Conquistador Voices: The Spanish Conquest of the Americas as Recounted Largely by the Participants (Vol. I)

The arrival of Europeans in the Caribbean and Mexico in the 15th and early 16th Century is a subject that is now, more than ever, freighted with political weight. And the evolution of historical writing about the era and its leaders illustrates both our political and cultural evolution. We have gone from the religious condemnations of Las Casas in the 16th Century to the 19th Century European Supremacism of Prescott and Parkman. The newer views of the post-Columbian era now emphasize the evils of cruelty, greed, and Euro-centrism, and the failures by Spain to live up to the values it claimed to support.Kevin Siepel's work goes directly to the source -- the words of Columbus, Cortes and the people who accompanied them. This technique of placing greater than usual reliance upon actual source material allows the reader to avoid the kind of tendentious history that would colonize the historical past, that would make it a slave to a historical narrative that dovetails with contemporary agendas.The stories that emerge from the translated materials selected and edited by Siepel are harrowing, surprising, spontaneous, improvisations built upon the desire of the participants to survive and prosper despite their widespread ignorance and confusion. Nobody had a script for the encounters that took place. There was precious little in the way of a template that would enable Columbus and Cortes to compare what they were doing with what they should be doing. They were cruel and rapacious to the native peoples because they were cruel and rapacious to each other.The translations are eminently readable, so much so that I wonder how it can be that 15th Century Spanish translates more gracefully into contemporary English than 15th Century English translates to a contemporary idiom. The Kindle edition that I read has excellent footnotes, so much so that I think it would be a good idea to use maps as footnotes to help the reader more easily see the geographical relationships among the places and participants.This was an excellent read and I will now buy the second volume.

A fascinating look inside the minds of Christopher Colombus and Hernan Cortez. Columbus had a vision for discovery, but was lacking as a soldier and a disaster as an administrator. As such, he died in poverty.Before this book I never realized how brilliant Cortez was. The history I learned was more about the incompetence of the Aztecs. What I learned from this book:1. Cortez was a master of propaganda. He had Montezuma (but not the Aztec nation...) defeated before he was even close.2. He brilliantly mastered the intrigues of the Indian nations allied with the Aztecs to gain their support.3. While Montezuma was a coward, once he was displaced, the Aztec nation fought long, hard, and very bravely before their final defeat.4. Cortez was a master tactician.5. Cortez mastered the intrigues of the Spanish court, in which there were always many factions trying to destroy him.6. Cortez not only took an empire, but he set the path towards effectively running it.This book is largely told through contemporary reports of Cortez, some of his men, and Aztec sources.I found it difficult to put down. Five stars!

This book is rated R. My review will certainly show some of the horrors you will read in this book. There is no foul language that I can recall. However, what you will read about the Indians and their way of life will shock you in a revolting manner. (I Will say Indians over Native Americans because it is quicker and expedient).These two books (Volume I and II) were perhaps my two books of the year last year. I simply couldn't put them down. You will learn that the Spanish arrived not in some communal Native American paradise, but to a land of poverty, anarchy, slavery, paganism, cannibalism, murder, polygamy, tribal rivalry, low life expectancy, starvation, disease, sexual exploitation of men and women, homosexual pagan priests, etc. These Indians are to be a mixture of our merciful pity and of absolute frightening terror. The southern and central americans differed from their Northerly cousins for several reasons: they loved to eat babies captured from the raids of other natives. Slavery was the foundation of the major, famous Indian civilizations closer to the equator. Human sacrifice described in disgusting detail to false gods resembling demonic images and demands. Did I mention they love to eat babies? Roasted over the fire, dismembered, and eaten like beef jerky?I weep no more for those destroyed civilizations. The women had no defender, the babies of an enslaved mother were doomed to the grill or sexual enslavement (if beautiful). The great and famous Montezuma King was a monster who's death was demanded by the Angel of Justice. I can go on and on at the horror of those pagans you will frighteningly meetAnother questions does bear in mind: Did you ever wonder how a few hundred Spanish were able bring the ruin of a city of with over 250,000 inhabitants? How about more? The Spanish,in learning of the evils of the major empires from their translators, liberated many enslaved tribes who were victims of the empires, started from the coast a march towards the interior empires, by teaching the people the Gospel of love and dignity and abolishing: human sacrifice, sexual enslavement, the falseness of idol worship, the dignity of man being made in the image of God, the abolishment of polygamy for the fairness of women, the abolishment of rape which was endemic, etc.The Spanish were serious about religion. Very serious. Very admirable. But they were also no saints. They were experienced warriors who just liberated Spain from the Muslims occupiers in 1492, the same year Columbus made his famous trip West. But the Spanish made mistakes and committed violence shocking to normal citizens of today. I being a former soldier, I agree with the circumstances given as just cause for most of the violence, but sometimes the Spanish did things I simply cannot approve. Such is the unpredictability of war and the fear of death (or, as dozens of the unfortunate Spanish soldiers captured would soon realize, being sacrificed to idols then eaten after their dismemberment). In addition, the Spanish counted some of their soldiers as being former criminals and rogues. Therefore, these rogues most certainly committed foul play against Indians enemies and allies alike, causing headaches for the Spanish cause in general. But they are the outliers, not the norm and were operating in direct contrast to the orders of the King and Queen of Spain who demanded just treatment of the Indians even during the event of conflict.Lastly, what of Christopher Columbus. The man is hero for the Christian and Western world. If you are not Christian or of a Judeo-Christian mold, you will not like him. In fact, he was a hero to those Indians who lived on the Caribbean islands in his day because many of those first Indians he encountered, who were most peaceful and had few, primitive weapons, were Victims to the raids of an Indian nation called the Caribs and their confederacy. The Caribs raided islands, murdered the men, captured and raped the Indian women, traded them for concubines, ate their babies (a common theme), plumped up the ugly women to later be eaten. How unfortunate one day for the Caribs when they ran into the horrified Christian Spanish under Columbus. But Mr. Columbus made some bumbling errors as well and questionable decisions as you will soon find out.Verdict: This set of books is outstanding. It removes the myth of the peaceful savage and shows the horrifying brutality the Spanish stumbled upon. Being veterans of the crusades against Islam, almost nothing should have shocked the Spanish soldiers. However, in these accounts, you will find that whatever the Muslims and Crusaders did against each other, nothing compared to what the Indian pagans were brutally carrying out on themselves.

Interesting approach to the voyages of Columbus and Hernan Cortés, but impaired by two different spellings of Moctezuma, neither of which corresponds to the modern Mexican spelling (above). The story might have benefited from more of the narrative of the eye witness, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, and is flawed by the inclusion of ‘Aztec Accounts’ even though the word ‘aztec’ was not used by anyone at the time of the Conquest, nor anyone else until popularized by the American historian Prescott in the 19th century.

Excellent read, highly recommended.

Really enjoyed this look at history from the people who were actually there. If you are interested in the Spanish conquest of America, you have to read this book.