Word: corte
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...French Scholar Jean Descola, lacks the firsthand touch of that truly wonderful story; it is a brilliant work of historical synthesis, written with an eloquence that is Spanish and an aphoristic bite that is French. For part of the way the two books travel together, since both chronicle the Cortés conquest. The 16th century soldier and the 20th century scholar tell much the same story-the fantastic saga of Hernán Cortés, a vagabond student from Salamanca who became one of the most famous conquerors in history...
Dream Landscape. "His mission was religious and military," says Author Descola, and makes clear that at the time no Spaniard saw a contradiction in this. Cortés formed his expeditionary fleet in Santiago de Cuba, and his flag bore the device: "Brothers and comrades, let us follow the Cross, and if we have true faith in this symbol, we will conquer." The facts will always remain astonishing-how Cortés scuttled his ten ships (not "burned behind him," but dismantled and sunk, despite legend and the Encyclopaedia Britannica) and with his Aztec mistress, 400 Spaniards, 15 horses...
...Indians who were fighting Cortés have been glorified by many historians; nevertheless, these books make clear that the battle was between the armed faith of Christian Europe and a cruel empire whose ceremonies seemed to the Spanish soldiers a bloody, blasphemous parody of the Mass. Inland, the conquistadors first met the strange Mexican-Indian priesthood, men whose hair was caked with human blood and whose temple floors were clogged with it. The Christians had no hesitation in breaking their idols. Even then they had no notion that in the city of Tenochtitlán as many...
...Chronicles ends with Cortés; leaving him behind, The Conquistadors moves on to Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, whose life matches that of Cortés for sheer drama...
...Judge. In his story of Cortés, Pizarro and the other conquistadors-Balboa, Coronado, Ponce de Leon, De Soto-Author Descola gives not only gaudy melodrama but also psychological insights, which make the figures on this great tapestry emerge as living men. In the end it was the Dominican, Las Casas, the "Apostle of the Indies," who judged the conquistador's pride. A conquistador himself before he entered his order, he served as a bishop in Mexico and bitterly fought against Spanish officials for the abolition of slavery; history has vindicated his demand that the conquered has equal...