Discovery & Conquest of Mexico

This book is gripping and easy to read. Most young adults with they could go on a great adventure, Bernal Diaz (19 or 20 when he started this story) was no different. Of all the true, historically accurate autobiographies I have read, this book is the best hands down. Whether it is fighting against thousands of natives and receiving 7 arrow wounds in one battle or fighting alongside the natives to defeat Montezuma, this book is what most fantasy novels can only attempt. Bernal does have a small thesis: Cortez should not get all the glory but history should share it with the other conquistadors who did as much or more of the actual fighting and converting. Highly recommended.

This first hand account of Cortez's conquest of Mexico was written by Bernal Diaz', one of Cortez swordsmen. It is perhaps the most interesting and detailed first hand account of a historical event ever written. Diaz' writes about the battles, Cortez' manipulation of the various Indian tribes and his own men, and he provides intimate details on the personality of Montezuma. It is an exciting, powerful, informative, cover to cover, real-life, adventure. Another good read on this subject are Cortez's letters to the King. As can be seen, Cortez' was in hot water because he co-opted the expedition to serve his own ends, and he was trying to con (And intimidate) the King into favoring him, rather than the governer of Cuba, from whom he stole the expedition. Cortez' tried to convince the king that he could get millions of indians to follow him, and that they could make brass cannons, gun powder, etc. ( Which by implication, could be used against any forces to bring him to justice.) He also bribed the king by sending him some of the gold that he stole from the indians, and implying the he could send much, much more. As can be seen, one of Cortez' other swordsmen went on to conquer the Incas, by using the same methods that Cortez used against the Aztecs.

Several decades ago, as a college sophomore, I was assigned to read Bernal Díaz' work as part of a Latin American history course. The title did not give me much hope. I imagined having to force myself to sit at a desk night after night in order to finish the book. To my great surprise, once I began to read this incredible eye-witness account, I could not put it down. Still, some 38 years later, Bernal Díaz' story, as one of the soldiers who accompanied Cortés, remains forever as one of the best books I have ever read on any subject. Vivid, eye-witness description of the whole story of the Conquest of Mexico in 1519 will rivet you to the pages, if you have even the slightest sense of history or desire to imagine strange events in faroff places. Here is the tale of how the Spanish soldiers, led by Cortés, despite tremendous odds, toppled an ancient civilization, destroying it utterly, and began a new society that would eventually become modern Mexico. Where else are you going to read words like these, describing the Spaniards' first arrival in Tenochtitlan, which would become Mexico City ? "When we saw so many cities and villages built both in the water and on dry land, and this straight, level causeway, we couldn't restrain our admiration. It was like the enchantments told about in the book of Amadis, because of the high towers, temples, and other buildings, all of masonry, which rose from the water. Some of our soldiers asked if what we saw was not a dream." Alliances, intrigues, battles, retributions, strange gods and the clash of utterly different cultures fill this amazing book. If you have any fondness for history, if you have any curiosity about vanished civilizations, if you would like to ponder about Fate with more substance than usual (!), then Bernal Díaz is your man. Do not pass this book by.

Let me share with you one of the most beautiful reveiws of Bernal's epic, writen by the great Guatemalan writer and poet Luis Cardoza y Aragón (from his book "Guatemala: The Lines of Her Palm", translated into English by Michelle Suderman): I started leafing through The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico at my student's desk, at night by lamplight. I skimmed summaries, the odd page, then began my reading in an orderly fashion. Tirelessly, I penetrated further and further into the enchanted forest, mesmerized by the story and by this encounter with my warrior culture, with the conquest. I was entering a distant and fascinating world. I witnessed and experienced the legendary campaign. I saw and heard it. I smelled its odor of iron, gunpowder and tired bodies. I was awed by the descriptions of Tenochtitlan, the markets and Moctezuma's court. The blood looked fresh on the steps of the pyramids. As Humboldt points out, the exhilaration of a newly discovered world is better transmitted by chroniclers than by poets. My first contact with this work was positively prodigious. Exhaustion came after reading for many hours without being able to stop. Captivated by descriptions and memories, I kept going, reading a little more, just a little more. I finally left off when the light of the new day began singing in my window. This is the most comprehensive work on the conquest of America, though it speaks only of New Spain. It contains a wealth of information, and details of all orders, that we do not find in posterior writings on related events-not even adding them together. It was written in Antigua Guatemala, where Díaz del Castillo took up residence in 1545 at the age of forty-nine, and where he died in 1584 after having lived there for about thirty-nine years. He was an old man when he wrote his Discovery and Conquest, nearly half a century after the siege of Mexico Tenochtitlan and the conquest of Guatemala. Bernal Díaz del Castillo's chronicle is the most important and engaging of all, the most truthful and comprehensive account of the conquest of America. He wrote it not only in his quest for truth, to refute the chronicles of Cortés's chaplain, Gómara, and his followers, but out of a need to relive the conquest, out of the same hunger that engendered Don Quixote in Cervantes. Old wounds were opened as he wrote: he himself confesses that he slept with his arms loaded, and that in his old age, he slept fully dressed, accustomed to the exhausting days he spent in Mexico. He was twice conqueror, but the true conquest was the one he carried out seated at his desk, still wearing armor, but no longer wielding the saber.There are very close ties between this work and the author's life. There was nothing else he could have written. His heart was spilling over with it. Chroniclers would write of the Peru campaigns, campaigns against Turkey, Flanders or Italy, of strangers fighting strangers. Díaz del Castillo wrote about his l

Review by Tom rederiksen - http://members.aol.com/spdtom/index.html - AZTEC STUDENT TEACHER RESOURCE CENTER: Diaz is an accomplished writer and I was impressed with his attention to detail as it related to the daily life and inter-personal relationships between the Conquistadors. This is a fairly long book but reads easily and anyone that enjoys a good adventure or mystery novel will find this an interesting book. As there are precious few first hand accounts from this time period, this first hand narrative is a must read for anyone getting started in the study of the Mexican conquest time period. This book was written rather late in life by the author. Supposedly, Diaz read a copy of a book by Lopez de Gomara, Chronicle of the Conquest of New Spain, and was so outraged by references to "Cortes this", and "Cortes that", that the old soldier penned this classic. Were it not for the work of Diaz, the world would not have a comprehensive record of the conquest. A must read.