Posted on 06/21/2017 7:17:13 AM PDT by marktwain
The American edition, published in 1956, 468 pages, Translated by A.P. Maudsley
The Diaz account is the best history book that I have read. It has all the advantage of a first person account and reads like a well written adventure novel.
The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico by Bernal Diaz del Castillo is the only extant first person account of the campaign under the command of Hernando Cortez from 1519 to 1520. The campaign resulted in the discovery and conquest of the Aztec civilization in Mexico.
Cortez himself wrote five long letters to Carlos V in Spain. Parts of them are included in this edition to help explain the narrative. But Cortez' letters were essentially reports of a Conquistador commander seeking favor, and explaining his actions, which were mostly extralegal.
The entire Conquest was a massive verification of the adage that “It is easier to obtain forgiveness than permission.”
Bernal Diaz' account is a first person narrative of the entire campaign, with the amazing detail of a foot soldier who is vitally interested in food, women, weapons, and gold. He includes accounts of two separate expeditions before Cortez.
Bernal Diaz made extensive remarks on the use of firearms in his narrative. The initial numbers were tiny, but contributed significantly to the success of the conquest. Of the initial 400 to 500 men under the command of Cortez, there were 16 with horses, 13 with individual guns, four small cannon, “some brass guns” (more cannon), and 32 crossbowmen. The 13 personal guns were almost certainly arquebuses, the first really practical personal gun, with early matchlocks. Diaz mentions “much powder and ball”.
Diaz rated the crossbowmen and the “musketeers” about equal in effectiveness.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Let it go, FRiend; just let it go.
Now you done it! I had to go pull out my OLD yellowed comics from 1960 and look through them! Found my old Thriller, Combat, and many others I had not looked at in years! Classics Illustrated also did a special edition THE WORLD AROUND US ...FOR GOLD AND GLORY. Not a silly superhero comic in the pile.
Read it a while back ago. Some of narration that stuck out to me (paraphrased).
1) “We sent three crossbowmen and 3,000 auxiliaries to attack . . . “ THREE freaking crossbowmen? Tells a lot about the technological superiority.
2) “Capt. Sandoval was wounded seven times, only one being serious - a lance wound in the chest where his breath escaped.” (He survived)
3) “The darts flew so fast about me that it reminded me of walking through a field of locusts.” As a kid, I walked across a field and stirred up the grasshoppers, who went “FLRRRR” by my face. A very vivid recall.
4) (I guess the usual practice was to sear a wound, then coat it with grease.) “We ran out of grease for our wounds, so one of the men found a dead fat indian and we used that.” (Note to self: DO NOT mess with these guys.)
I will admit, my intuition warned me you were a prick when you first posted.
I will have to say that you are so brave to call me a fool while you hide behind anonymity on this site. You would not do that to my face and walk away, I promise you. You need to go on twitter and join the complement that homesteads that place.
Oh, quit your sniveling. When I first posted, it was merely to point out the ambiguity in your post, like the old joke about knowing a man with a wooden leg named Smith. So much for your intuition.
You could have acknowledged that, or claimed that it was a giant midget, or whatever. Instead, you chose to get all pissy and insulting. As for your threats, you’re also anonymous here, no? Talk’s cheap.
Try diagramming the sentence in question, if you can (that was fifth-grade English at my school), and then GFY.
Some parts of the story are simply incredible. They're just too unlikely to be true, or, as you namesake put it, "Truth is stranger than Fiction, because it's obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't."
Cannibalism was part of the religious rituals. It also happened during time of war (in a ritual context).
Maybe that’s why cutting off people’s heads is no big deal for them.
A lot has changed in 500 years. Go back far enough and who knows what one's ancestors were up to.
I read THE FAIR GOD by Lew Wallace. A good book book by the author of Ben Hur about the conquest of the Aztecs. It ended with La Noche Triste.
Back in 1962, this was republished to promote a new movie in the works, the title read... THE FAIR GOD! SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE! FROM WARNER BROS!
The movie was never made.
Cannibalism was part of the religious rituals. It also happened during time of war (in a ritual context).
That is from the first person account.
