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Untrue Historic “Facts” It’s Time to Erase

Khalid Elhassan September 8, 2020 35 min

Siege of Budapest - World War II — Red Army soldiers marching into a captured Budapest in 1945. Radio Free Europe

21. The Myth That the Aztecs Thought Cortes’ Conquistadors Were Gods

Conquistadors and their native allies storming into the Aztec capital. Pintrest

A common myth claims that the Spanish victory over the Aztecs was helped by the natives’ belief that Hernan Cortes and his men were gods. That is false. The Aztecs were extremely religious and had many weird notions, but they were not so idiotically naïve so as to believe that the Conquistadors were gods.

The Aztec emperor Montezuma II was fully aware that the Spaniards were humans who came from far away. Indeed, Montezuma was sufficiently informed so as to know that Hernan Cortes was not acting with the consent of his king, Charles V (Charles I of Spain). The Aztec ruler even tried to go over Cortes’ head, by attempting to negotiate directly with king Charles. He failed, but it is clear that Montezuma knew that he was dealing with people, not gods.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.