Conquistadors: The Rise and Fall
2023 ? 1 season
National Geographic’s recent series on the Spanish Conquistadors seems more intent on trashing the Spaniard’s reputations than relating the stories of their conquests. The narrator loves to use words like ‘bloodthirsty’, ‘vicious’ and ‘brutal’ to describe the men who, after put an end to the extremes of human sacrifice of the Mayans and Aztecs. If any party in these conquests were bloodthirsty – it was the natives. It is pretty well documented that the Aztecs went to war solely to capture slaves for their elaborate sacrifices wherein they cut the hearts out of living victims.
To further smear and blur the story, Cortez is portrayed almost as a bumbling amateur who just got lucky in conquering the Aztecs, while Montezuma is shown as clever and cunning. This my friends, is the same Emperor who was extremely superstitious and believed Cortez could be a god returned to take back his kingdom.
At least I was pleased to see Dona Marina (La Malinche) mentioned as a pivotal figure in the Aztec conquest. Personally I believe of the three she was the most clever and cunning – serving as a translator and likely reinforcing in Montezuma’s mind that Cortez was indeed the returning god he so feared.
Check out my book for more details: https://www.amazon.com/Goddess-Grass-Ed-Morawski-ebook/dp/B006GTU518
