QUARANTINE BLOG # 334

February 27, 2021

To the Halls of Montezuma

The first major conquest by Spanish conquistadors in the New World was of the Aztecs in Mexico by Hernando Cortez.

After his first engagement in Mexico, a woman named Malinche who knew the language of the Aztecs, and understood the Mayan language became Cortez’s translator, mistress, and personal adviser.

The Aztec’s great king, Montezuma, sent messengers to open diplomatic negotiations. They offered the Spaniards gold, hoping they would be satisfied and go away. 

A surviving Aztec account records the reactions of Cortez’s officers: 

“When they were given these presents, the Spaniards burst into smiles. They picked up the gold and fingered it like monkeys. They lusted for gold. Their bodies swelled with greed and they hungered like pigs for that gold.”

The Florentine Codex, from the 16th century. The codex was carried to Spain by an unknown person where it was lost for almost three centuries.

Montezuma believed that Cortez might be the god Quetzalcoatl, returning to Mexico. He had departed eastward over the sea, saying that he would return. The fact that Cortez had come from the east seemed to confirm the theory.

Montezuma welcomed Cortez, but civility did not last long. A week after arriving in the capital city,  Tenochtitlan, Cortez arrested Montezuma, and made him a Spanish puppet. Too late Montezuma realized that the newcomers were only men, not gods. Cortez kept Montezuma hostage and demanded gold and other valuables. 

The  situation changed when Spanish soldiers from Cuba landed on the Mexican coast to arrest Cortez for disobeying orders. Leaving 120 of his men to maintain his hold on the Aztec capital, he raced for the coast. In a surprise attack, Cortez defeated the Spanish army, and, hearing of the wealth of the Aztecs, the soldiers deserted to his side.

During Cortez’s absence, his second in command, Pedro de Alvarado, committed mass murder. 

Aztec warriors retaliated. Cortez ordered Montezuma to persuade his people to disperse. By this time, Montezuma had no influence over his people. Since he was of no further use, Cortez executed the emperor.

This time Cortez had badly miscalculated. The Aztecs rebelled and more than 600 Spaniards died in the retreat. A number of those fleeing perished because they were weighted down with treasure, which they refused to leave behind.  

All the captured Spaniards were sacrificed on an Aztec altar. Stripped naked, they were forced to eat hallucinogenic mushrooms. They were then led to the altar, where Aztec priests held them down and cut out their beating hearts. Cortez escaped.

The steps of the Mesoamerican pyramids are all small and close together. The worshipper climbing to the altar must keep his eyes down to ascend the steps, thus when he approaches the altar, his head is bowed in a position of reverence.

The Aztecs hopes of restoring their society was short-lived. The Europeans had left behind an invisible army far more deadly than the one bearing crossbows and guns – smallpox. The disease spread with rapidly through a population lacking any natural resistance. Over the next several years there were frequent outbreaks. The first one killed 80% of the local population. The second killed 50% of the initial survivors.

This colorized picture is of a contemporary painting which shows the effects of small pox.

Subjugation of the Incas

The conquerors did not realize that the Incas, an empire even larger than the Aztec,  existed. If superimposed on a map of Europe, the Inca empire would have stretch from Spain to the Russian steppes. The Inca population was 20 million; Spain’s about 6 million. In only a few years the Spanish decimated the Inca population.

The key conquistador in this adventure was Francisco Pizarro. Sailing with Balboa, Pizarro was among the first Europeans to see the Pacific Ocean. He settled in Panama and swiftly acquired wealth and high social position.

Local natives told about a wealthy southern kingdom near a river called the Peru. In 1524 Pizarro and a partner, Diego de Almagoro, mounted an expedition consisting of about 80 men. Bad weather, lack of food, and wounds acquired in skirmishes with the natives forced the adventurers to return to Panama.

Regrouped, Pizarro finally reached the Inca city of Tumbes, an outpost on the fringes of the kingdom, but it was clear that he would need more men and equipment to conquer that realm. So he left two of his men behind to learn the local language, returned to Panama, and then sailed to Spain to get more financial backers, and the blessings of the Spanish king, Charles V.

The Spaniards arrived back in Tumbes in April 1532. To his surprise, Pizarro found the place in ruins, the result of a civil war between two rivals for the Inca royal throne. Smallpox had struck the realm, killing 60% of the Incas, including the Inca ruler Wayna Capac. His sons, Atahuallpa and Huascar, fought each other for supremacy.

When Pizarro met Atahuallpa he declared that he was the ambassador of a great king from across the sea who desired friendship with the Incas. No sooner was this nicety spoken when a Spanish friar named Vicente stepped forward and arrogantly demanded that the Incas renounce their gods and bow to the Christian God.

The friar “told Atahuallpa that he ... should adore the cross and believe in the Gospel of God and not worship anything else, all the rest was mere mockery.”

The Inca ruler asked Vicente who had told him this. The friar answered his holy book, the Bible. Atahuallpa said: “Give me the book, so that it will tell me.” He began to look through the Bible’s pages and said, “Why doesn’t it tell me? The book doesn’t talk to me!” And dropped the Bible on the ground. Vicente screamed for the conquistadors to open fire and 2,000 Incas were slain in the massacre. The Spaniards also took 5,000 Incas captive, including Atahuallpa and members of his family.

The Spaniards demanded that their prisoners give them gold. Atahuallpa believed that if he supplied the intruders with gold, they would be satisfied and go away. He ordered his people to gather large amounts of gold. Much of it came from Inca temples. Pizarro’s men melted down the gold and recast it into bars.

Even these enormous sums of treasure and supplies were not enough for the invaders. Plunging headlong into the vast unknown territories lying east of the Andes, they unknowingly set in motion one of history’s greatest voyages of adventure.

Next week, the search for El Dorado.

👉  The Testing Time

“And immediately the Spirit thrust him into the wilderness.  He was in the wilderness forty days, and all the time he was being tested by Satan.  The wild beasts were his companions, and the angels were helping him” (Mark 1:12-13).

As soon as Jesus came up out the waters of baptism the Holy Spirit descended on him, God the Father spoke to him, and immediately after that Jesus faced a time of severe testing.

In this life it is impossible to escape the assault of temptation; but one thing is sure – temptations are not sent to us to make us fall; they are sent to strengthen our minds and hearts and souls.  They are meant to be tests from which we emerge better warriors of God.

One thing stands out here in such a vivid way that we must not miss it.  It was the Holy Spirit who thrust Jesus out into the wilderness for the testing time.  The very Spirit who came upon him at his baptism now drove him out for his test.  The word Mark uses indicates Jesus was led into the testing time not by a gentle nudge, but by a forceful, almost violent maneuver.  It is possible to miss the significance of that – if we hesitate to move at the urging of the Lord during difficult times, we are in good company.  Jesus hesitated, but the Holy Spirit who drove him out, went with him.

After the third and final temptation – for that time – Matthew records: “Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him” (4:11).  Mark says, “The angels were helping him.”  There are always divine reinforcements in the hour of trial.  Jesus was not left to fight his battle alone – and neither are we.

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