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I think it's also worth keeping in mind that Cortez and those who got off his ships would've been rightly disturbed by the scale of human sacrifice and savagery

I think it's also worth keeping in mind that Cortez and those who got off his ships would've been rightly disturbed by the scale of human sacrifice and savagery displayed by the Aztecs. That doesn't justify enslavement, certainly, but their mindset would've been one of fear and defense and that's totally understandable to me.

tptacek 8y ago
And, a generation later, their domination of the area firmly established and plainly evident, what then was their mindset? Was it their "fear" and "defensiveness" that led them to continue wholesale rape and slaughter across Central America?
- Turing_Machine 8y ago
  Being enslaved and raped is bad, but not quite as bad as being enslaved, raped, and also being used as a source of meat. I think it was one of Neal Stephenson's characters who observed that it really brought into perspective what assholes the Aztecs were when you consider that bringing in the Spanish Inquisition was actually an improvement, vis-a-vis the cruelty of the dominant religion. The Inquisitors tortured their victims, true enough, but they didn't eat them.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    In addition to the 'not even comparable' level of atrocity, the scale of the direct victims of the Inquisition also paled in comparison to the full and complete systematic mass murder of the Aztec rituals. At very least the eradication of the craziest death cult in history was a bonus for everyone.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      They didn't eradicate the "death cult" so much as they eradicated most of the people in Central America.
      - sonnyblarney 8y ago
        No, they did not. Illness and plague wiped out most of South and Central America. Wars of conquest did not kill remotely as many in comparison. Moreover, were the Aztecs to have a land boundary to Spain, and were they able to defeat them, the Aztecs would have had no problem slicing up Spaniards and eating their beating hearts for dinner as well. So the better team definitely won in this case.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  The Europeans did not remotely come close to killing Central and South Americans at the rate they killed themselves, moreover, the term 'rape' is not a useful pejorative, as there were no real natural resources of value that were removed from that area that would have affected the ability of the aboriginals to live. Gold was removed in vast quantities, but has only a commercial value to those who have ascribed to it such arbitrary value. Otherwise it's just a pretty rock. Of course - the masses who died from imported disease notwithstanding.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    I meant "rape" as in "rape".
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      Well ... among the relatively small number of Europeans there around about that time, there probably was rape, which is bad; though you do realize that you're making this point in an article that is literally about the total, systematic and full cultural integration of mass slavery, mass murder, mass infanticide etc. by one group of aboriginals of their immediate aboriginal neighbours, on a scale approaching modern holocaust? In fact, given > 100 000 skulls in 'one find', and we know this behaviour was common in the region over time, and that certainly not all skulls were preserved ... we're talking easily into the millions of murders, putting this 'on par' with the holocaust. Added the fact this was hundreds of years ago with a smaller population base than modern Europe, in relative terms, this cultural mass murder surpasses the holocaust in relative terms. And done on the basis of 'religion' to boot ...
      - tptacek 8y ago
        No, I think you've lost the plot of this subthread. I'm not making a comparative argument about which civilization is better. I'm saying that Cortes didn't rescue Central America so much as perpetrate a genocide on it. We're talking about a movie, for what it's worth.

tptacek 8y ago

And, a generation later, their domination of the area firmly established and plainly evident, what then was their mindset? Was it their "fear" and "defensiveness" that led them to continue wholesale rape and slaughter across Central America?

Turing_Machine 8y ago
Being enslaved and raped is bad, but not quite as bad as being enslaved, raped, and also being used as a source of meat. I think it was one of Neal Stephenson's characters who observed that it really brought into perspective what assholes the Aztecs were when you consider that bringing in the Spanish Inquisition was actually an improvement, vis-a-vis the cruelty of the dominant religion. The Inquisitors tortured their victims, true enough, but they didn't eat them.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  In addition to the 'not even comparable' level of atrocity, the scale of the direct victims of the Inquisition also paled in comparison to the full and complete systematic mass murder of the Aztec rituals. At very least the eradication of the craziest death cult in history was a bonus for everyone.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    They didn't eradicate the "death cult" so much as they eradicated most of the people in Central America.
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      No, they did not. Illness and plague wiped out most of South and Central America. Wars of conquest did not kill remotely as many in comparison. Moreover, were the Aztecs to have a land boundary to Spain, and were they able to defeat them, the Aztecs would have had no problem slicing up Spaniards and eating their beating hearts for dinner as well. So the better team definitely won in this case.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
The Europeans did not remotely come close to killing Central and South Americans at the rate they killed themselves, moreover, the term 'rape' is not a useful pejorative, as there were no real natural resources of value that were removed from that area that would have affected the ability of the aboriginals to live. Gold was removed in vast quantities, but has only a commercial value to those who have ascribed to it such arbitrary value. Otherwise it's just a pretty rock. Of course - the masses who died from imported disease notwithstanding.
- tptacek 8y ago
  I meant "rape" as in "rape".
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    Well ... among the relatively small number of Europeans there around about that time, there probably was rape, which is bad; though you do realize that you're making this point in an article that is literally about the total, systematic and full cultural integration of mass slavery, mass murder, mass infanticide etc. by one group of aboriginals of their immediate aboriginal neighbours, on a scale approaching modern holocaust? In fact, given > 100 000 skulls in 'one find', and we know this behaviour was common in the region over time, and that certainly not all skulls were preserved ... we're talking easily into the millions of murders, putting this 'on par' with the holocaust. Added the fact this was hundreds of years ago with a smaller population base than modern Europe, in relative terms, this cultural mass murder surpasses the holocaust in relative terms. And done on the basis of 'religion' to boot ...
    - tptacek 8y ago
      No, I think you've lost the plot of this subthread. I'm not making a comparative argument about which civilization is better. I'm saying that Cortes didn't rescue Central America so much as perpetrate a genocide on it. We're talking about a movie, for what it's worth.