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8/13/1521 was the day of the capture of Cuatemoc and the fall of Tenochtitlan.

Bernal del Castillo was a soldier who accompanied Cortes to the land they called new spain. He wrote this book 20 years after he got back from mexico. He, as others have said, must have had an eidetic memory. This book is a Marvel of a memoir.

As Bernal del Castillo said himself in his writings, the reader must tire of reading about day after day of endless strife and warfare. This war, Cortes taking Mexico for the king of Spain, Carlos V, he was not going to give up. Because he knew the land was full of silver and gold, and because he wanted to convert all of the Indians to christianity, he refused to give in, though many thousands of his men, and the Indian allies, were wounded and died. Many, many Spaniards were sacrificed to the idols of the indians.

I have a very low opinion of Spain and the conquerors who went to mexico, impoverished the country, stole the culture, forced their cult on the inhabitants, but when I read this part from when they first landed by modern-day Veracruz, it really pissed me off:
"... when we perceived their intentions we were on the point of firing at them, but it pleased God that we agreed to call out to them, and through Julianillo and Melchorejo, who spoke their language very well, we told them that they need have no fear, that we wished to talk to them, for we had things to tell them which when they understood them they would be glad that we had come to their country and their homes. Moreover, we wished to give them some of the things we had brought with us. As they understood what was said to them, four of the canoes came near with about 30 Indians in them, and we showed them strings of green beads and small mirrors and blue cut glass beads, and as soon as they saw them they assumed a more friendly manner, for they thought that they were Chalchihuites [jadeite] which they value greatly."

One part I liked the, is when the conquerors found out that some previously landed Spaniards have been taken prisoners, and were being used as slaves for the Chiefs of some tribes. Cortes used a bunch of those beads for a ransom to try to get them back. They did get one of them back, his name was Jerónimo de Aguilar, and they kept this Guy as a translator throughout the war With Tenochtitlán. As for the other one, his name was Gonzalo Guerrero, and he had married an Indian woman, and had three boys with her. The wife told off Aguilar saying,
" 'what is this slave coming here for talking to my husband - go off with you, and don't trouble us with any more words.' "

The way that Indians observed the Spaniards kneeling before trees they had cut into a cross made me laugh.
"Let us now leave this question of visits and relate that it was now the time of the Ave maria, and at the sound of a bell which we had in the camp we all fell on our knees before a cross placed on a sandhill and said our prayers of the Ave Maria before the cross. When Tendile and Pitalpotoque saw us kneeling as they were very intelligent, they asked what was the reason that we humbled ourselves before a tree cut in that particular way." ( )

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A first-hand account of the conquest of the Aztecs by Cortez. First recommended to me as a boy by my father. ( )