Cortez, the Christian Contradiction.

  One of the things that really struck me while reading Camilla Townsend’s book “Malintzin’s Choices” was the sheer hypocrisy with which supposed “Christian” Hernan Cortez conducted himself.

     While Cortez claimed that he was conquering the Americas to Christianize the indigenous people whom he viewed as barbaric savages, inferior to the Spaniards, primarily because they did not share his Christian faith, his actions are anything but “Christian.” Not only was Cortez a brutal and ruthless conquistador, responsible for what can only be described as full-scale genocide of Native Americans, but the way he conducted himself in his personal life was hardly in keeping with Judeo-Christian values. Cortez was well-known to be a womanizer of legendary proportions, the book noting that accounts claiming he had “over 40 Indian woman at his disposal at his house at Coyoacan.” The book also alludes to the possibility that he was abusive to his wife, Dona Catalina Suarez, and eventually had her killed. While much of this is considered speculative and not entirely factually provable, it does cast doubt on the sincerity of Cortez’s faith, or his mental stability.

     Indeed, even associates or close friends, such as Diego De Ordas, saw him as a man without conscience. Indeed, his use of torture, inhumane acts of cruelty and violence towards indigenous people and promiscuity are directly contradictory to the teachings of Jesus Christ, the man Cortez claimed to follow so devoutly. Either Cortez was using religion to mask his ulterior motives, or he was simply a sociopath who was so narcissistic he truly believed that God was on his side, and that only the divine could stop the Europeans. He cleverly used “divide and conquer” techniques, to pit varying factions within the Aztec Empire, and was thus able to control, manipulate, and eventually overcome and conquer them all. While we don’t have access to Cortez’s psychology, nor the full facts about what exactly happened during the fall of the Aztec Empire, it’s still interesting to speculate about.