Warren H. Carroll

Our Lady of Guadalupe & the Conquest of Darkness

Una nueva, y necesaria, forma de ver la conquista de México

Nevermind if you are a Catholic, a Protestant or neither. Are you against human sacrifices and for human rights? Well, then get rid of your prejudices and read this book. It is time that our young folk at college start getting the facts right, if not at college then thru the original sources. This book is a summary of the Conquest (physical & spiritual) of Mexico by the Catholic kingdom of Spain. Whether you like it or not not is not the point... they are FACTS! History is not to be liked or disliked, it's past and there's nothing to do about it. Those who consider the Christianization of the Aztecs (along with their subjugation to a new people) wrong, they ought to tell me what they would have done if they were among the Spaniards of those times! I say it's ridiculous to put ourselves in the position of folks 500 years ago while living in the sedative & government-subsidized world of today (unless you're a hypocrite to dare).

How can this excellent historian condense all the adventures and facts of this history in so few pages is something that I haven't seen before. The result is that not only every page, but every line and every word is precisely chosen and placed. I am savoring every page of it, going back and re-reading to fully grasp the implication of the scenes described.

Mr. Warren H. Carroll's catholicism doesn't diminish the accuracy or objectivity of this account; we are talking History, not politics or religion, and Mr Carroll is a historian of top-notch quality. He uses Aztec as well as Spanish sources that, either were themselves witnesses or recuperate testimonies from witnesses. Mr Carroll knows the contemporary accounts of the Conquest, and he specially uses the version by Salvador de Madariaga (if anybody knows him he can be reassured of his qualified status among historians).

Facts: In 1487 during the rulership of a Tlacaellel among the Aztecs, and when he was 89 years old, he dedicated the new pyramid-temple in the center of Tenochtitlan. He dedicated with the greatest mass sacrifice of his "reign". The sacrifice went on for 4 days and 4 nights killing 80,000 people from the hostile provinces and the swollen ranks of slavery. It took only 15 seconds to kill each victim (they were that expert).

Those pre-marxists and socialists of yester-year killed about 50,000 folk a year. Do our college professors and minority rights advocates consider this a legitimate part of their ancient culture?

There's many, many amazing and eloquent stories to be read here. But I want to finish by mentioning Mr Carroll's point about how the Conquest of Mexico (and by extension of all Hispanic America) got a bad name. I bet the hypocrite progressists of our anti-American campuses know well Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas. This monk would become such an "advocate of all the Indians that he tried to pretend that the horrors of human sacrifice in Mexico were only a tiny fraction of what they actually were ... there can never be an obligation to stand by while thousands of innocent people are being killed because of state or "religious" policy, if one has the power and the means to prevent it without causing still greater evils." Says the author of this little book, and I agree, although this is still in our day a great debate.

But I recommend this great book also because it is one of the greatest stories in human history, condensed and viewed from a very interesting point of view, specially if you believe that God knows it all and that nothing falls short of His plan. If so, one has to start accepting that Cortés had something more than talent and courage to account for in order to take over such an immense empire. Could it be that God was with him? A bunch of coincidences and fortunes kept the conquistadors alive and winning against all imaginable odds... maybe God really answered their prayers.

And every time the conquistadors arrived somewhere and established themselves, the Cross had always to be present, and the name of Christ in there lips ready to shield them from evil. This man Cortés may not have been a saint, or even a good Christian (nobody can say) but there is no doubt that he trusted the Lord for his protection, and that he procured with all his heart to abolish idols and human sacrifices straightfowardly.

If Cortés had always been a heroe to me, now I see him in a new and even more favorable light.

When Cortes was beaten out of the Aztec capital, during the Night of Sorrow, he saught refuge among the Tlaxcalans, a people who were enemies of the Aztecs. Then...

"Blind old chief Xicotencatl, and his fellow chiefs greeted Cortés with these words: Oh, Malinche, Malinche, how sorry we are about your misfortunes and that of your brothers, and the many of our own people who have been killed along with yours! ... Now it has happened and no more can be done at present but to attend you and give youfood. YOU ARE AT HOME; REST AND SOON WE WILL GO TO OUR TOWN AND PUT YOU UP. Do not think, Malinche, that it was a little thing to escape with your lives from that strong city with its bridges. I tell you that IF BEFORE WE TOOK YOU TO BE VERY BRAVE, NOW WE TAKE YOU TO BE MUCH MORE SO."

All indigenous Mexicans should read this story and think for themselves if it was worth it. Actually they have done so, for only leftists and phony intellectuals pretending to be the protectors of their rights still wish they kept their cults of death and darkness.