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I just wanted to add to this that it's not as if the Spaniards were appalled by violence itself, just by the cultural difference in how it was applied. As Montaigne pointed out, early modern Europeans were at least as cruel toward enemies and captives, they just expressed it in different ways: i.e. via public executions of witches and heretics, or the tortures of the Inquisition and secular courts. Admittedly Montaigne is writing here about Tupis from Brazil rather than Aztecs, but his point applies in both cases I think:

"After having treated their prisoners well for a long time, giving them all the provisions that they could one, he who is the chief calls a great assembly of his acquaintances. He ties a rope to one of the arms of the prisoner and on the other end, several feet away, out of harm's way, and gives to his best friend the arm to hold; and the two of them, in the presence of the assembled group, slash him to death with their swords. That done, they roast him and eat him together, sending portions to their absent friends. They do this, not as is supposed, for nourishment as did the ancient Scythians; it represents instead an extreme form of vengeance. The proof of this is that when they saw that the Portuguese, who had allied themselves with their adversaries, executed their captives differently, burying them up to the waist and firing numerous arrows into the remainder of the body, hanging them afterward, [the Tupi] viewed these people from another world, who had spread the knowledge of many vices among their neighbors, and who were much more masterly than they in every sort of evil, must have chosen this sort of revenge for a reason. Thinking that it must be more bitter than their own, they abandoned their ancient way to imitate this one.

I am not so concerned that we should remark on the barbaric horror of such a deed, but that, while we quite rightly judge their faults, we are blind to our own."

http://www2.fiu.edu/~harveyb/oncannibal.htm

> I just wanted to add to this that it's not as if the Spaniards were appalled by violence itself, just by the cultural difference in how it was applied

Yes exactly. Here we have two cultures still heavily under the influence of their own general religions, and the ways that each allowed or dealt with applying violence. Each reflected the cultural view of what "reality" was. In Europe, shamanism had been replaced with Christianity, which had its own concept of the real world — one that was a prelude to an afterlife, in which one would be judged. For the Aztecs (and for other New World peoples too) reality was in no insignificant part determined by the knowledge of priestly shamans, their experiences, and the experiences that people had during rituals. All three of those were heavily influenced (according to Watson and others) by the natural presence of the world's strongest hallucinogens that were unknown in Europe. Add to that much more extreme weather, and you have the recipe for understanding the world as a potentially violent, terrifying place. If blood sacrifice or even human sacrifice seems to appease the capricious gods of that reality, then of course it makes perfect sense to do it.

>As Montaigne pointed out, early modern Europeans were at least as cruel toward enemies and captives, they just expressed it in different ways: i.e. via public executions of witches and heretics, or the tortures of the Inquisition and secular courts.

Yes, this was my instant thought. What a naive Eurocentric way to think of history to insinuate that everyone except the Europeans were just barbaric savages who killed and devalued life. As if the Europeans weren't fresh off their own multi-year killing sprees for this and that reason that equally would have baffled Native Americans.

I don't think the poster was insinuating that - if he's read Bernal Diaz, he no doubt has few illusions about medieval europeans. They literally did stuff like murdering fat people so they could use their fat to treat the wounds of their horses. Nobody could read 'The Conquest of New Spain' and come away with the impression that Cortez was anything but an absolutely awful, atrociously evil person.

Then why would he say things like:

>What you see is two cultures separated by an almost unimaginable amount of time, distance, and history. The clash that occurred would have been hard to prevent whenever it happened.

Because surely there was more they had in common than that made them different.

I don't know. Bernal Diaz definitely saw a lot of commonalities between the Aztecs and the Spanish. I think the two differences that stuck out for me were the Spanish were way more fanatical, and also way more likely to go back on agreements if it would benefit them. I don't know what was going on in Spanish politics at the time - but if Cortez is typical, it must have been an absolute nest of vipers.

I was not insinuating anything in particular, merely pointing out the vast differences in the cultures and, to an important extent, their inability to reason about each other in a constructive way.

As I said, the clash would have been hard to prevent. The biological consequences of foreign diseases are an important way things wouldn't have been other than tragic.

Cortez did treat the first nation he encountered respectfully, agreeing to help them in their war with a far more powerful nation. (Similar dynamic in North America, before King Philip's War, which happened because the mutual respect didn't last.) If the Europeans had decided to treat everyone with respect - "Just looking!", they would have been the only group there with any interest in doing that.

