Translation:True History of the Profound Mexico/16

by Guillermo Marín Ruiz

15. THE CONQUEST.

The history of the "discovery" of America, its violent conquest and its unjust colonization during the last five centuries, has been on the hands of the victors, and the sons of the sons of all Europeans who have continued arriving to Mexico, to make fortune through the "natives" and their apparently inexhaustible natural resource. Yesterday gold and encomienda,^[1] today oil and minimum wages, but history repeats itself. But knowing history, frees people from cyclical and repetitive mistakes. Thus, it is essential for Mexicans to know their own "true story", so that there are no more victors and defeated, dominated and dominating, colonized and colonizers.

"Was not like that what the Dzules (Spaniards) did when they arrived here. They taught fear; and came to wither flowers. For their flower to blossom, they damaged and sucked the flower of the others." (Book of Chumayel Chilam Balam)

The conquerors world.

Spain had just expelled the Arabs, who had dominated their peninsula for over eight hundred years.^[2] The kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, in 1479 had formed a single Kingdom through the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, it was a Crown "new, poor and with devastated territories" and men in arms. Also, Europe had lost the commercial passage to the East by the taking Constantinople^[3]and the near east by the Turkish. The European economy at that time depended on the trade in spices and multiple consumption objects imported from those distant lands. "Merchants" from all the major European cities and especially Venice and London completely dominated commerce.

"Christopher Columbus was financed by Venetian merchants, and not by the few and modest jewelry that Isabel la Catolica might have had, what paved the way to our continent". (José María Muría. 1982) ^[4]

Immediately after the accidental encounter with the Cem Anahuac (North America) and the Tahuantinsuyo^[5] (South America), the spaniards started the invasion, destruction, pillage, exploitation and extermination of "discovered" peoples, with the divine permission of the catholic church and the legal support of the spanish crown.

"In 1493, the Spanish Pope Alexander VI, supreme arbiter of Christendom, ceded the territories seen by Christopher Columbus and his companions, and "all islands and firm land discovered west and noon" in the Meridian, one hundred leagues away from Azores and Cape Verde to reduce “the inhabitants and naturals of these places into the catholic faith" and to collect as prize of the crusade, "gold, aromatic things and many others of great price, of diverse characteristics and quality." (José María Muría. 1982)

The search for alternate communication routes with China and India later meant for Europe, not just maintaining trade, but a continental and global source of power. Oriental technology was far superior to the European, not only the compass, gunpowder, ceramics, silk, paper and metal alloys; but the ancient and better navigation technology, it is noted that China and India, are two much older civilizations than the European. An example is that in 1400 CE the total Chinese fleet included 3,500 ships, of which 400 were warships, 400 merchants and 2700 Coast Guard.^[6]

"Probably, the safest ships in the world, and also the largest were Chinese, and from the Sung times, Chinese merchants traveled to points far from their own shores. Ibn Battuta, who visited India and China in the 14th century, wrote that at their times all trade between Malabar and South China was made in Chinese ships....Arab sailors were familiar with the long ocean voyages, and had safe ships. It is interesting to note that the Arabs who had contact with the Vasco da Gama people were not impressed by European ships; they admired their sturdy construction, but they judged them little slow and manageable.... Altogether, it is likely that the Arabs should be placed next to the Chinese among the peoples of the seas that in the 15th century could have been able to circumnavigate Africa and perhaps crossing the Pacific if they had tried it." (J.H. Parry. 1989)^[7]

This way, it is interesting to understand that Asian peoples had a technology far superior to the European and that when it was appropriated by the Europeans, it was used for commercial, military and expansion purposes. Technologies copied by Europe from Asia and which later served them to invade and take over the entire planet, Asians despite having invented them, despite having the military and maritime power, never attempted to take over and subjugate the planet.

The conceptions of life, the world, war and power, between the Europeans and the rest of the world have been totally different. So the "heroic" feat of "discovering the new world", was not more than a warfare and commercial adventure, funded by greedy merchants and carried out by the poorest and most ignorant spaniards of the dark middle ages, at any price and without any scruples.

"It is next to impossible to imagine 15th century explorers, looking for the North Pole. They were practical men, just like their rulers and the investors who financed their travels, and their objectives were also practical: mainly to establish concrete contacts with specific non-European countries, countries whose existence was known, advanced culture and with commercial importance, countries whose inhabitants could provide valuable goods and countries whose rulers could seek partnership and political support. The exploration could reveal other advantages, goes without saying: unexploited fisheries and fertile islands with feuds and arable land available to whomever should wish to seize them. However, these Islands were better if populated, preferably by docile and laborious people... For the most part, the explorers did not seek new lands; they sought new routes to known lands... Thus, the originality and importance of the 15th century travels was not to reveal the uninhabited and the unknown as links, through usable sea routes, regions away from the populated and known... Columbus experience wasn't entirely different; but, obviously, was not the same in the case of native inhabitants. Columbus did not discover a new world; established contact between two worlds, both inhabited and both ancient in human terms." (J.H.Parry. 1989)

The "Discovery" reason.

The "discovery of the new world" in 1492, marks the beginning of the search of power for "traders or merchants". The invasion of America, Africa and later Asia, by the European crowns, was generally funded and encouraged by merchants; because we must remember that then there was no "private initiative". The open fight between the "State and the market" begins with the Americas invasion in 1492 and ends at the end of the 20th century with the imposition of economic neo-liberalism and economic globalization.

While it is true that the spanish conquerors brought the banners of the spanish crown, they were fully financed by merchants. That was one of the reasons why the spanish crown did not have full control of the spanish conquistadors, as they were not soldiers, nor high nobility. Instead, were the scum of a Spain plunged in poverty and ignorance, as they had recently finished the costly re-conquest war with the Arabs. The bunch of uneducated men and eager to enrich themselves by plundering and exploitation, were used and funded by merchants to begin the conquest of the world. However, it was the Anglo-Saxons eventually who fulfilled the historical mission of the "merchants" assigned as the "armed wing" of the market to conquer the world, first from England and later from the United States.

"Once I saw that, having burning on a grill four or five important people or lords (and I even think there were two or three other pairs of grills where others were burnt) and because they loudly shouted and saddened the captain or kept him from sleeping, he commanded they were drowned, and the sheriff, who was worse than an executioner, who burnt them, did not want to drown them, before, with his hands he put sticks in their mouths so that they did not scream and added fire until they were grilled for as long as he wanted. I saw all the things above mentioned and many other infinite. And because the people who could flee, locked themselves up in the mountains and went up to the mountains fleeing from such inhuman men, that without mercy and such ferocious beasts, eradicators and capital enemies of human lineage, they taught and trained hounds and brave dogs than upon seeing an Indian they would break him in pieces, within a payer, and they better attacked them and ate them as if they were pork. These dogs made huge ravages and butcheries. And because seldom, rare and few times, the Indians killed some Christians with just reason and holy justice, spaniards made a law among themselves, that by every Christian killed by indians, Christians would kill one hundred Indians... from the many forces, violence and harassment they made, soon the indians began to understand that these men could not have come from heaven." (Bartholomew de Las Casas. 1552)^[8]

Thus the European invasion was not generated by a humanistic and scientific spirit. Nor the invasion and conquest had the full the authority and control of the spanish crown. It was a warrior and commercial enterprise performed in part by the "investors", rich merchants who primarily wished to find a new Asian trade route and then plunder the precious metals from the newly "discovered" land and exploit its inhabitants to an extermination point. Columbus himself is driven by greed and ambition. The Hispanic "official story" has presented him as a humanist Explorer. There is nothing further from the truth.

