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Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón to Spanish speakers), the man who found the "New World" while thinking he had reached China or Japan. While he was born in Italy, he sailed under the patronage of Queen Isabela of Spain. While both countries claim him, in the United States (largely because the number of Italian-Americans is far greater than that of Spanish-Americans), Columbus Day parades are largely Italian affairs. Many Mexicans (and other Latinos) blame Columbus for all the ills that befell their Indian ancestors, and cordially hate him. Attempts by this group to disrupt Columbus Day parades and other celebrations of Columbus are common, on often successful.

 

Montezuma (Motecuzoma in Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica (Aztecs), and Moctezuma in modern Spanish), the last emperor of the Mexica/Aztec empire. His indecisiveness, along with the resentment of many other tribes who had been persecuted by the Mexica/Aztecs, played a big role in allowing a few hundred Spaniards, with thousands of native allies, to completely destroy the great--and theretofore undefeated--Aztec Empire By the way, this picture is imaginary, since no real portraits of Montezuma were ever done in his lifetime.

 

Hernán Cortés as an embittered old man. He never received what he thought was his due reword for the fantastic feat of conquering Mexico. He ended up in Spain, where he died in relative poverty. Although he could be cruel, he was a devout Catholic who truly believed that his mission was to save the souls of the Indians.

A gory representation of an Aztec human sacrifice, painted by an Indian. The Aztecs, as well as most of the other tribes in what is now Mexico, believed that the gods had to be nourished with human hearts, less they grow weak and angry, the sun not shine and rain never come.

This was the particular aspect of the culture that most disgusted and outraged the Spaniards. They saw no connection of this with the burning at the stake of victims of the inquisition--indeed in terms of numbers of human lives sacrificed, the inquisition was small potatoes compared to the mass sacrifices of the Aztecs.

As the picture shows, after cutting out the heart and presenting it to the god being worshipped, the body was pushed down the steep stairs to the plaza below, where it was butchered by professionals, and the parts distributed according to rank. The leftovers were fed to the animals in the zoo, or just thrown into the lake.

 

Some of the original walls of the Inca capital, Cuzco. The Inca were fabulous stone masons. They fit the stones together so closely, without mortar, that even a piece of paper can't be inserted between them.

 

A modern artist's rendering of the Templo Mayor of Tenotichtlan (Mexico City). When the Templo Mayor was dedicated in 1487, between 2,000 and 20,000 human sacrifices were made over four days (estimates of the number sacrificed vary wildly). Most of these were prisoners of war. According to Aztec theology, death as a sacrifice was equal to death in battle, and guaranteed access to paradise.