I have heard this reframed as "Cortez was actually a better politician than he was a general, unifying enough Aztec-hating factions to take down the Aztecs and then maneuver politically to the top once those factions succeeded".

Are there any examples in history where a people were “Just Looking” and left another group alone. Makes you think aliens have probably never visited our solar system.

There are some isolated incidents. One of my favorites is the English expedition to New England in 1602 led by Bartholomew Gosnold. Upon reaching the vicinity, the English were surprised to find Native Americans hailing them in a Basque fishing vessel wearing European clothes. The Indians boarded the English ship and the two groups made themselves understood through the language barrier. It turns out, the Native Americans had been trading and fishing with Europeans for years. The whole affair ended amicably with the parties going their separate ways. Primary sources exist, but here is a quick summary [1]

[1] http://www.woodsholemuseum.org/oldpages/sprtsl/v16n2-Gosnold... (page 11)

Arguably Abel Tasman discovering New Zeaaland fits this criteria.

He sailed to NZ, and tried to go ashore to collect water, but the local Maori attacked and killed 4 of his men before they even got ashore, so he left. It was another 100 years before Captain Cook and his crew became the first Europeans to set foot on New Zealand.

> The clash that occurred would have been hard to prevent whenever it happened. As others have pointed out, even basic biology (immunity) was different enough to make an enormous difference without people consciously having to do anything.

In the 16th to 19th centuries, I suppose it would have been an insurmountable medical problem. But what if they were separated until today? Perhaps in an alternate universe, instead of a wooden sailing ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean, toxic gas bubbled up from the mid-Atlantic ridge (and a similar barrier in the Pacific), requiring pressurized aircraft to fly over. Or the two groups were on separate planets, requiring space travel to meet.

Would we be able to deal with the medical problems today?

Or, in a less unlikely scenario, there were plagues in the Americas that decimated European settlers more than the reverse, allowing the Native Americans to co-opt European shipbuilding and colonize Africa and Eurasia. Interesting to think about!

There is a Bande Desinee with a plot just like that: https://www.bdgest.com/preview-1673-BD-nous-les-morts-les-en...

> Moctezuma sent some emissaries to greet him. They brought two others with them, who were sacrificed in front of the Spaniards.

The Aztecs were not the only people living in the 1500s Mesoamerica. I don't know much, but Wikipedia mentions peoples like Purepechas, Talaxcaltecs, Matlazincas, Tecos, Mazahuas, Otomies and Chontales. And not even all Nahuas were Aztecs.

Was ritualistic human sacrifice a common practice among all these peoples, or was it something that mostly only Aztecs did?

Sacrifice, up to and including human sacrifice, is a common practice of most world traditional religions. Mesoamericans had a large dose of various forms of self-sacrifice and ritualized human sacrifice. That said, the Aztecs did ramp it up to 11 as a form of political propaganda ("look at how powerful we are, by how many people who captured"). This makes it difficult to estimate how much sacrifice they actually did, since most of the accounts are probably exaggerated to an unknown degree.

Ritual human sacrifice, across history, is universal. However, in the Old World it became less common (and animal sacrifice more common — a possible explanation for animal domestication). Watson and others argue that Shamanism was different in the New World, as it relied on naturally occurring high powered hallucinogens (most of which are endemic to the new world) which produced horrifying visions, thereby affecting the broader culture. I find this a compelling thesis.

it's true that culture shock was at play, that said was it hard to just back off and accept that people whoever they are should keep their land ?

methinks that it gave one big and convenient argument to the takeover for material and spices. they're inhuman, we shall have no shame in wiping them.

I read recently about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Ginés_de_Sepúlveda and his nemesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas (who lived in South America and could see through the cultural barrier)

Their was a movie about the meeting with the pope also.

You're right that a lot of these stories are retold as propaganda to justify conquest but:

> was it hard to just back off and accept that people whoever they are should keep their land ?

It was only "theirs" by the same process of brutal conquest that the Spaniards later turned on them.

unless they came on virgin land which is probable

> that said was it hard to just back off and accept that people whoever they are should keep their land ?

Yes? Consider Australia's situation where the natives had 0 concept of land ownership and sovereignty. Were the british colonists looking for more land just to assume that the aboriginals own the whole entire continent? Even though they used barely any of it at one time?

Mah that's ridiculous; even if they use only 10% most colonies ended up abusing and keeping natives at lower than they needed to enjoy their lives as they always did.

Plus it's easy to come and negotiate friendly, especially in Australia where it's not like it's crowded .