The Conquest of New Spain (1568)

Translator and editor J.M. Cohen's 1963 treatment of the 16th-century account by Bernal Diaz of Hernando Cortes ("the Killer," per Neil Young) is a highly readable account of how Montezuma and Mexico were brought down. It's unusual militarily, given that Montezuma's empire was populous and Cortes had a force of only about 400 soldiers. Cortes was also slightly on the run from Spanish authorities, setting out before the Spanish crown knew all the circumstances of his mission and the region. But stuff like that—he hurried up the takeoff because he knew they'd stop him otherwise—is how he pulled it all off. Basically he went into the outlying cities and regions under Montezuma's control and made his allies there, then worked his way in until he was in the heart of the city and managed to capture Montezuma himself and hold him hostage. This is no black-and-white moral tale. Cortes was ruthless and brutal, but Mexican culture of the time by this report was rife with human sacrifices to their gods. Cortes and the Spanish empire objected to this, a clear case of pot calling kettle black at best. There is plenty of darkness to go around here. Diaz was a soldier whose adventuring in the region predated Cortes, and he was there for all of the Cortes mission. In his old age Diaz wrote The True History of the Conquest of New Spain as a rebuke to previous accounts he thought were wrong—exaggerated, distorted, confabulated, and just inaccurate. Apparently he went off on some real screeds on the point, as Cohen often steps in to summarize some of these tangents. The result is a pretty good blow-by-blow of how it happened and how Cortes pulled it off. I was notably struck by the way European colonialists operate. They just showed up in these places and acted like they were running them. They pacify the natives with beads, and if that doesn't work they go to the brutality. I was amazed, actually, at how far they could get with beads. It's probably not even necessary to say it's a portrait of a very different world. Even with Cohen's pains at trimming it can get to be a little slog—the final series of battles is endless and verges on tiresome. Still a remarkably fun read overall.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic.