once water flowed, now traffic streams by.
ALLIES
Hernán Cortés conquered Tenochtitlán with a force of six hundred Spaniards and innumerable Indians from Tlaxcala, Chalco, Mixquic, Chimalhuacan, Amecameca, Tlalmanalco, and other peoples humiliated by the Aztec Empire and tired of bathing the steps of the Templo Mayor in their blood.
They thought the bearded warriors had come to liberate them.
BALL GAME
Hernán Cortés threw the ball to the ground. And Emperor Charles and his numerous courtiers witnessed an unprecedented marvel: the ball bounced and flew skyward.
Europe knew nothing of that magic ball, but in Mexico and Central America rubber had been in use forever and the ball game had been around for three thousand years.
In the game, a sacred ceremony, the thirteen heavens above battled the nine underworlds below, and the bouncing ball flew back and forth between darkness and light.
Death was the prize. He who triumphed offered himself to the gods so that the sun in the sky would not go out, and rain would continue to water the earth.
OTHER WEAPONS
How did Francisco Pizarro, with sixty-eight soldiers, manage to defeat the eighty thousand men of Atahualpa’s army in Peru without a single casualty?
The invaders, Cortés, Pizarro, astutely exploited divisions among the invaded, torn by hatred and war, and with empty promises they managed to multiply their forces against the centers of Aztec and Incan power.
Besides, the conquistadors used weapons unknown in America.
Gunpowder, steel, and horses were incomprehensible novelties. Clubs were useless against cannon and harquebuses, lances and swords, as was cloth armor against steel, or fighters on foot against those six-legged warriors of horseman and horse. No less unknown were smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus, bubonic plague, and other involuntary allies of the invading troops.
And as if all that weren’t enough, the Indians knew nothing of the customs of civilized life.
When Atahualpa, king of the Incas, approached to welcome his strange visitors, Pizarro took him prisoner and promised to free him in exchange for the largest ransom ever demanded. Pizarro got his ransom and chopped off his hostage’s head.
ORIGIN OF BACTERIOLOGICAL WARFARE
For America, Europe’s embrace was deadly. Nine out of every ten natives died.
The smallest warriors were the most ferocious. Viruses and bacteria, like the conquistadors, came from other lands, other waters, other air. And the Indians had no defenses against that invisible army advancing with the troops.
The numerous inhabitants of the Caribbean islands disappeared from this world, leaving not even the memory of their names. Plagues killed many more than the many killed by slavery and suicide.
Smallpox killed the Aztec king Cuitláhuac and the Incan king Huayna Cápac, and in Mexico City its victims were so numerous that entire families were buried by bringing their homes down on top of them.
The first governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, said smallpox had been sent by God to clear the way for His chosen people. Clearly, the Indians had settled at the wrong address. The colonists of North America lent a hand to His Holiest on more than one occasion by giving the Indians blankets infected with smallpox.
“To extirpate this execrable race,” explained the commander, Lord Jeffrey Amherst, in 1763.
OTHER MAPS, SAME STORY
Nearly three centuries after Columbus disembarked in America, Captain James Cook navigated the mysterious seas of the southeast, planted the British flag in Australia and New Zealand, and opened the way for the conquest of the infinite islands of Oceania.
Due to their white skin, the natives believed those seamen were the dead returned to the world of the living. And due to their acts, the natives learned that they had come to take revenge.
And history repeated itself.
As in America, the recent arrivals took over the fertile fields and the sources of water and pushed those who
ALLIES
Hernán Cortés conquered Tenochtitlán with a force of six hundred Spaniards and innumerable Indians from Tlaxcala, Chalco, Mixquic, Chimalhuacan, Amecameca, Tlalmanalco, and other peoples humiliated by the Aztec Empire and tired of bathing the steps of the Templo Mayor in their blood.
They thought the bearded warriors had come to liberate them.
BALL GAME
Hernán Cortés threw the ball to the ground. And Emperor Charles and his numerous courtiers witnessed an unprecedented marvel: the ball bounced and flew skyward.
Europe knew nothing of that magic ball, but in Mexico and Central America rubber had been in use forever and the ball game had been around for three thousand years.
In the game, a sacred ceremony, the thirteen heavens above battled the nine underworlds below, and the bouncing ball flew back and forth between darkness and light.
Death was the prize. He who triumphed offered himself to the gods so that the sun in the sky would not go out, and rain would continue to water the earth.
OTHER WEAPONS
How did Francisco Pizarro, with sixty-eight soldiers, manage to defeat the eighty thousand men of Atahualpa’s army in Peru without a single casualty?
The invaders, Cortés, Pizarro, astutely exploited divisions among the invaded, torn by hatred and war, and with empty promises they managed to multiply their forces against the centers of Aztec and Incan power.
Besides, the conquistadors used weapons unknown in America.
Gunpowder, steel, and horses were incomprehensible novelties. Clubs were useless against cannon and harquebuses, lances and swords, as was cloth armor against steel, or fighters on foot against those six-legged warriors of horseman and horse. No less unknown were smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus, bubonic plague, and other involuntary allies of the invading troops.
And as if all that weren’t enough, the Indians knew nothing of the customs of civilized life.
When Atahualpa, king of the Incas, approached to welcome his strange visitors, Pizarro took him prisoner and promised to free him in exchange for the largest ransom ever demanded. Pizarro got his ransom and chopped off his hostage’s head.
ORIGIN OF BACTERIOLOGICAL WARFARE
For America, Europe’s embrace was deadly. Nine out of every ten natives died.
The smallest warriors were the most ferocious. Viruses and bacteria, like the conquistadors, came from other lands, other waters, other air. And the Indians had no defenses against that invisible army advancing with the troops.
The numerous inhabitants of the Caribbean islands disappeared from this world, leaving not even the memory of their names. Plagues killed many more than the many killed by slavery and suicide.
Smallpox killed the Aztec king Cuitláhuac and the Incan king Huayna Cápac, and in Mexico City its victims were so numerous that entire families were buried by bringing their homes down on top of them.
The first governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, said smallpox had been sent by God to clear the way for His chosen people. Clearly, the Indians had settled at the wrong address. The colonists of North America lent a hand to His Holiest on more than one occasion by giving the Indians blankets infected with smallpox.
“To extirpate this execrable race,” explained the commander, Lord Jeffrey Amherst, in 1763.
OTHER MAPS, SAME STORY
Nearly three centuries after Columbus disembarked in America, Captain James Cook navigated the mysterious seas of the southeast, planted the British flag in Australia and New Zealand, and opened the way for the conquest of the infinite islands of Oceania.
Due to their white skin, the natives believed those seamen were the dead returned to the world of the living. And due to their acts, the natives learned that they had come to take revenge.
And history repeated itself.
As in America, the recent arrivals took over the fertile fields and the sources of water and pushed those who
Similar Books
