>Cortés could be brutal—no gentle soldier in that age could have long survived—yet he instinctively preferred to avoid bloodshed whenever possible. He was crafty and could be murderously cruel but his cruelty invariably derived from policy. Cortés would employ any amount of force to succeed, but when he was victorious he was genuinely magnanimous to his enemies. He was pragmatic and coolly accepted the world—and yet few men who ever lived have been so stubbornly single minded in pursuit of a goal. He was also honestly and deeply religious, as religion was commonly understood and practiced in his day.>He needed no special rationale to seek out hidden kingdoms; no Spaniard or European of that time did. It was enough that the world was suddenly open to them. Cortés cannot be weighed against anachronistic values; he can only fairly be measured against his times. His faith must be seen against the fanatic Catholicism of sixteenth century Spain. His ambition must be put against the bursting vanity of the Renaissance, when fame was everything. His brutality and cruelty must be compared with the treacheries and tortures accepted everywhere in Europe, and his morality balanced against the cesspool of amorality and intrigue that Italianate politics was making from Fernando's Aragon to Tudor England.>If Cortés had been born a prince, he might have been one of the world's remembered kings. As it was, he was born in obscurity and had to win a kingdom on his own. And while he has been condemned for the miseries he brought that kingdom, the aftermath of his conquests was not his fault.hispanistabros...I kneel
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>>18753794If you read Bernal Diaz del Castillo, at least at the start, it reads more like the native groups he met were kinda telling Cortes what to do.After meeting the Mexica emissaries he was at a loss for what to do until the Totonacs came up to him and manipulating him into attacking their enemies and the Aztecs, then telling him to go and make allies with the Tlaxcaltecs (who then again basically told him what to do).Naravez when he came over to the Totonacs basically said "I can't believe this shit, there's no way Cortes would take orders from an obese homosexual indian (as the leader of Cempoala was)"
>>18754308I just started reading his Conquest of New Spain a little while ago, pretty interesting so far
>>18754308The stories vary greatly depending on the chronist who wrote them, spicniards are compulsive liars and not even back then could they agree in what actually happened