Recent research has shown that Christopher Columbus, was not Genovese, but apparently jewish catalan. Who was advised by merchants, makes the Catholic monarchs, on April 17, 1492, sign the so-called Santa Fe capitulations,^[9] where he asked for the titles of "Major Admiral of the ocean sea, Viceroy and Governor General" of the lands he would discover, the right to present the list (three names) for appointment of councilors, a tenth or 10% of all goods to be negotiated in the Indies, exclusivity right on disputes that may arise by the Indian merchandise, and to contribute with an “ocheno” or eighth part 12.5% of the cost of arming commercial ships, thus obtaining the same percentage of the profits. As shown, his greed and that of the merchants who financed the expedition, was very large and that in the long run was what sunk Columbus and distanced the merchants from the spanish crown.

The Columbus adventure companions were the poorest people and those sentenced to life imprisonment, who saw the enterprise as their only chance of getting out of the dungeons. At the time the spaniards who went to "make" the America, were landless peasants, convicts, mercenaries and the impoverished lower nobility, who sought first and foremost, immediate and disproportionate wealth at any cost.

"As men we are not all very good, and there are some with bad conscience, and since at that time they came from Castile and the Indies many poor spaniards and of great greed, and canine and hungry for wealth and slaves..." (Bernal Diaz Castillo)^[10]

The Hispanic colonial history speaks of a group of brave and intrepid "soldiers" and explorers, who came to discover a primitive and savage world for the sake of progress and Christianity. That they risked their lives in favor of religion and humanity. This handful of heroic men, have been depicted as a compact group of "soldiers", directed by a leader respected by all. The disguised reality says just the opposite.

"There were many debts among us, that we owed for crossbows at fifty and sixty pesos, and others for a fifty sword, and thus all things we bought were so expensive, a surgeon called master Juan, who cured some bad injuries and charged for the cure excessive prices, and also a quack healer called Murcía, who was an apothecary and barber, also cured, and other thirty traps and tarrabusterías that we owed, demanded we paid from the parts we obtained."(Bernal Díaz del Castillo). This passage confirms the expedition private rigid structure in which not even wounds are borne by the common, the soldiers greed is better explained in realizing it was not real army corps, but a partnership." (Silvio a. Zavala. 1933)^[11]

The conquest philosophy.

The spaniards structured a philosophy that justified and legalized the invasion, destruction, subjugation and exploitation of indigenous peoples. To legitimize the injustice, atrocity and genocide, was the target of jurists, theologians, religious, noblemen, merchants and adventurers. Generate wealth from looting and crime was a "State reason".

"And have your majesty for very certain that according to the amount of land seems to be large, and the many mosques they have, there has not been a year, in what we have seen, they do not kill and sacrifice in this way three or four thousand souls. See your royal majesties if you should prevent such great evil and harm, and certainly God our Lord would be very well served, if by means of the hands of your royal highnesses these people were introduced and educated in our very holy catholic faith..." (Hernán Cortés. 1519)

The first idea was that indigenous people were not "human beings", but animals. The second, is that in being absent from the european God and the catholic religion, were the devil’s product. Third, in that the "Universal Humane" is for the european culture and themselves; so that indigenous people and their culture were inferior. Fourth, from their very origins, the peoples of Europe have lived in a world of threats, rivalries, wars, invasions and loot; so the "law of war and conquest" was for the winning people to use for the profit and benefit, without distinction of men, lands and properties of the conquered people.

"The people and goods of those defeated in a just war are property of the victors. Those defeated in war are to be servants of the victors, not only because the winner, in some virtue is better than the loser, as taught by philosophers, and because it is just in natural law that the imperfect obeys the more perfect, but also that with this greed men prefer to save the life of defeated men (Thus they are called “serfs”: "se servare") instead of killing them: by showing that this type of servants are necessary for the defense and preservation of the human society..." (Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. 1490-1573)^[12]

The european civilization has its foundation on the Judeo-Christian thought, the Greco-Roman and Germanic culture. From the first it is established that, "God made men in his image and likeness and did so to rule over people and things, using the world and killing animals for their benefit". From the second that "Greco-Roman men" has as mission: that because of his supposed "rational superiority", should dominate, transform and exploit nature". The third inspires passion and militaristic vocation, which becomes aggressive, in its perpetual drive to domain, fueled by their voracious exploitative drives, from their earliest origins, to this day. Therefore, indigenous peoples were "legally" condemned to slavery and exploitation by means of weapons and with God’s blessing, without any right. For the first time in the history of mankind a "people and a culture" are stigmatized as inferior and slave "in nature".

Since the Columbus arrival to the Antilles, where indigenous were brutally exterminated in a few years, the conqueror first and later the colonizer, imposed their right of appropriating what did not belong to them, and in honor of this alleged right; massacre, mutilate, rape, brand, steal, enslaving and exploiting invaded peoples; justifying these actions as a "civilizing, evangelical and heroic" enterprise, as a result of a supposed religious, racial and cultural superiority.

The problem for America and Mexico is that this scheme continues to repeat itself, thanks to many form changes, but the basic social, cultural, economic and political relations remain the same from the 16th to the 21st century.

“In the year one thousand and five hundred and seventeen the New Spain was discovered, and in the discovery were major scandals occurred in the indians and some deaths by those who discovered. In the year one thousand and five hundred and eighteen the so called christians went to steal and kill them, although they say they are going to repopulate. And since this eighteen year until today, we are in the year of one thousand five hundred and forty-two, has overflowed and reached its height all iniquity, all injustice, all violence and tyranny of christians who have done in the Indies, because all they have lost all fear God and the king, and they have forgotten themselves. Because they are so many and such the ravages and cruelties, massacres and destructions, population decimation, theft, violence and tyranny, and in so many and such kingdoms of Firm Land, that all the things we have said are nothing in comparison with what was made; because although we say all, which are endless what we do not say, they are not comparable either in number or in severity to those made from this year of one thousand five hundred and eighteen and committed to this day and year of one thousand five hundred and forty-two, and today, on this day of the month of September, are made and committed the most serious and heinous. Because it's true the rule we made here, that always from the beginning have been growing in greater excesses and infernal works." (Bartholomew the Casas. 1542)

The Hispanic "official story" prevents diffusion of the thought and criticism of people such as Bartholomew de Casas. Moreover, encourages common people not to investigate the sources, because while reading these texts in a critical and analytical way, the reader will find the, aberrations and cynicism of those who wrote them. Christopher Columbus, Hernán Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo themselves, in their writings relate their atrocities.

"When reading the Christopher Columbus writings (diaries, letters, reports), you could have the impression that his essential motive was his desire to become rich (what I say here and later about Columbus could apply to others; as it happens he was the first and therefore, set the example). Gold, or rather the search for gold, because not much is initially found, is omnipresent in the course of the first trip. On the very same day that follows the discovery, on October 13, 1492, he already noted in his diary: 'I don't want to stop by and walk many islands to find their gold' (15.10.1492). 'He commanded the Admiral to not take anything, so that they knew they were not looking only for gold' (1.11.1492). ‘Even his prayer became: -our Lord I ask, for your piety, to find this gold...-'(23.12.1492)". (Jacques Lafaye. 1991)^[13]

Based on this ideological and philosophical principle, the europeans found the justification for their earthly and divine "right", of the conquest and colonization, not only of America, but the entire world. Because as of the 16th century, europeans invaded America, Africa, Asia and Australia. Destroying cultures and religions, subordinating economies and markets, enslaving and exterminating entire cultures; everything in favor of their economic and political interests, sheltered and by their religion.

