“Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma and the Last Stand of the Aztecs”

By Buddy Levy (Bantam Books)

Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes met the mighty Montezuma during a brief but elaborate ceremony in the Aztec ruler’s home metropolis of Tenochtitlan on Nov. 8, 1519.

It was a fateful meeting of civilizations Cortes had worked unvoiced to have. He and his hard-boiled crew of soldiers had marched and fought their way inland from the Gulf Coast to Tenochtitlan for tercet months in pursuit of gold and glory.

Montezuma did not need the meeting and tried and true to place Cortes off with elaborate gifts (unfit move, the gold merely whetted the Spaniard’s appetite). While Cortes said they came as friends, Montezuma clearly proverb trouble in these strangers with their metal armour, horses and guns.

Montezuma was right. In less than two long time, he would be dead, Tenochtitlan - a city surrounded by a lake that rivalled Paris in its wonders - would be in ruins and the Aztecs conquered.

“Conquistador” is that story.

As the title implies, Cortes is presence and centre in this book. A Christian of missionary zeal one day who slaughters natives the next, Cortes is reproducible only in his monominded pursuit of domination. He makes strategic alliances with the Aztec’s enemies. He scuttles his own ships so soldiers can’t desert. He shows respect for Montezuma and then holds him hostage. He repeatedly battles numerically superior forces. His skull is fractured and his hand is mangled. He narrowly escapes defeat more than than at one time, but he never michigan. He sleeps in his armour.

Montezuma is harder to get a handle on. The godlike ruler was reduced to being small more than Cortes’ marionette before he was killed (whether the Spanish or Aztecs killed him is in dispute). Was Montezuma a coward? Was he a predestinationist who saw in Cortes a sad prophecy of Aztec subjugation playing proscribed? It’s hard to tell for certain. There is simply less source material from the Aztecs to paint a nuanced picture of Montezuma.

Levy, taking a page from modern psychology, suggests that the mortified Montezuma developed a casing of Stockholm syndrome, in which people feel a sense of loyalty to those world Health Organization victimize them.

Levy is non a sporty writer, but he tells the report well. His description of the final siege on Tenochtitlan is especially dramatic. The causeways that formed the simply land routes into the city made the Spanish soldiers vulnerable to attacks from Aztec canoes. So Cortes had a fleet of brigantines built for a naval battle, as well as a mile-long canal to launch them safely into the lake.

The resulting siege took more than deuce months. There are estimates that 200,000 Aztecs perished in an action that destroyed one of the wonders of the 16th hundred. The construction of Mexico City began in 1522 on the same domain. Cortes located his place on top of Montezuma’s palace.

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