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Why was it believed that the Aztecs greeted Cortés as a deity?

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Re: Why was it believed that the Aztecs greeted Cortés as a deity?

#21

Post by totalZero »

jcranmer wrote: post #18
627467 wrote: post #12

I'm surprised not to find any mention to the diseases brought by the conquistadores. Quick glance at literature seems to indicate a consensus on the outsized importance of diseases in demographic changes in the Americas. Just over 100 years before the arrival of Cortés, Europe was going through similar epidemic disaster with the Black Plague also brought through intercontinental contact between people's. Then, the pl…

The diseases do not appear to have been a particularly major factor in the defeat of the Aztec Triple Alliance, mostly occurring after the polity had already collapsed.

What about the smallpox outbreak that ravaged the Aztecs in 1520?

“As the Indians did not know the remedy of the disease, they died in heaps, like bedbugs. In many places it happened that everyone in a house died, and as it was impossible to bury the great number of dead, they pulled down the houses over them, so that their homes became their tombs.”

https://theconversation.com/how-smallpox-devastated-the-azte...

Re: Why was it believed that the Aztecs greeted Cortés as a deity?

#22

Post by willvarfar »

lr4444lr wrote: post #20
nestorD wrote: post #9

My understanding, after reading the memoir of Bernal diaz Del Castillo[0] (who was an eye witness of the conquest of Mexico), is that it was Montezuma II who purposefully spread rumors saying that the conquistador were returning gods so that people would stop fighting them and start trading with them. It was not superstitious belief from ignorant savages, it was a political move. [0]: which I highly recommend, they a…

If Montezuma's subjects believed his religious lie, doesn't that imply they were ignorant savages?

You mean anyone believing what a religious leader tells them is an ignorant savage?

Re: Why was it believed that the Aztecs greeted Cortés as a deity?

#23

Post by acollins1331 »

nestorD wrote: post #9

My understanding, after reading the memoir of Bernal diaz Del Castillo[0] (who was an eye witness of the conquest of Mexico), is that it was Montezuma II who purposefully spread rumors saying that the conquistador were returning gods so that people would stop fighting them and start trading with them. It was not superstitious belief from ignorant savages, it was a political move. [0]: which I highly recommend, they a…

Except it was, it was a political move by one person but then an entire nation went along with the made up superstition. I'm not huge on the word savages, but you can't paint the civilization as being smart enough to believe he is a god for political purposes.

Re: Why was it believed that the Aztecs greeted Cortés as a deity?

#24

Post by acollins1331 »

willvarfar wrote: post #22
lr4444lr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Montezuma's subjects believed his religious lie, doesn't that imply they were ignorant savages?

You mean anyone believing what a religious leader tells them is an ignorant savage?

If it's based in literally nothing... I wouldn't use the word savages but I'd use the word ignorant, I believe that's the entire definition of the word actually.

Re: Why was it believed that the Aztecs greeted Cortés as a deity?

#25

Post by willvarfar »

acollins1331 wrote: post #24
willvarfar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean anyone believing what a religious leader tells them is an ignorant savage?

If it's based in literally nothing... I wouldn't use the word savages but I'd use the word ignorant, I believe that's the entire definition of the word actually.

So why do people believe in the bible etc?

Billions of people all over the world seem prepared to accept what religious leaders claim to be true.

I guess they are all savages?

Re: Why was it believed that the Aztecs greeted Cortés as a deity?

#26

Post by darkwater »

werpon wrote: post #6
Svip wrote: post #2

Because it makes the Conquistadors' conquests of the New World seem more appetising? Because it downplays the indiscriminate conquering of the Americas? Spain commemorates the day Columbus discovered America as its national day, as it ushered in a golden age for Spain, which is true enough. But with the atrocities inflicted by Spain (along with the other European powers) on the natives in the New World, it may have b…

Spaniard here. I don't think I've ever read or heard a sugarcoated version of the conquest. In fact it's usually the opposite. October 12 is indeed the day Columbus set foot on the New World and also our national holiday, but I fail to see how it's different from other holidays such as Thanksgiving.

Err, because the American continent IS NOT Spain, nor part of it? Because the current Spain state should not celebrate what a previous empire conquered? Still celebrating the national day on Oct 12th is a complete shame, and let one wonder how is still imperialism inside the Spain way of thinking. Spain national day should be Dec 6th, when the current Constitution was approved.