The "official history" has been hispanic from 1520, when Hernán Cortés himself writes, the —Letters of Relation—, which are a totally partial vision of events, as they were intended to justify Cortés before the king of Spain, by having betrayed the Cuba governor, who subrogated the grant to steal gold from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in what today is the national territory. The Hispanic history continues to depict Hernán Cortés as a great hero.

"But the adversary that concerned Hernán Cortés the most was Diego Velázquez; and not without reason, since the governor sent, as soon as he could, Narvaez in pursuit. The reason to give to their situation legal appearance, indicate the importance of respect for the legal forms in conquests". (Jacques Lafaye. 1991)

The conquistador.

Hernán Cortés was a man of his time. Son of a poor hidalgo, while a young man he was expelled from the Salamanca University, where he wanted to study law, due to his low academic results. Later he prepares to leave on an expedition to Italy, but he is attacked by an aggrieved husband and is confined to bed for several months, his biographers write with euphemism, "he liked to visit beds of married women", at the age of 19 sails to “make fortune” in America and landed on the island of Santo Domingo in 1502, in the new lands acted as scribe, agriculture hand, and later as a conqueror.

"The beginning of his stay (Cortes) in the new world as the circumstances of his journey, preceded by a picaresque tramp, contribute to depict him as a rather obscure emigrant." (Jaques Lafaye. 1991)

He later accompanied Diego Velázquez in 1511 in the conquest of Cuba. He was then his Secretary and later Santiago de Baracoa major. Despite having difficulties with Diego Velázquez, as he seduced the sister of the governor’s bride, Catalina Juarez Marcaida (whom he later strangled at his Coyoacán home in 1522), and refused to marry her, fleeing from the law he took refuge in a church. By his later marriage in 1514 with Catalina, he managed to make Velázquez his godfather.

It is important to point out that Diego Velázquez as Cuba governor obtained the concession from the spanish crown to go and "rescue gold"^[14] on the shores of what is now the territory of Mexico. He tries to subrogate the concession, first to Baltasar Bermúdez and finally does it with Cortés.

"Diego Velázquez decided to set up –at his cost, according to the usual procedures- an expedition. He intended to entrust the command to one of his Cuellar compatriots, Baltasar Bermúdez, but he had conditions that displeased Velasquez; the governor, angry, violently threw him out as was his custom. Then, according to Las Casas, Amador de Lares convinced him to entrust the command in Cortés, whit whom he was to share the benefits of the expedition. But here we note what Gómora said (that is the marquez himself), according to which, Baltasar Bermúdez refused the mandate because Velásquez claimed a share of three thousand ducats; after that failure, Cortés was sought, on the condition that he covered half of the costs, since he had “two thousand gold castellanos in association with Andrés de Duero, a merchant", thus he had a business partner. We see here, on a modest scale, how commercial capital was beginning to be invested in colonial enterprises." (Jacques Lafaye. 1970)

The invasion.

Such are the conditions in which Hernán Cortés Arrives to the coast of Quintana Roo in 1519, with 11 ships, 553 adventurers and 110 sailors, plus about one hundred of blacks and carib indigenous people. He had left Cuba as a fugitive of the law, as the governor of the island, Diego Velázquez, learned of the betrayal plans of the brand new captain, and gave orders to arrest Cortés, but he left ahead of his scheduled departure to avoid being arrested and imprisoned.

This is the reason why, in the proximity of a mutiny in the expedition and anchored off the coast of Veracruz, those who did not want Cortés as captain, called for the expedition to return to Cuba and deliver Cortés prisoner, for the governor Velasquez to assign another captain. Hernán Cortés ordered drilling holes and not burning the ships to avoid a fight between the spaniards and his likely imprisonment.

"Raised in arms" in fact with the navy, but recognizing in his letters his public and private duties towards Diego Velázquez, Cortés left the island of Cuba. On the coast of Veracruz, before the military penetration to the New Spain, with a frank rupture, gained legal features. Cortés had undertaken numerous rescue operations; the Velazquez faction was satisfied and fearful of the large number of indians calling for the return to Cuba; Don Hernando and proletarians soldiers, incited by the wealth, wanted, on the other hand, entering their pacification campaign and conquest of the land (plunder and looting A.N.). The return to Cuba could mean for the captain his execution as a rebel." (Silvio Zavala. 1991). ^[15]

Governor Velázquez, had managed to obtain the "concession to rescue gold" of what today is Mexico, which is to be understood as looting to avoid using euphemisms. It is important to mention that except for the first two Columbus trips, the invasion of America, was a popular campaign and not for the Crown of Spain. Indeed, investors and the adventurous personally financed expeditions, some with their own resources and others with their lives. The spanish crown granted the concession through a lobbying in the court and its "cost" was 20% of the stolen belonged to the crown, the famous "royal fifth", the remaining 80% was divided among courtesans, investors and adventurers, according to the investment that each had negotiated in the "campaign". The spaniards had previously made two expeditions to the coast of Mexico; Francisco Hernández de Córdoba (1517) and Juan de Grijalva (1518); hence they knew then, of the existence of those lands, its wealth and its inhabitants.

"He is therefore, a man (Cortés) outside the law (the governor had released an arrest warrant against him, without effect at two hundred leagues from Santiago de Cuba), who left from San Cristóbal, in mid-February, 1519." (Jacques Lafaye. 1991)

Upon Cortés arrival at Isla Mujeres, learned that two Spaniards lived in Chetumal, they had shipwrecked in 1511 in the Alacranes reef, traveling from Panama to Cuba and sent to rescue them.

Eight years after the sinking the two spaniards knew perfectly well the Maya language. While Jerónimo de Aguilar remained spanish, Gonzalo Guerrero totally assimilated the mayan culture. Gonzalo Guerrero is an obscure character in the "official history", a traitor for the Hispanic view of history. Gonzalo Guerrero bought his freedom, became a free man and joined to the mayan army and he became "nacon" (head of warriors), and he married a maiden of the Maya high nobility called Zazil Há under their customs and religion, having three children, the first mestizos of Mexico and perhaps most importantly, taught the mayans to fight the spanish and died fighting against the spanish invasion. Gonzalo Guerrero is the symbol of the foreigner that upon coming to live in these lands and in our culture, not only gives the best of him and defends it, but also gives his own life in it.^[16]

When the spaniards arrive to get Jerónimo de Aguilar, he immediately join the Spaniards, but when they arrive for Gonzalo Guerrero, he sends a message thanking Cortés, and argues that he already has family and that he shall stay and live with the mayans.

When Cortez arrives in Tabasco, he is given the Malinche, who can speak Nahuatl and Maya, so she becomes a language "bridge". Malinche in mayan language informs Jerónimo de Aguilar and he translates to spanish for Cortés of the situation that exists in the Aztec empire. That the year, 1519, is the Uno Caña Year and that their arrival coincides with the prophecy that every 52 years, they expected the announced Quetzalcoatl return. That he arrived from the East, is white and bearded, that will bring the new Quetzalcoatl era and that will punish all those who transgreded his philosophy and religion. That the Tlatócan (supreme mexica council) and Moctezuma II are waiting for him with genuine concern and great fear.

The prophecy is fulfilled.