All the excuse that were created afterward were made by people far removed from the events, often decades or centuries after the Spanish outlawed the human sacrifice and cannibalism.
Aside from wanting to counter exaggerations, or just wanting to make the Aztecs look better than they were, I think scholars stress the "ritual" nature of cannibalism to indicate the the average downtrodden Mesoamerican Joe or Jane wasn't feasting on human flesh every night.
but it’s also true that the Spaniards exaggerated the numbers,
I believe the average Mesoamerican peasant seldom ate meat. It may be one of the reasons for the widespread cannibalism.
As for warfare, they were pretty much at war all the time.
I suspect that you are correct about the motivation of the “scholars”
“I think scholars stress the “ritual” nature of cannibalism to indicate the the average downtrodden Mesoamerican Joe or Jane wasn’t feasting on human flesh every night.”
But why would that want to do that? It is to prop up the idea that “people are the same all over the world” a cornerstone of “progressive” internationalism after WWII.
Knock that “cornerstone” out, and much of the “progressive” edifice comes tumbling down.
When you read a particularly shocking account, one possibility is that the experience was so overpowering and the actual knowledge so limited that the details are exaggerated. That's especially true if a shocking story advances one's own interest. The other possibility, of course, is that the details are true and what happened was just that shocking.
The question is just how much cannibalism there was.
From Diaz’ account, the practice was widespread, but the numbers did not seem enormous. Perhaps a few people in each major town every couple of months or so.
It may have been much, much higher in Mexico City because of the high numbers of human sacrifices. A source on the net says estimated numbers that the Aztecs sacrificed vary from 20,000 to 250,000 people per year. That is a lot of meat, but there were about 5 million people in the Aztec Empire.
Diaz indicates that the arms and legs were taken for food, but not the head or torso. Hard to know exactly when you do not speak the language and are at war.
100,000 would easily be within the capacity of a 5 million population. It would be 1 of 50 people a year.
From animal analogies, one person would produce about 50 lbs of meat, or about 1 pound of meat per person per year.
From every account I've read the Aztecs were a very cruel, disciplined, and purposeful race, rather like Mesoamerican Nazis. For example, the neighboring nation of Tlaxcala was surrounded, but not conquered outright by the Aztecs. They let only enough food enter to avoid mass starvation, and kept the population alive to wage a continual uneven war in order to obtain sacrificial victims. Once liberated by Cortez, the Tlaxcalans took a full measure of revenge against the Aztec people by filling out the Conquistador army. Without the Tlaxcalans, Diaz is very clear that the Conquest would not have been possible.
Discovery of Mexico...
By Bernal Diaz.
Will keep an Eye out for it!
You are not the only one impressed by that. At one of their meetings Montezuma noticed how few horses Cortez seemed to have -- at first they believed the horses were some type of large deer. What Montezuma could not know is how many horses Cortez had available to him or how easily these few could be replaced. To find out, he secretly instructed one of his warrior to kill a horse and make it seem to be a misunderstanding. The plan was to apologize and immediately offer Cortez compensation for the loss to see how dear the horse was to him. To his great credit, Cortez saw through the ruse at once and told Montezuma noting of great value was lost and he had no concern for the dead horse.
Cortez was an exceptionally clever man, at least through the Conquest, if not afterward where he did not fare as well. Putin would be a schoolchild beside him.
thanx samuel
Roman counsels had chroniclers with them to record their exports and speeches and victories. Livy a roman historian who covers the first 500 years had access to he records of wealthy families and reconstructs speeches etc.
This is a book I enjoyed about Magellen. He had a chronicler.
Thanx again for your post.
Cortez was an exceptionally clever man, at least through the Conquest, if not afterward where he did not fare as well. Putin would be a schoolchild beside him.
Machiavelli was only writing down the existing knowledge.
I am sure that Putin is every bit as clever and calculating as Cortez. It is a credit to Putin that so many people underestimate him.
I believe that President Trump is also a student of Machiavelli.
Did Mark Twain say that? Source please? Someone else I read attributed it to Montaigne. Couldn't find it in Essays. Thanks.
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