Re:Napoleon Was the Best General Ever
by maxerickson on Friday August 17, 2018 @12:07PM
(#17783777)
I don't think there's many people that label the conquistadors as righteous.
Today, probably not many. But from the 1600s to the 1940s, it was definitely the norm. And there's a lot of people who will read the self-congratulatory histories from that time period and parrot the "facts" back as unquestioned truth.
The argument of how few Spaniards fought in Tenochtitlan has been used in both sides.
Here in Mexico is common for pro-native and anti-hispanic proponents to try to picture the evil few Europeans who got advantage of their technology against the innocent Aztecs. But they usually fail to mention that Tlaxcala and a lot of other native kingdoms joined the Spaniards against the Aztec empire that dominated Central Mexico, it's easier to picture a war between Native vs Invaders, but that doesn't mean it's correct.
For some proponents Europeans were the good ones, for some other they were the evil ones. Evil vs good is easier to picture than trying to understand the whole story with its gray areas.
And don't forget the 700 Thespians fighting with Sparta. And the 400 Thebans. And there may have been 1000 Spartans, not 300. In any event, our historical sources don't make much tactical sense when taken literally, and there is a great deal of mythical allusion and propaganda going on here.
> Hey, so if Montezuma and the Aztecs were beaten by 20 guys with superior weaponry this guy would conclude just by the numbers that they were even greater.
The Aztecs were defeated largely by the 20,000 Tlaxcala allies of Cortes. But sure, let's ignore the importance of the natives so we can make the Europeans seem righteous and laudatory.