Posted on 10/09/2015 1:45:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
In 1520, a Spanish-led supply convoy that may have consisted of as many as 550 people, including Cubans of African and Indian descent, women, and Indian allies of the Spaniards, was captured and taken to a town inhabited by the Aztec-allied Texcocanos, or Acolhuas. The town is now known as Zultepec-Tecoaque, an archaeological site east of Mexico City. Excavations have uncovered carved clay figurines of the invaders that the Texcocanos had symbolically decapitated. Human and animal bones with cut marks have also been found, indicating that the members of the convoy and their horses were actually sacrificed and eaten. The pigs, however, were killed and left whole. The townspeople hid the remains of the convoy in shallow wells and abandoned the town. "They heard that [Cortes] was coming for them, and what they did was hide everything. If they hadn't done that, we wouldn't have found these things," government archaeologist Enrique Martinez told the Associated Press. Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztecs the following year.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
“S Frog, sir.”
“Shut up!”
And that’s the truth!
I remember that, I bought a Book for my Grand daughter by a Conquistidor, I can’t remember the name. I was in a pissing match with her historically illiterate Teacher.
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Bernal Diaz has the most eye opening account of Cortez conquest. He was Cortez oldest lieutenant. The book he wrote is entitle “Conquest of New Spain”
Neil: “I want to conquer the Moon in the name of the United States.”
Nixon: “OK. I’ve sold Pat’s coat, take the money I got for it and buy a ship. Remember we get 90% of whatever spoils you capture.”
All of Spain’s behavior in the New World is so ‘romantic’!
The Conquistador’s model seemed to have been the Viking conquest of Britain.
The Spanish began bringing African slaves into Cuba in 1513.
I generally have to read the first chapter of a book to see if I haven't read it before. I have 500 books in my library despite giving them to anyone who has an interest.
The History of the Conquest of Mexico by Prescott was am excellent book and very well written.
My ancestors from Spain came over to Mexico and intermarried with other ancestors who were Indians-Aztecs or whatever tribe.
I’d chose not to have the Spanish ancestors, myself-the Indians may have been bloodthirsty, but they weren’t any worse than the 16th century Spaniards, if you could ask the British, French, or the indigenous people of the Caribbean Islands in that time-the Inquisition wasn’t known to be gentle or kind, either...
If someone came over the ocean to where I lived and slaughtered or enslaved everybody in sight, I can see how they would end up being the special of the day as revenge...
Well, I certainly am pleased that scholars have finally recognized that tearing the living heart out of a victim, burning it, and dismembering the corpse for a meal, THOUSANDS of times in one day was not a public spectacle of horror but merely part of these highly sophisticated people’s culture. How thoughtless of the Spaniards replacing that with Christianity!
Like I said-six of one, half a dozen of the other-the way the Spaniards “brought” Christianity to the new world is a permanent bad mark-convert or die under torture is not a thing to be admired. They also brought slaves from
Africa before England was doing it.
You think what was going on down there was any better?
R.C. Padden, “The Hummingbird and the Hawk” is another good book on the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
I have no problem with trying to protect my family (tribe.) I agree completely about the Inquisition, and I often feel that the invasion of the Americas by the Spaniards was genocide. Period.
But I don’t like the idea of eating my enemies.
So we crossed the Channel, under less than legal circumstance, and with a little cutting and slicing found the promised land.
We got bored with that and went with some discord to the Western Shores.
Now Talking about the Spanish and their faults, First University in Mexico, first Hospitals, first Legal System.
Really? Those "Cubans of African descent" wouldn't have been more than 7 years old, since the first Africans weren't brought to Cuba until 1512.
In Mexico there were Indians and then there were the Aztecs. Most Indian tribes practiced limited human sacrifice, but the Aztecs used human sacrifice as a political tool to instill terror and fear in the competing tribes. The Aztecs were known for celebrations that led to the sacrifice of thousands of captives, and they used cannibalism for the sake of terror alone. Other Indians referred to the Aztecs as the “Sons of Dogs.” Cortes conquered 300,000 Aztecs with just six hundred Spanish soldiers, a few dozen horses and war dogs, and hundreds of thousands of Indian allies who absolutely hated the Aztecs. The Spaniards were not gentle with the native people, but they never came close to the kind of brutality the Aztecs had inflicted on the other Indians. European disease was the biggest destroyer of the people, and that was unintended.
Of course not-but heavy-handed interference just escalated the whole situation, and the Spaniards were entirely motivated by greed-they needed to pillage and loot any place they got to ahead of the Brits, Dutch, French in order to finance their wars with all of the aforementioned. Another poster said they followed the medieval Viking model-but I think they added their own Latin/Roman touch, too.
Not saying the Brits, Dutch or French were much nicer to the Indians in what is now the US and Canada, but the Spaniards have been notoriously greedy and bloodthirsty from early times-they learned well from the Romans and never forgot-pains me to say that about my own antecedents, but it is historical fact-of the few people I’ve met from Spain, the only ones who weren’t absolute ass***es were Basques, like many of my ancestors were...
Yes. As many as 90% of Native Americans died of Old World diseases. Most never even saw a white man when they succumbed.
The Spaniards and the Aztecs deserved each other-they shared a lot of the same really bad characteristics-and unfortunately for the rest of the tribes, their rumble ended up including everyone. The Spaniards devised certain methods of torture as a terror tool, too...
Cortez’ native interpreter-and mistress-Malinche was the daughter of a tribal chief who was a bitter enemy of Moctezuma’s-so she was more than eager to assist in his takedown, but even though she let Cortez take their son back to Spain when he left, she refused to go there with him, so maybe she’d just used him to get revenge for her tribe-I suppose you could say they both got what they wanted out of the deal...
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