WE JUST LEARNED ABOUT THIS GUY TODAY IN MY WORLD HISTORY CLASS he was super smart but a bit too overconfident
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i don't know what this means
deletedalmost 9 years
He was cool as hell and a suave clever genius. It's definitely true that he wouldn't have won without smallpox, but whatever. Everything he did up to the final battle was still impressive as hell, he even manipulated 2 Kings of Spain like it was child's play. He was dope, and his story is one of the coolest stories in history.
And the Aztec were definitely way worse. The Spanish weren't exactly nice, but that's not Cortes's fault because he lost all political authority a few years after he won. The Aztec took pleasure in devising new ways to scare the hell out of the other tribes, and turned on their allies every single time they were given the chance (and the Spanish were objectively loyal to the allies who remained loyal to them.)
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Why is this happening lol
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Nah what sets them apart is that for a good 150 years the Aztec weren't really anything more than a mercenary tribe struggling for survival, and while they were unnecessarily brutal they weren't terrorizing and waging war on other tribes and settlements without cause. I'm not saying Cortes' arrival wasn't a liberation for other smaller tribes but it's not like you can say 'ah well he wasn't bad at all despite going against the Governor's word for nothing but personal fame and glory because in the end he helped a few thousand oppressed tribes'.
It's also unrealistic to think that Cortes would've succeeded after first bailing if the disease hadn't taken hold and wiped out most of their people.
deletedalmost 9 years
Thanks for humoring me Tucker, I have to write this paper about how he's such a bad dude because it actually is the prevalent opinion. (Because Cortes was demonized as propaganda during both the Mexican revolution and the Spanish-American war, for obvious reasons.)
He's not a bad dude at all, though. People seem to forget that the Aztec Empire was an EMPIRE. An Empire that came to power through psychological warfare. They slaughtered countless other indigenous peoples and loved to sacrifice tens of thousands of captives a day to their war god.
They also required 1/3rd of production from most other tribes in the Mexican Valley as tribute.
He manipulated, deceived, and exploited them alright. But to the other tribes in the Mexican valley that allied with him, he was a godsend. He freed them from centuries of oppression and the tribes that were allies to Cortes against the Aztec were left alone and rewarded.
TL;DR: Cortes rules and he was cool as hell.
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Don't think a lot of people share that view, anyway.
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The notion that Cortes was a 'ruthless rapacious genocidal maniac' likely largely stems from the way he took control of the Aztec empire as a whole through manipulation, deceit, and exploitation of a relatively naive bunch of God-worshippers instead of the 'normal' approach of guns-blazing.
Though it's unlikely he'd remain in power after a certain period of time and Cortes' warriors skipping town for a brief while probably only sped up the rebellion process.
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I bet when they the fry cook at the taco bell drive through asks Slowbro if he wants a soda with his order he says "yes" even though he doesn't because he doesn't want to make any waves.
deletedalmost 9 years
Well there's the whole black legend of Spain thing, and the general contemporary consensus is actually that Cortes was a ruthless rapacious genocidal maniac, so I was expecting/hoping for people to disagree with me.
But people here are robotic carbon copies of each other and the only dissenting opinions they voice in their whole lives are about doc saving on meteor.
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Please go into great detail on the current perception.
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When the Toltec married their daughter off to the Aztecs to symbolize an alliance, the Aztec held a banquet for the Toltec to honor the alliance. The Toltec chieftain asked to see his daughter. The Aztec brought forth a priest wearing her skin as clothing.
