As a retired history teacher, I was pretty excited to watch this episode of "Secrets of the Dead". That's because the show didn't just recap what you'd see in other documentaries but actually reinterprets history in an interesting way--showing that our perceptions about a historical event might not be correct. History books tell us that Cortes and his warriors conquered the Aztecs rather easily. The Spanish are seen as very ruthless and tough--the Aztecs very fierce but completely overwhelmed due to their superstitions and panic that set in when these Spaniards attacked. Most books say that the Aztecs treated the Spanish well and the Spanish simply destroyed them with their guns and horses (both of which these natives had never seen). However, in this show, the researchers excavate a burial ground from the era and they were startled with what they found. Instead of evidence supporting this surprise attack by Cortes, it appeared as if the Aztecs had ritually sacrificed some of Cortes' people first--including several women (and women are not usually included in history books). In other words, the Aztecs MIGHT have actually precipitated their eventual demise by killing some of the invaders. There's lots of room for debate--Cortes and his men might acted exactly the same towards the natives whether or not the men were sacrificed. In other words, as 'Conquistadors', they intended all along to slaughter and take over the Aztec empire. There's also a possibility that these dead Spaniards in the burial site were NOT from Cortes' party--but from rival Spaniards come to check up on him or from a group that Cortes left behind on his way back to the Aztec capital. Regardless, there is now a lot of room to doubt the traditional narrative--and the show seems to spend a lot of time trying to interpret why the Aztec's sacrificed the Europeans. The most striking interpretation of the bones appears to corroborate that the captives were not only sacrificed but eaten! Interesting and thought-provoking even if the exact chain of events is still rather murky.
2 Reviews
about nonsense
gs2015 September 2010
I think it is outrageous to use the unfounded premise that the aztecs treated the spaniards as gods or other worldly beings during their entire contact with them........and tie that to the discovery of sacrificed or executed Spanish remains at an aztec holy sight......why the producers of the program would be surprised at finding Spanish skeletons anywhere in the aztec empire is just bizarre to me when i am sure they are aware that cortez lost at least 800-900 men during his flight from the aztec capital and also lost men during the aztec uprising against the Spanish garrison left by cortez in the aztec capital when he went to answer a military challenge by his political enemies......when he came back to the capital he had many more men than his original 5 or 6 hundred due to persuading the remaining members of the Spanish force he had just defeated to join him......not to mention losses suffered by his native allies..........why they would frame the program in the way that they did i can only guess at..........probably to make it seem a more sensational discovery than it actually is..........they discovery of European remains anywhere in aztec lands or even outside their immediate area of influence is absolutely no surprise to me or anyone else who has even only briefly studied that time and place in history............as well, the belief that the aztecs thought the Spanish were supernatural was likely dispelled the first time an aztec war club cracked a Spanish skull or snapped a Spanish arm or leg........i find the whole thing reprehensible on the part of the historians involved and i will be careful to mark their names for my future reference.......revisionism is a bad thing and they should be aware of that more so than anyone.
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