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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?

#81

Post by ankalagon »

spanxx wrote: post #73
thoughtleader31 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is alive because the Spanish did do things like cutting the hands and feet of entire indigenous settlements, as they did with the village from which the mapuche general who resisted the initial Spanish drive into Chile suffered. The somewhat reasonable laws regarding the encomienda system were pervasively circumvented by the encomenderos by always demanding tribute in labor, and having it paid for generations…

Spanish Crown edicted some laws to protect the natives https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Burgos What legal protection had the native population in the American colonies or British Empire?

Australian native population did not have land rights until 1970-1979 [1]

[1] https://indigenousrights.net.au/timeline/1970-79

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

#82

Post by ankalagon »

saiya-jin wrote: post #32
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 would be really surprised if you actually got raw version of history as it happened at school. Very few countries actually admit properly their past mistakes (Germany and WWII might be rather an exception). Raw version would be somewhere along the lines of "our ancestors were among the most horrible arrogant ignorant humans that ever lived if measured by the amount of evil done unto the others, and we are deeply as…

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica [1] that's false:

> The city came into existence after the discovery of silver there in 1545 and quickly became famous for its wealth. Within three decades its population surpassed 150,000, making it the largest city in the New World. The population declined from a peak of 160,000 about 1650 as silver production waned, and a typhus epidemic in 1719 claimed the lives of some 22,000 residents. By the early 19th century, Potosí had fewer than 20,000 inhabitants, but the subsequent rise of tin mining again spurred growth.

[1] https://www.britannica.com/place/Potosi-Bolivia

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

#83

Post by thoughtleader31 »

ankalagon wrote: post #78
thoughtleader31 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is alive because the Spanish did do things like cutting the hands and feet of entire indigenous settlements, as they did with the village from which the mapuche general who resisted the initial Spanish drive into Chile suffered. The somewhat reasonable laws regarding the encomienda system were pervasively circumvented by the encomenderos by always demanding tribute in labor, and having it paid for generations…

Spain recognized independence of Mapuche Nation after more than one hundred years of war [1][2]. Chile and Argentina started a war campaign against them [2][3][4]. The Mapuches call it the Last Massacre (La última masacre in Spanish)[1]. [1] https://www.mapuche-nation.org/english/html/m_nation/main/m_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arauco_War [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Araucan%C3%ADa [4] ht…

Yes, it's a complex issue that evolved over the course of centuries. But it's a remarkable exception that the Mapuche managed to settle a border with the Crown.

I've never said that Chile was any better. I mean, it was in comparison to some periods, the early conquest saw mutilation as collective punishment and impalement as execution of POWs.

What you just said isn't a defense of the Spanish Empire. If anything it is about the capacity to resist of the Mapuche and the power of decentralized self-organization. There just wasn't an emperor-high priest to kidnap and extort the Mapuche into surrendering like with the Aztecs or the Inca.

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

#84

Post by thoughtleader31 »

spanxx wrote: post #74
thoughtleader31 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is alive because the Spanish did do things like cutting the hands and feet of entire indigenous settlements, as they did with the village from which the mapuche general who resisted the initial Spanish drive into Chile suffered. The somewhat reasonable laws regarding the encomienda system were pervasively circumvented by the encomenderos by always demanding tribute in labor, and having it paid for generations…

Pretty interesting how independent latin-american governments succeeded in conquering native lands and subjugating native population: See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Araucan%C3%ADa Please note I'm giving sources.

I know that Latin American successor states then went on to do the same and worse.

The Chilean Congress only this year acknowledged the genocide of the peoples in Tierra del Fuego, perpetrated by mercenaries of settlers of various nationalities with total impunity from the Chilean state.

Do look up the Wikipedia article on the War of Arauco for accounts of the cruelty of Pizarro and Pedro de Valdivia. As I said, the enforcement of the various laws regarding the indigenous populations were... lacking in enforcement.

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

#85

Post by jcranmer »

wayoutthere wrote: post #60
jcranmer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Disease was indeed a huge factor, but like all imperial conquests, the technology advantage (steel weapons / armor in this case) likely made the biggest difference.

No, the biggest advantage was uniting all the disaffected neighbors to do the dirty work of fighting the war. There were at least 80,000 native allies of Cortes fighting the Aztecs, without whom the Spanish would have been slaughtered.

Most imperial expansion in the New World tended to rely on "ally with my neighbors' neighbors to defeat my neighbors, and now that my neighbors' neighbors are now my neighbors, turn against them using their neighbors" as the primary strategy for expansion. The technological advantage is often grossly overstated, especially since natives were eager buyers of European military arms, and Europeans were eager sellers of them.

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

#86

Post by nestorD »

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #62
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…

It's like 400 pages! Can you recommend an excerpt?

Book two happens after the conquest of mexico and I found it less interesting, you can safely skip it.

Book one, however, has a surprisingly modern style and reads very easily.

The headers of the chapters contain a summary of their content, if you are mostly interested in what I said in the top comment you need to find the chapters that relate to the first travels (in the beginnig of the book), when Montezuma II becomes aware of the conquistadors.

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

#87

Post by dr_dshiv »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #64
wayoutthere wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same pathos vs logos argument that has been well documented over the last 3000+ years. Emotion and logic have always been at odds.

Related trivia: logos initially meant story or account, as opposed to how it later evolved. So we're back to history again.

Woah, logos meant so much more than that! Check Wikipedia.

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

#88

Post by DanielBMarkham »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #87
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related trivia: logos initially meant story or account, as opposed to how it later evolved. So we're back to history again.

Woah, logos meant so much more than that! Check Wikipedia.

Of course! In Classic Greek there's a rich and nuanced meaning that we're still mining today!

In ancient Greek, however, say 1000-650BCE or so, it's much more murky, with "story" or "account" being the best we have right now.

From Wiki, "...What logos means here is not certain; it may mean "reason" or "explanation" in the sense of an objective cosmic law, or it may signify nothing more than "saying" or "wisdom". Yet, an independent existence of a universal logos was clearly suggested by Heraclitus..."

There's a whole other story about how beginning with the Sophists and then Plato and Aristotle the word started taking on the depth it ended up with. This journey in meaning was not the topic of my comment.

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

#89

Post by AnimalMuppet »

willvarfar wrote: post #29
lentil_soup wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Indian…

> Its a bunch of religious bigots...

Plausible.

> ... who left England for Holland...

True.

> ... because England was too religiously tolerant.

Was too tolerant? No. They left for Holland because they were literally suffering religious persecution in England.

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

#90

Post by spanxx »

thoughtleader31 wrote: post #83
ankalagon wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain recognized independence of Mapuche Nation after more than one hundred years of war [1][2]. Chile and Argentina started a war campaign against them [2][3][4]. The Mapuches call it the Last Massacre (La última masacre in Spanish)[1]. [1] https://www.mapuche-nation.org/english/html/m_nation/main/m_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arauco_War [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Araucan%C3%ADa [4] ht…

Yes, it's a complex issue that evolved over the course of centuries. But it's a remarkable exception that the Mapuche managed to settle a border with the Crown. I've never said that Chile was any better. I mean, it was in comparison to some periods, the early conquest saw mutilation as collective punishment and impalement as execution of POWs. What you just said isn't a defense of the Spanish Empire. If anything it i…

Aztecs were conquered with the help of other slaved tribes. Do you really thing that several sailors could conquering an empire of millions? Spaniards were helped by Aztec enemies.
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