Re: Why was it believed that the Aztecs greeted Cortés as a deity?

#27

Post by nyolfen »

lr4444lr wrote: post #20
nestorD wrote: post #9

My understanding, after reading the memoir of Bernal diaz Del Castillo[0] (who was an eye witness of the conquest of Mexico), is that it was Montezuma II who purposefully spread rumors saying that the conquistador were returning gods so that people would stop fighting them and start trading with them. It was not superstitious belief from ignorant savages, it was a political move. [0]: which I highly recommend, they a…

If Montezuma's subjects believed his religious lie, doesn't that imply they were ignorant savages?

nero pretended to be an incarnation of apollo; were the romans ignorant savages?

Re: Why was it believed that the Aztecs greeted Cortés as a deity?

#28

Post by lr4444lr »

nyolfen wrote: post #27
lr4444lr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Montezuma's subjects believed his religious lie, doesn't that imply they were ignorant savages?

nero pretended to be an incarnation of apollo; were the romans ignorant savages?

Religiously speaking? Yes. Though I don't know that anyone's daily life back then was modified to accommodate this claim.

Re: Why was it believed that the Aztecs greeted Cortés as a deity?

#29

Post by willvarfar »

lentil_soup wrote: post #13
werpon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spaniard here. I don't think I've ever read or heard a sugarcoated version of the conquest. In fact it's usually the opposite. October 12 is indeed the day Columbus set foot on the New World and also our national holiday, but I fail to see how it's different from other holidays such as Thanksgiving.

I don't think Thanksgiving is comparable. Spain celebrating the 12th of October as its national day is as if England celebrated Thanksgiving as its own national day.

I don't understand why Thanksgiving is celebrated at all.

Its a bunch of religious bigots who left England for Holland because England was too religiously tolerant. They then had to leave Holland because they felt threatened by the fact that their children didn't want to continue their religion and were 'going native'. So they head off to the English colonies in America where they settle land cleared of native Indians by the plague. Half of them then die, and then the next year one of the pilgrim's many 'thanksgivings' is for the harvest.

After the revolution, Washington is petitioned to make it a holiday, although its not on the current day. Jefferson, for example, rallied against it.

So why celebrate thanksgiving again? Why celebrate the 'pilgrim fathers' in school? Why?

England's national day doesn't make sense through a modern lens either. Its generally believed that, if Saint George existed, he was a lowly Greek soldier from modern-day Turkey. We can speculate what the dragon might actually have been, except that story doesn't seem to turn up until later. The Catholic Saint George was executed by a Roman emperor for refusing to worship pagan gods... and this is related to England in what way? Technically that goes back to King Richard praying to him on a crusade or something. Then again, you stop someone in the English street and ask them why Saint George is the patron saint, or why, and they have not a clue!

Don't get me started on Christmas! If we had to justify every holiday and explain how it still makes any sense to celebrate it or whoever it originally venerated, then we'd have no holidays at all! :)

Re: Why was it believed that the Aztecs greeted Cortés as a deity?

#30

Post by freddie_mercury »

nestorD wrote: post #9

My understanding, after reading the memoir of Bernal diaz Del Castillo[0] (who was an eye witness of the conquest of Mexico), is that it was Montezuma II who purposefully spread rumors saying that the conquistador were returning gods so that people would stop fighting them and start trading with them. It was not superstitious belief from ignorant savages, it was a political move. [0]: which I highly recommend, they a…

> My understanding, after reading the memoir of Bernal diaz Del Castillo[0] (who was an eye witness of the conquest of Mexico)

Diaz's account was written 50 years after it had happened and is generally considered by modern scholars to be of dubious accuracy and primarily intended as a self-serving defense of his own wealth later in life.

As Adorno writes, "At issue were not the wars long since won or lost but rather the rights to the rewards of conquest. Should royal grants to conquistadores endure in perpetuity? Was it legitimate to enslave Indians when they had not been captured as enemies in war? Did the natives of the Antilles owe further royal or personal service to the Spaniards or should they be allowed relief in order to rebuild their dwindling populations?"

The linked article has the benefit of 400 years of additional scholarship beyond Diaz's account.

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