Your thoughts on Hernando Cortez

[evilbutterfly]

So for my Senior Project I had to pick somebody in history or a big author and write a paper about him/her. Part of the paper is that I need to include criticisms of the person's actions/writings. I looked for a while and finally found like, ONE serious criticism of Hernando Cortez. This got me to thinking, "How do people really feel about Hernán?"

Hence I made this topic. I personally don't know what I think of him. I guess it's cool that he came over and got stuff going in America so I could be born here, but I don't suppose it's too cool that his conquest led to the native Mexicans getting owned. So, what do YOU think of Señor Cortez?

Note: I'm not trying to get stuff to put in my paper. It's a serious paper anyway, and I don't think citing this thread in my Bibliography would reflect very well upon me. I'm just wondering...

[IAMTHEEVILBEAN]

RE: Your thoughts on Hernando Cortez

Well, you could ridicule the fact that he killed thousands of people, but at the same time you could praise him for clearing them out for future settlers.

You picked a bad person.

[evilbutterfly]

RE: Your thoughts on Hernando Cortez

Actually... http://www.chapala.com/chapala/ojo20...nancortez.html

He discouraged killing the natives. He was mostly just cruel to his own people. The big slaughter that is really famous, where they killed a bunch of people during a festival celebrating some god, the Spaniards didn't even do that. They got Tlaxcallans from the surrounding area and brought them along and let them attack. The Tlaxcallans hated the Aztecs for being rich jerks, so they were vicious and slaughtered women and children. The Spanish were horrified by their actions.

[Cenright]

RE: Your thoughts on Hernando Cortez

You know, Stalin wiped out almost as many people as Hitler. Stalin was getting rid of his OWN people though. The rejects, the cripples, the criminals. All of the people who weren't pulling their weight. You could say he made it so that Russia could survive, but that was on top of the murder of millions.


One person can not put a price on another person's life. If these two people can be called good, then you can easily make a case for slavery, and, well, let's just say that the US had a Civil war for a reason.