Indeed, Moctezuma II and the Tlatócan were aware of spaniards expeditions and shipwrecks in these lands. The end of the mexica Huitzilopochtli usurpation had been announced by Quetzalcoatl through the so-called "disastrous omens". Ten years earlier, a fire spike (Comet) crossed the sky of the great Tenochtitlan; one day without logical explanation the Huitzilopochtli Temple burned until it was completely destroyed; another day in broad daylight, without rain and thunder, Xiuhtecuhtli^[17] burnt; one day the lake water that surrounded the city boiled without explanation; on some occasions at night in the streets of Tenochtitlan, on some occasions the heart-rending cry of a woman was heard, at night on the Tenochtitlan streets who was crying for their children who were going to die; a bird found in the Lake, had a mirror in the head, where Moctezuma saw the arrival of the spaniards; deformed men brought before Moctezuma disappeared in his presence. Be it as it may, the Aztec leadership and many ancient peoples of the world, knew the prediction arts; in addition it was already said in oral tradition, what would happen. The truth is that a part of the ruling mexica, saw with fear the spaniards arrival, and the end of their philosophical and religious transgression.

The conquest of Mexico was rather a civil war between indigenous peoples, with deep philosophical, religious roots and old wounds between peoples under mexica domination, than a heroic epic of a handful of Spanish guided by a "fearless and brave captain".

Hernán Cortés knew how to take advantage of the structural weaknesses of the indigenous system that had at the time large material power, but great religious and philosophical weakness. The hispanic myth that, due to the courage and weapon superiority, horses, and religion, allowed Cortés victory is the product of the ignorance and mental colonization in which we have lived these last five hundred years. The cost of the Toltec departure, the religious—philosophical—ideological schism initiated by Tlacaelel and that gave glory and power to the mexicas, was paid by Moctezuma Xocoyotzin.

The peoples that did not transgreded the millennial Quetzalcoatl rule and that remained loyal to the millenary Tlaloc—Quetzalcoatl tradition; such as the Maya peoples of the Yucatán peninsula and south of Mexico; the Zapotec and Mixtecs in Oaxaca, the Purépecha in Michoacán, the Tlapanecas in the Guerrero mountains and Tlaxcalans from Tlaxcala. In principle did not accept the spaniards as Quetzalcoatl and remained rebellious, from the mexicas first, and later against the spaniards. It is no coincidence to find in our times, to find in these regions and peoples of Mexico, the strongest cultural resistance, which leads them as a whole to be "The Spiritual Reserve of Mexico" and pulsating heart of the "profound Mexico".

Cortez sought and achieved the Tlaxcala alliance, whom first fought them, but Cortés skillfully convinced them of being the Quetzalcoatl captain, in other words, the king of Spain, and later the very Quetzalcoatl, as expected and feared by the transgressors. Cortés took advantage of the Quetzalcoatl prophecy and their transgression of his thought, provoking a civil and religious war in the Anahuac. It is clear, that a handful of adventurers, poorly armed, without training and military discipline, full of struggles, ambitions and internal rivalries; were not going to defeat, by themselves, the powerful indigenous world and especially the feared and formidable mexica empire, that had hundreds of thousands of soldiers, perfectly trained and organized, with a long tradition and military experience. The number of soldiers could overwhelm any military technological superiority of the spaniards of the time. Spain at that time had approximately 9 million people, and in what is now Mexico it is estimated that there were then between 20 and 25 million inhabitants.

"In Spain, and throughout Europe, did not then exist urban conglomerates even comparable with Mexico, which, although there are some who assign one million and a half inhabitants, it is likely it had half a million (London did not have more than 40 thousand and Paris, the largest city barely had 65 thousand), and not to considering other cities in the Valley, with less population, as Texcoco, Aztcapozalco, Ixtapalapa, Tacuba, etc., which totaled more than one million and a half "(José Luis Guerrero. 1990)

Cortés was able to skillfully grasp the religious problem and rivalries of the indigenous peoples, to take over as Quetzalcoatl captain, reach Tenochtitlan with thousands of indigenous allies, stopping over at the Holy City of Cholula and executing the first great massacre, to strengthen the Alliance with the Tlaxcalans, since at that time were rivals. For the mexicas, the conflict was religious and the war was religious. They were not facing an invading and predatory enemy, they were in the midst of a great religious—philosophical schism and a civil war.

"Such disproportion, however, was only apparent: other than the sudden large number of allied indians was so great that it can be said that really it was not a conquest, but rather a civil war from which a few foreign invaders benefited, given that both fought more on a religious ground than military, the spanish war conception conferred them a crushing force, while the Mexican paralyzed its believers, making them act inadequately, that amounted making them defenseless, as we will see.

It is that the Spaniards —as brilliantly analyzed by Soustelle— made an "all-out" war: for them there was but one State —the Carlos V monarchy— and a single possible religion. The mexicans were defeated because their thought, governed by a pluralist tradition in political and religious order, was not adapted to the conflict with the dogmatism of the unitarian State and Religion." (Jose Luis Guerrero. 1990)

Indeed, while for the mexicas the arrival of the spaniards meant the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, which would mean their ideological—religious collapse, in which there could still be some negotiation; for the spanish implied an extraordinary military and religious conquest that would bring them personal wealth and political power.

While for the aztecs the religious warfare represented the opportunity to take live enemies, for Huitzilopochtli sacrifice in the Templo Mayor. An enemy killed in combat field was a blunder and a loss to their gods; for the spanish on the other hand, war meant the extermination of the infidel on the battlefield, with the help of Santiago Apostle in favor of Christianity and the Crown.

Moctezuma and the Tlatócan, were dealing with magical and divine beings, Quetzalcoatl messengers and ambassadors. They were not cowards but diplomats. They were looking for a negotiation. They never stopped believing in the Huitzilopochtli validity and force against Quetzalcoatl. The mexicas believed to be in a religious and magical fight; the spaniards were committed to a warrior trade campaign. One side spoke of Quetzalcoatl—Christ—king of Spain; the others spoke of Huitzilopochtli

Tezcatlipoca—Tlacaelel. The aztecs sought an honorable religious—ideological negotiation; the spaniards sought destruction—domination—wealth. One side had noble and educated people; the others were ignorant, unscrupulous people, eager for wealth at any cost.

The delivery of the Mexicas to the Spaniards.

Finally, and against the popular will and of many mexica leaders and priests, the Tlatócan ordered Moctezuma to receive Cortes in Tenochtitlan, the captain of Quetzalcoatl. It is documented by Cortés and Bernal Díaz, a fact that clearly reveals what happened in the conquest. Moctezuma summons all Lords that paid tributes in the Cem Anahuac, and in front of the spanish tells them that had finally had arrived he whom they expected and that they should obey and pay tribute to the king of Spain, as they had thus far done to him. That is, that the mighty aztec empire, knowing the transgression made by their ancestors under the command of Tlacaelel, accepted their ideological and religious usurpation, delivering themselves to the will of the mythical and ancient God of the peoples of Cem Anahuac. In the voice of Moctezuma himself and ordering the speech to be recorded by the Cortés clerk, since the Tlatoani stated that it would be a very important event, Moctezuma told his tributary Lords, which he had summoned for the event from the entire empire:

"Brothers and friends, you know that from a long time you and your parents and grandparents have been and are my subjects and vassals of my ancestors and mine, and always from them and me you have been very well treated and honored, and you have also been what good and loyal vassals are obligated to their natural lords; and I also believe that you have memory of your predecessors as we [*the mexicas] are not natural from these lands, and that came to it from faraway lands, and were brought by a Lord [*Quetzalcoatl] that left them there, as they all were vassals. Who returned long time ago and found that our grandparents were already populated and settled in this land, and married to women of this land and had large children multiplication, so that they would not wish to return with him and not least wanted to receive him as a Lord of this land [*the transgression of his philosophy and religion]; and he returned, and said that he would return or would send with such power, which could constrain and attract to his service. And you well know that we have always expected him [*with fear], and according to the things that the captain [*Cortés] has said of that king and lord that sent him here [*Carlos V], and according to the part where he says that he comes [*from the other side of the sea, the east, where Quetzalcoatl went and from where he would return, according to the prophecy], I am certain, and so should you, that he [*the King of Spain] is the lord that we expected [*Quetzalcoatl], in particular tells us that there they had news from us and because our predecessors did not do what they were obligated [*Tlacaelel and his transgressions], let us do it [*reinstall the Quetzalcoatl philosophy and religion], and be grateful to our gods [*Note that so far, the Aztecs believed that the problem was among "minor" gods, Quetzalcoatl-Huitzilopochtli, but that the Tloque Nahuaque structure, the powerful God, was still standing and that the spaniards were not invaders-conquerors, because they believed that after the "remediation", the spaniards or Quetzalcoatl envoys, would go back the way they came in], and thanks our gods because in our times came what we all expected. And I beg, as this is well known to all, just as up to now you have had and obeyed me as your lord, from here on forward you take and obey this great king [*Carlos V], for he is your lord, and in his place you take his captain [*Cortés]; and all the tributes and services that until now you gave me, make and give to him, because I myself also have to contribute and serve with everything what they command; in addition to doing what you must and are obligated, you shall make me very happy" [*this is the delivery of the aztec empire to the spaniards, without spilling a single drop of blood]. Thus everything said while crying with the largest tears and sighs that a man could manifest, and also all those lords who were listening to him cried so much, that in a great while could not answer him. [*The pain and suffering of Moctezuma and his tributary gentlemen, is logical to understand, because it meant the tacit acceptance of their historical mistake, by the transgression of the Quetzalcoatl philosophy and religion, and confirmation of the fall of the usurper God of the aztecs, Huitzilopochtli]. And I certify your sacred majesty, that there was no spaniard who heard the reasoning that did not have much compassion.

And after their tears had somewhat calmed, responded that they all had him [*the King of Spain] as their Lord, and promised to do everything what he ordered; and for this and for the reasons given to them, were very happy to do, and that from that time onwards they were vassals of his Highness and from there all together and each one promised it, and also promised, to make and fulfill all that under the name of the royal majesty was commanded of them, as good and loyal vassals must do, and to come with all taxes and services made before for Moctezuma and were obligated, and everything else that was ordered in the name of his highness. All of which was registered by the public scribe, and registered it in the form, and I asked for it as such for testimony in the presence of many spaniards.

After this event and offer these gentlemen made of service to your royal majesty, spoke one day to the Moctezuma, and told him that your highness was in need of gold for certain works that were ordered, and that he begged for him to send some of his people, and that I would also send some spaniards over land and homes of those gentlemen that there had offered, to beg them for what they had served your Majesty with some of it." (Hernán Cortés, second relation letter of October 30, 1520). [*Text added by the author for text clarity]

This testimony demystifies the "warrior feat" of spanish adventurers, and clarifies the real mexica tragedy. If there was subsequently a large massacre and fighting, it was only caused by the criminal stupidity and excessive ambition of the spanish. Shortly after this fact, Cortés ordered Moctezuma prisoner, who had hosted them in his own house and torture him forcing him to surrender the gold he possessed.

The great massacre and the war origin.

At that time Panfilo de Narvaez arrives in Veracruz, sent by the Governor of Cuba with 19 ships and a thousand four hundred men to take him prisoner, by having escaped fugitive from Cuba and betraying him along with all investors who had financed the expedition. However, Cortés very cunning in corrupting the new adventurers, not soldiers; since Velázquez almost depopulated Cuba to form the capture expedition, and because Narvaez thought he was invincible, ordered a notary, a chaplain and four armed men to agree on the surrender at Veracruz under the command of Sandoval, who in turn sent them to Tenochtitlan. Cortés dazzled them with the city, which at that time was still standing and sent them back loaded with gold, as accomplices to subvert the capture expedition and that later will join his side because of the gold offered and promises of endless profit. The mission was successfully accomplished. We insist, to understand history, it must be understood that the spaniards^[18] were not trained and disciplined soldiers. They were outcasts in search of fortune and all the atrocities and betrayals, made against indigenous peoples and among themselves; it only demonstrated their human quality, moral and ethics, which guided all their actions in the conquest and the colony.

"Surprise, in fact, was only for Narvaez: when Cortes finally attacked Cempuala in a stormy night, although a sentinel advised on their arrival, the Velasquez people barely burned a little gunpowder to save appearances, celebrating the day after their defeat with such a fife cheek and drums that even the winners felt upset." (Jose Luis Guerrero. 1990)

The hispanic history says that Cortes came out of Tenochtitlan and left Alvarado in command of the men who stayed in the city of Tenochtitlan. This is to wash the conqueror hands of blood and criminal stupidity, as according to this version, it is stated that when Cortés was in Veracruz, the mexica nobility asked Alvarado permission, for a holiday in the Major Temple of Tenochtitlan. In the afternoon arrived more than five thousand women and men, the ruling class, richly dressed with gold and totally unarmed, to dance at the great plaza. The spaniards on seeing this, closed the four gates of the walled square and with knives killed men and women to strip them of their jewelry.

“Immediately surrounded those who danced, they rush to the place of the atabales [drums]: gave one blow to the one who was drumming: cut both of his arms. Then beheaded him: his severed head fell far away.

Suddenly knifed those dancing, lanced people and slashed them, with swords hurt them. Some were attacked form behind; immediately their heads fell; their heads were sliced, their heads were entirely cut to pieces.

But others were cut in their shoulders: made cracks, their bodies were torn apart. Those hurt in the thighs, this in the calves, over there in the abdomen. All their bowels fell on the ground. And there were some still running in vain: they were dragging their intestines and seemed to tangle in their feet. Anxiously to get to a safe place, did not know where to go.

Some therefore tried to leave: there at the entrance were hurt, were knifed. Others climbed the walls; but could not save themselves. Others mixed among the dead, pretended to be dead and escaped. But if one stood up, they saw him and were knifed.

The warriors’ blood ran as if it was water: such as standing water, and the stench of blood rose into the air, and of the bowels that appeared to crawl.

And the spaniards walked all over in search of the community homes: they threw strikes all over, searching for things: in case anyone was hiding there" (Sahagún informers).

In the following indigenous report is a subtle sample of massacres made by the spaniards. This was the big mistake of the spaniards, because many of the mexicas from the first moment wanted to exterminate the spaniards, above all, the Huitzilopochtli fans, but the Tlatócan did not allow it. But when they realized the townspeople massacre, people reacted strongly and went for weapons.

"And when it was learned outside, shouting began: Captains, mexicans... come here! That all armed should come: your insignias, shields, darts! ... Come here quickly, run: the captains are dead, our warriors are killed!... they have been annihilated, oh mexican captains!

Then the roar was heard, screaming rose up, and the shriek of the people who beat the lips. At the time were grouped, all captains, as if they had been cited: brought their darts, their shields. Then the battle begins: threw darts, with arrows and even javelins, with bird hunting harpoons. And threw their javelins furious and hasty. As if a yellow layer, the reeds are tended on the Spaniards." (Sahagún informants).

The spaniards then took refuge in the Moctezuma house and put shackles on him. Still surrounded the invaders under the command of Alvarado, says the spanish written history, Cortés returned and tamely let him enter the encirclement. That the city was deserted and entered without any problem.

This is really impossible to believe and illogical. It is difficult to then explain why Cortes, immediately after arriving in the city center, tries to get out of the encirclement. All Tenochtitlan was on war and the Tlatócan, had deposed Moctezuma and appointed Cuitláhuac replacing him as the new Tlatoani. It is a lie that the mexicas let Cortes enter the city, as on the streets he was an easy military target.

The logical thing to assume is that Cortés "defeated" Narvaez and returning to the city of Tenochtitlan, he himself ordered the killing. Absurd carnage, because as is known, in the first place, Moctezuma himself swore obedience to the spaniards, and secondly; for the anahuacas gold did not have the same value it did for the spaniards; so it would have sufficed that spaniards had asked for the gold, and probably all would have handed it over without resistance.

The “Noche Triste” mystery.

Either way, the spaniards besieged and Moctezuma deposed by the Tlatócan, the mexicas had surrounded the spaniards and their allies. Cortés tried to escape over night during a strong storm, when they were discovered, attacked and decimated, in the famous battle of "La Noche Triste”, (the official name of the battle, reveals the origin of whom wrote it, it was sad for the spaniards, not for the mexicas) It is surprising to find today, how the dominant culture through the SEP,^[19] maintains the concept of "The battle of la Noche Triste", on official text books and confirms that the mexican State is eminently hispanic and colonial. The official history lies and is biased. It deforms and colonizes mexican children through their teachers and textbooks.

"The defeat had extermination proportions: although Cortés tried to reduce to 150 dead Spaniards, Bernal Díaz mentions 870, that is, the vast majority, as well as the allied indians. Victory was overwhelming for mexicans even from the spanish point of view and, as always, only through divine assistance it can be explained not having been completely wiped out. With a little more skepticism to accept supra natural allies, could ask ourselves: why were they not completely wiped out?". (Jose Luis Guerrero. 1990).

The "true history" is that Ixtlilxóchitl, son of Netzahualpilli and grandson of Netzahualcoyotl was stripped of the Texcoco Lordship in 1516 by Moctezuma II, who imposed his nephew Cacamatzin, son of his sister, one of hundreds of wives Netzahualpilli had. This imposition angered Ixtlilxóchitl who was then ready for war. When Cortés arrived, he immediately took sides with Moctezuma foes and brought with him three hundred thousand warriors. Cortés used Ixtlilxóchitl throughout the armed conflict, and Cortes and hispanic historians have denied Ixtlilxóchitl the glory of the deeds of arms, and assigned this to Cortes and his filibusters.^[20]

In fact, the real architect of the mexica defeat was Ixtlilxóchitl and not Cortés, simply because by 1520 Cortés did not have the possibilities of commanding nearly half a million anahuacas that clashed with the mexicas, since he did not have the ability to clearly and explicitly communicate in the Nahuatl language and did not know the war strategies and tactics of the anahuacas. The difficulties of cultural, linguistic and warfare differences made it impossible for Cortés or any spanish to command the Tlaxcalteca armies, Texcocans, Xochimilcas, etc., that took sides with the Spaniards.

Ixtlilxóchitl is who commanded the hundreds of thousands of anahuaca warriors, who ordered cutting the water supply to Tenochtitlan and above all, who planned the spanish rescue out of Tenochtitlan, on which the official hispanic history is silent. In the early morning of the day of the spaniards rescue, Ixtlilxóchitl first attacked the mexicas by water, so when they counterattacked spaniards were able to leave the besieged site. Ixtlilxóchitl also sent an army of 100,000 men to protect the spanish retreat in the plains of Otumba. Cortés in despair, as he had lost the artillery and half of his filibusters, who drowned when falling into the water because they were carrying the gold distributed on the eve, ordered to charge against the army that came to their rescue. The Texcocans receded and the hispanic history takes this event as one of the biggest Cortes victories.

Thanks to Ixtlilxóchitl, the spanish took refuge in Tlaxcala and prevented the mexicas from persecuting and killing them. Another myth is that Cortés and his men built and constructed three ships, to subsequently besiege Tenochtitlan. The ships were mere adornment in the battle of Tenochtitlan because the Lake was very shallow and warfare techniques were by using thousands of small canoes from both sides. The most powerful weapon of the invaders was smallpox. Never in the Anahuac had had ocurred such a catastrophe of the dimensions of this pandemic. Hispanic sources make little reference to "Ixtlilxóchitl and smallpox", in order to depict "the conquerors" as heroes of an epic western "civilizing feat".^[21]

"In practical terms, Ixtlilxóchitl was the real conqueror of Tenochtitlan, because thanks to him Cortés had available troops nearly unlimited —almost half a million warriors— against the, at the most, 50 thousand Cuauhtémoc warriors." (Jose Luis Guerrero. 1990).

In order to be able to pose an un-colonized response, we must understand that the spanish invasion, for the mexicas meant a religious—ideological conflict. It may be possible that the mexicas, proud of themselves, faithful to their god Huitzilopochtli, aware of the transgression to Quetzalcoatl, practitioners of the banned human sacrifices; have decided to proudly sacrifice themselves in Tenochtitlan and accept the divine punishment that represented the struggle against the Quetzalcoatl envoys, because they knew that their neighbors, before the events and fearful of the strength of Quetzalcoatl, were joining "Cortés—Quetzalcoatl-Carlos V" to fall upon them.

The eagle fall and the resistance war.

Be it as it may, the city of Mexico Tenochtitlan fell after heroically resisting 80 days. Without water, food and without any possible aid, fighting house by house, against hundreds of thousands of indigenous allies and a handful of spaniards that took the city on August 13, 1521. Cuauhtémoc was taken prisoner and the siege concluded.

"And when those were taken prisoner, was when townspeople began to come out and to see where they were going to establish themselves. And when they came out they wore tatters, and the little women had their hip flesh almost bare. And everywhere the christians researched [for gold]. They opened their skirts, passed their hands everywhere, by their ears, their breasts, and their hair." (Anonymous Tlatelolco text. 1528).

What ensued could only be possible by the spanish barbarism, the confusion and resentment of the native allies. The spaniards lead the looting, destruction and execution of the mexicas, for whom there was no compassion. The atrocities that were committed, both by the spaniards and their native allies has not been fully documented, but it is very easy to infer.

"It was when they burned Cuauhtemoctzin feet.
When it was barely dawn they brought him, they tied him to a stick in the Ahuizotzin House at Acatliyacapan.
There came the sword, he gun, owned by our masters.
And they took out gold in Cuitlahuactonco, at the House of Itzpotonqui. And when they got it, again took our prince tied towards Coyoacán.
It was on this occasion that the priest that kept Huitzilopochtli died. They had questioned him about the whereabouts of the god attire and those of the high priest of our Lord and the maximum incenser.
Then they were informed that the attires were in Cuauhchichiloco, in Xaltocan; that were kept by some lords.
They went there to get them. When they had the attires, two were hanged in the middle of the road of Mazatlan... There they hanged Macuilxóchitl, King of Huitzilopochco. And then the King of Cuhulacan, Pizotzin. Both were strangled.
And the Tlacatécatl of Cuauhtitlan and the major of the black house, were eaten by dogs.
Also, others from Xochiilco were eaten by dogs.
And three Ehécatl sages, from Texcoco, were eaten by dogs.”
(Anonymous Tlatelolco text. 1528).

Cortés ordered, stone by stone destruction of the city of Tenochtitlan, one of the largest and better developed at that time in the entire planet, so that from the remains, founding the New Spain capital.

This signified the destruction and denial of the defeated civilization, which was immediately banned and persecuted, and continues to the present day.

The Anahuac Civilization, one of the six oldest civilizations of mankind and with autonomous origin, was apparently condemned to disappear. The following text gives us an idea of what happened:

"Ixtlilxuchil [Cortés Texcocan ally] later went to his mother Yacotzin and told her what had happened [the mexica defeat] and that he was there to take her to be baptized, she replied that he should be out of his mind, because so soon they had allowed defeat by a few barbarians, as were the christians, to what don Hernando [Ixtlilxuchil] replied that if she was not his mother who answered, he would remove her head from the shoulders, but that he would do it even if not wanting, that what mattered was the life of the soul [Christ-Quetzalcoatl]; to which she tenderly responded to let her be for the time, that another day she would look at it and would see what to do; and he left Palace and ordered to set fire to the rooms where she was while others say that, because he found her in a temple of idols. Finally she came out saying she wanted to be a christian and took her to Cortés and with a large group attending she was baptized and Cortes was her godfather and named her doña Maria for being the first female christian." (Ramírez Codex)

The conquest of Mexico did not end on August 13, 1521, with the fall of Tenochtitlan. The invaded peoples maintained a permanent resistance, from the Mixtón (1541).^[22] Caxcanes^[23] insurrection until the EZLN^[24] in 1994. Sometimes intermittent, violent, explosive, other permanent, underground and silently, but the resistance will always be present in these five centuries of colonial occupation.

The Great Chichimeca war, during the colonial period. The multiple indigenous rebellions by the Maya and Yaquis in the 19th century and early 20th Centuries are the most famous, but not necessarily the only or the most important. The official creole history, banned and undervalued regional histories. Within them are many indigenous rebellions. Generally very violent and bloody, but without a regional organization of greater transcendence. They were generally stifled with blood and fire, with the full power of the State and the rebels wiped out with unprecedented brutality, in the same way it as done by their predecessors during the invasion and conquest.

The Interesting and novelty of the revolt of the indigenous Maya of Chiapas and the National Liberation Zapatista Army in 1994, is that it was an armed insurrection that declares war on the federal government, but did not fight. The second is that, for the first time in these five centuries of colonial invasion, indigenous peoples have sought to extend their uprising to other indigenous peoples and are linked with to non-indigenous civil society, as well as giving an international character to their struggle.

Crime against Humanity.

The cosmic stability and social harmony in which they had lived, at least during three thousand years were broken violently. The universe and the world suddenly collapsed. After possessing human being qualities, of living as sovereign and free people, being heirs of a civilization of more than seven thousand years, the natives violently and suddenly were lowered to an animal quality. Their new condition was to be defeated and slaves. Their religion, language and culture, became persecuted and denied.

"After the fall of the gods and the cosmic order going mad, came the disruption of human order, the violent conversion of the lords of the land to servers of the conquerors, and alteration of their traditions and ways of life. Violence and change replaced the stability of the old order, so that the daily explosion of violence heightened the feeling of living an alteration of time, a "crazy time, "a total cataclysmic era...". (Enrique Florescano. 1987)

The contemporary Mexicans, as a consequence of the mental and cultural colonization experienced over these five centuries, cannot fully dimension the size of the tragedy lived by our ancestors and what has meant and means for us as people and as human beings. And by the effect of the colonized education, apparently we do not care. The formal education system, the mass media, intellectuals, artists and researchers are so deformed, that some reinforce colonization and the others do not have the capacity to break the inertia of mental colonization. But this "hecatomb" totally shocked the indigenous world known before the invasion, the world of our grandfathers old and continues to brand us up to our days.

Other peoples in the history of humankind have suffered similar cataclysms and with the passage of time have managed to recover. Whether caused by human acts or by nature. But the substantial difference with our people was the viciously brutality, inhumane violence and absolute intolerance, with which first the conquerors and then the colonialist have systematically destroyed the culture and the identity of the defeated through erasing their historical memory, disappearing languages, minimizing and undervaluing their knowledge, depriving them of physical spaces, sacred, religious, and social and destroy and persecute their ancient religion, killing their priests and destroy their temples. Never in mankind history, has been removed from people, for five centuries, their status as human beings and their culture. This drama didn't happen five centuries ago, unfortunately is everyday life in the national life of many Mexicans. Now nuanced and subliminal, but with the same purpose and result. Oppress, alienate and exploit the people of the defeated civilization.

"My fingers are stiff from age. I can no longer write. Humanity will always ignore what happened to this great people. Our civilization has given it such a hard blow that it will never get back and it can be that it will never be known the high intellectual level it had reached ". (Fray Bernardino de Sahagún)

The ignorance of the indigenous past, the inability to "remember", the shame over the indigenous root, the contempt for our own and the praise of the foreign, the be educated —at home and school— as "uneducated foreigners in our own land", can only be explained through a systematic denial of the past. Because past denial is self-denial. If people do not know their history, do not know themselves. It is alien to their destiny. Because as a person, family, and people...we are what we remember.

"The first effect of the conquest on indigenous memory was the destruction of the state system of control over the past. The second was repression of any attempt of the defeated to express and articulate its memory. As of the conquest the transmission of the indigenous past took place in a field of tension created by the mere conquerors presence, in a climate of general repression that drowned forms of remembrance of the past other than those imposed by the victor. To this is owed that the greater part of the systems developed by indigenous peoples to preserve and transmit their past were hidden, often disguised under christian clothes, or was conducted in secret practices." (Enrique Florescano. 1987)

What is not said in mexican society at all cost, is that it is conformed by a small group of victors and a huge majority of defeated. The truth is hidden and is disguised as "romantic encounter" of two cultures. Money holders, neo-colonizer creoles do not like for the defeated—colonized to remind them of the past. And much less, the dehumanized fashion in which they have tried to destroy the conquered civilization. This is the reason why most of the common mexican does not know their “true history”.

A view and opinion of this reality was expressed by Carl Bovallius, Swedish researcher, Member of the Swedish Academy of anthropology and geography, who in 1881 made an exploration and research journey in Central America; among other places he visited the Zapatera and Ometepe islands in Lake Nicaragua.

“In reality, reading the scanty descriptions of the last days of these nations, one feels tempted to assert that in harmonic development of the mental faculties they were superior to that nation, which, by its crowds of rapacious and sanguinary adventurers, honored in history with the name of “los Conquistadores”, has fixed upon itself the heavy responsibility for the annihilation of this civilization. For indeed so swift and radical was this annihilation, through the fanatical vandalism of “Christian” priests and the bloody crimes of a greedy soldatesca, that history knows of no similar example. Thus the investigator of the comparatively modern culture of Central America is obliged to travel by more toilsome and doubtful roads than the student of the ancient forms of civilization of Egypt and India, although these were dead several thousands of years ago.

