A thirty-three year old conquistador landed in Mexico with five - TopicsExpress

A thirty-three year old conquistador landed in Mexico with five hundred men. He was shocked to find Aztecs taking prisoners of the weaker tribes, ripping their hearts out atop temples, and in a frenzy eating their bodies. The conquistador, knocked down idols, erected crosses and freed prisoners. His name was Hernando Cortez, and he died DECEMBER 2, 1547. His personal secretary, Francisco Lopez de Gomara, recorded how Cortez spoke to the Tabascan tribe through his interpreter, Jeronimo de Aguilar, a Catholic priest who had been shipwrecked on the Yucatan eight years earlier: Cortez told them of their blindness and great vanity in worshipping many gods and making sacrifices of human blood to them, and in thinking that those images, being mute and soulless, made by the Indians with their own hands, were capable of doing good or harm. He then told them of a single God, Creator of Heaven and earth and men, whom the Christians worshipped and served, and whom all men should worship and serve. Gomara continued his account: In short, after Cortez had explained the Mysteries to them, and how the Son of God had suffered on the Cross, they accepted it and broke up their idols. The American Minute with Bill Federer.