Achievement Unlocked!

Success! One post every day for an entire month! Let's see how long I can keep that up.

First of all, cheers to the new visitors; it's nice to see traffic coming through, especially if you're interested in reading my books. And some of you are; I had a couple of sales today, which is quite nice to see, especially in these quiet times of 'nobody's doing anything.'

So, now that I know people are watching, there's pressure to not disappoint. Which means, I have to have something to talk about! Politics and religion are out; there are plenty of blogs that discuss those topics, and I'm not really up for that here at this point. So, what else is there to talk about? My favorite topics, of course: Writing, history, education, music, gaming...it's all good stuff.

When it comes to history, I find that so much can be learned from reading primary sources. Instead of reading someone else's viewpoint on what happened during a particular historical event, in a textbook for example, I like to read things from the people who were actually there at the time. Here's an example of this:

When I mention the name 'Hernan Cortés,' most people will give me a blank look and ask if he's a Spanish soccer player. He wasn't; soccer didn't exist when he did his thing. When I mention 'Conquistador,' a few people will perk up, but the majority will still be clueless. But, if I say 'Cortés was the first European explorer in Mexico and conquered the Aztecs,' now I get the reaction! The spinal reflex today is to scream 'colonialism' and 'racism,' because we are a well-trained populace by now.

Here's the short version: Cortés and 500 of his men were planning a trip to explore west of Cuba when they were told not to by the governor of the island. Well, Cortés ignored him and left anyway, and landed at what we now know as Veracruz, Mexico. There, when his men grumbled about the risks in what they were doing, he ordered the ships burned, so the men had no choice but to see the job through. Despite their low numbers, the racist Spaniards defeated the Aztecs, who vastly outnumbered them, forced them all to convert by the sword, stole everything that wasn't nailed down, and destroyed a noble culture in the name of colonial imperialism.

That's the version you get in the history books, at least. The real story...doesn't quite fit that narrative.

See, Cortés certainly was planning conquest in the name of Spain, but he was also a devout Catholic who was appalled at the human sacrifices that were the primary aspect of the Aztec religion. I would hope that everyone reading this would have the same reaction.

So, as Cortés explained in a letter he wrote back to King Charles, he told Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, that the one true God found human sacrifice an abomination. In reply, Montzeuma told Cortés "That they had already informed me they were not the aborigines of the country, but that their ancestors had emigrated to it many years ago ; and they fully believed that after so long an absence from their native land, they might have fallen into some errors; that I having more recently arrived must know better than themselves what they ought to believe : and that if I would instruct them in these matters, and make them understand the true faith, they would follow my directions, as being for the best."

So much for converting by the sword. Now, to be sure, there was swordplay and bloodshed, and a lot of Aztecs were killed over the couple of years, but Cortés didn't start that. And the way Cortés described the city of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire, doesn't suggest he thought them to be backward or primitive. On the contrary, he was fulsome in his compliments of how civilized they were, outside of the human sacrifice and worshiping of idols, of course. But in his own writings to the King, he compared the city favorably to cities such as Saville and Salamanca, important Spanish cities of the time.

Now, there's a lot more to the story, and I'm not going to pretend that the Conquistadors were living saints; they were certainly greedy and gold-hungry, and they were utterly certain of the righteousness of their mission, regardless of the human cost to the Aztecs themselves. But they put an end to the practice of human sacrifice, which gives them quite a few bonus points in my book.

Speaking of books...of course I am, because that's what I do. The one I haven't mentioned often lately is The Missing Magnate, the second Cameron Vail mystery. You'd be doing a great service to check it out and pick up your own e-book copy. And you might even enjoy it. There's no history in it, but there is mystery.

See what I did there? Rhyming. It's a catchy thing I learned about in marketing. I'll stop talking now.