So much, however, has come to the knowledge of our time, as suffices to prove that the nations of Central America were very far advanced in political and social development as well as in science and art. More so we must continue studying them until achieving a deeper knowledge of their culture, search the whole country perseveringly for the purpose of disclosing the monuments, hidden in the ground or enviously concealed by the primeval vegetation, that now reigns alone in many of those places, which were formerly occupied by populous and flourishing cities, and artistically ornamented temples." (Carl Bovallius. 1886)^[25]

1. The encomienda (Spanish pronunciation: [eŋkoˈmjenda]) was a system that was employed mainly by the Spanish crown during the colonization of the Americas. In the encomienda, the crown granted a person a specified number of natives for whom they were to take responsibility. The receiver of the grant was to protect the natives from warring tribes and to instruct them in the Spanish language and in the Catholic faith.[1] In return, they could extract tribute from the natives in the form of labor, gold or other products, such as in corn, wheat or chickens. In the former Inca empire, for example, the system continued the Incaic (and even pre-Incaic) traditions of extracting tribute under the form of labor.
2. The invasion began in 711 CE and ended in 1492 CE with the fall of Granada, the last Arab stronghold in the Spanish Peninsula.
3. The fall of Constantinople was in 1453 under the command of the Ottoman Mohamed II.
4. José María Muriá Rouret (Mexico City, August 17, 1942) is a historian, writer, museographer, professor, columnist, and Mexican academic who has focused his research in the history of Jalisco, the events of New Galicia, the territorial evolution of the State of Jalisco, the origin of the charreada and the development of the tequila.
5. Tawantinsuyu which can literally be translated as The Four Regions or The Four United Provinces.
6. Source: When China Ruled the Seas: Treasure Fleets of the Dragon Throne by Louise Levathes. 1994. A Treasure ship (Chinese: 宝船; pinyin: bǎochuán) is the name for a type of large wooden vessel commanded by the Chinese admiral Zheng He on seven voyages in the early 15th century in Ming Dynasty. Scholars disagree about the factual accuracy and correct interpretation of accounts of the treasure ships. The purported dimensions of these ships at 137 m (450 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft wide) are at least twice as long as the largest European ships at the end of the sixteenth century and 40% longer and 65% wider than the largest wooden ships known to have been built at any time anywhere else.
7. John Horace Parry (born in Handsworth, Birmingham, England, on 26 April 1914 - died in Cambridge, Massachusetts on August 1982) was a distinguished maritime historian, who served as Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University.
8. Bartolomé de las Casas O.P. (c. 1484[1] – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar. He became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians". His extensive writings, the most famous being "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies" and "Historia de Las Indias", chronicle the first decades of colonization of the West Indies, focusing particularly on the atrocities committed by the colonizers against the Indigenous peoples.
9. The Capitulations of Santa Fe between Christopher Columbus and the Catholic Monarchs were signed in Santa Fe, Granada on April 17, 1492. They granted Columbus the titles of Admiral of the Ocean Sea, the Viceroy, the Governor-General and honorific Don, and also the tenth part of all riches to be obtained from his intended voyage. The document followed a standard form in 15th-century Castile with specific points arranged in chapters. Although not a formal agreement, the capitulations resulted from negotiation.
10. Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492–1585) was a conquistador, who wrote an eyewitness account of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards under Hernán Cortés, himself serving as a rodelero under Cortés.
11. Silvio Arturo Zavala Vallado (born February 7, 1909) is a pioneer in law history studies and Mexico’s institutions. Born in Mérida, Yucatán, he studied at the National University of Mexico and at the University of Madrid, obtaining a Ph.D. in law from the latter. He began his professional career in Spain in the Center for Historic Studies in Madrid.
12. Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1489–1573) was a Spanish humanist, philosopher and theologian. In 1533 and 1534 he wrote to Desiderius Erasmus from Rome concerning differences between Erasmus's Greek New Testament (the Textus Receptus), and the Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209. He was the adversary of Bartolomé de las Casas in the Valladolid Controversy in 1550 concerning the justification of the Spanish Conquest of the Indies. Sepúlveda was the defender of the Spanish Empire's right of conquest, of colonization, and of evangelization in the so-called New World. He argued on the base of natural law philosophy and developed a position which was different from the position of the School of Salamanca, as represented famously by Francisco de Vitoria. He wrote the “A treatise on the just causes of the war against the Indians”.
13. Professor Jacques Lafaye, (21 March 1930–) is a French historian who, from the early 1960s has written influentially on cultural and religious Spanish and Latin American history. His most popular work is Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe written in 1974 regarding the formation of the Mexican National Consciousness and includes a prologue of Octavio Paz and is regarded as a key stone for the understanding of the contemporary Mexican culture and is regarded as one of the most comprehensive analysis of the colonial period in Mexico.
14. The Spaniards called "rescue and pacify" as an euphemism to plunder and colonize
15. Silvio Arturo Zavala Vallado (born February 7, 1909) is a pioneer in law history studies and Mexico’s institutions. Born in Mérida, Yucatán, he studied at the National University of Mexico and at the University of Madrid, obtaining a Ph.D. in law from the latter. He began his professional career in Spain in the Center for Historic Studies in Madrid.
16. Foreigners such as Gonzalo Guerrero have reached Mexico and have given the best of themselves and their lives to forge a nation. Not only men of arms like Francisco Javier Mina, but men of letters and arts, such as León Felipe or the many intellectuals who came as refugees from the Spanish Civil War.
17. In Aztec mythology, Xiuhtecuhtli ("Turquoise Lord" or "Lord of Fire"), was the god of fire, day and heat. He was the lord of volcanoes, the personification of life after death, warmth in cold (fire), light in darkness and food during famine. He was also named Cuezaltzin ("flame") and Ixcozauhqui, and is sometimes considered to be the same as Huehueteotl ("Old God"), although Xiuhtecuhtli is usually shown as a young deity. His wife was Chalchiuhtlicue. Xiuhtecuhtli is a manifestation of Ometecuhtli, the Lord of Duality, and according to the Florentine Codex Xiuhtecuhtli was considered to be mother and father of the Gods, who dwelled in the turquoise enclosure in the center of earth.
18. It is necessary to make a clarification. When we refer in the history of the conquest and colonization by "spaniards", we do not mean the noble Spanish people of yesterday and today. On the other hand we are talking about a handful of criminals rovers who wrote with blood and injustice the saddest pages of human history.
19. SEP, Public Education Secretary, Mexico
20. A filibuster, or freebooter, is someone who engages in an unauthorized military expedition into a foreign country to foment or support a revolution. The term is usually used to describe United States citizens who attempted to foment insurrections in Latin America in the mid-19th century.
21. See: "Myths and fantasies of the Aztecs, the Spanish and the conquest of Mexico". Guillermo Marín. www.toltecayotl.org books section.
22. The Mixtón War was fought from 1540 until 1542 between Spanish invaders and their Aztec and Tlaxcalan allies against the Caxcanes and other semi-nomadic Indians of the area of north western Mexico. The war was named after Mixtón, a hill in the southern part of Zacatecas state in Mexico which served as an Indian stronghold.
23. The Caxcan. Although other indigenous groups also fought against the Spanish in the Mixton War, the Caxcanes were the “heart and soul” of the resistance.
24. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN) is a revolutionary leftist group based in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. Since 1994, the group has been in a declared war "against the Mexican state," though this war has been primarily nonviolent and defensive against military, paramilitary, and corporate incursions into Chiapas. Their social base is mostly rural indigenous people but they have some supporters in urban areas as well as an international web of support. Their main spokesperson is Subcomandante Marcos (currently a.k.a. Delegate Zero in relation to "the Other Campaign"). Unlike other Zapatista spokespeople, Marcos is not an indigenous Mayan.
25. Carl Bovallius. Nicaraguan Antiquities, 1886, pg. 6 - 7