Atrocities Of 'Conquistadores' Take Shape In New History By Mexican-Born Author
Historian Fernando Cervantes marshals an enormous array of primary and secondary sources to tell the story of the decades that followed Christopher Columbus' arrival to the New World.
When the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his band of 300 men reached the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in late 1519, they found a civilization of staggering beauty that dwarfed any western European city.
Stucco towers, "painted with colorful animals and sculpted on stone" were "a marvel to behold," drawing comparisons to Venice, one observer wrote. Tens of thousands of canoes dotted Lake Texcoco, "some, like great barges, carrying up to sixty people," writes Fernando Cervantes in Conquistadores, his masterful new history of the era.
Cortés was greeted by the Aztec emperor Moctezuma who "appeared on a litter, borne by noblemen, with a baldachin of green
