notice
3 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I was quite pleased to read in my history textbook that, "Even Cortez's conquistadors, who were fresh from the conquest of Granada, were repulsed by the sheer magnitude of the Aztec's human sacrifice."
Mexican nationalists like to forget that their ancestors were not peace-loving Noble Savages. And the Spanish were not the sole culprits of the Aztec's fall. A devastating plague decimated them before the Spanish showed up, and many of the Aztec's "client tribes" (read: human sacrifice stock) eagerly aided the Spanish when Cortez went looking for help.
Another factor was Moctezuma's fatal passivity. Instead of wiping out the few Spanish right at the coast, he let them gather strength from the "client tribes" and then walk right into Tenochtitlan. He lost his life and his kingdom.
To address Moctezuma's passivity: there was a theory among the Aztec that Cortez was the great emperor Quetzalcoatl, who supposedly left the Aztec because he had a problem with human sacrifice, sailed down a river into the Caribbean, and was prophesied to return... the same year Cortez returned. And Quetzal? He was supposedly about as light-skinned as Spanish in comparison to the Aztec.
One of those weird coincidences. Like Mohammed being born the same year a sandstorm prevented a Christian Ethiopian army of elephant riders from conquering Mecca.
3 comments:
I was quite pleased to read in my history textbook that, "Even Cortez's conquistadors, who were fresh from the conquest of Granada, were repulsed by the sheer magnitude of the Aztec's human sacrifice."
Mexican nationalists like to forget that their ancestors were not peace-loving Noble Savages. And the Spanish were not the sole culprits of the Aztec's fall. A devastating plague decimated them before the Spanish showed up, and many of the Aztec's "client tribes" (read: human sacrifice stock) eagerly aided the Spanish when Cortez went looking for help.
-Sean
Another factor was Moctezuma's fatal passivity. Instead of wiping out the few Spanish right at the coast, he let them gather strength from the "client tribes" and then walk right into Tenochtitlan. He lost his life and his kingdom.
Sound familiar?
To address Moctezuma's passivity: there was a theory among the Aztec that Cortez was the great emperor Quetzalcoatl, who supposedly left the Aztec because he had a problem with human sacrifice, sailed down a river into the Caribbean, and was prophesied to return... the same year Cortez returned. And Quetzal? He was supposedly about as light-skinned as Spanish in comparison to the Aztec.
One of those weird coincidences. Like Mohammed being born the same year a sandstorm prevented a Christian Ethiopian army of elephant riders from conquering Mecca.
-Sean
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