Columbus / Cortés are taking their kickings these days. But that's about it. Montezuma was a well-established, confident ruler with a. For his scholarship & research I give it 5 stars. This book is a work of superb historical scholarship that goes against the grain of mainstream narrative that often glorify Cortés. During his march to the Aztec capital, Cortés gathers valuable allies among enemies of Montezuma. He calls the event the Spanish-Aztec War, not the Conquest. Be the first to ask a question about When Montezuma Met Cortés. A dramatic rethinking of the encounter between Montezuma and Cortés that completely overturns what we know about the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Restall is representing his country well. Unfortunately for the Aztecs (and the rest of Mesoamerica), the Spanish were much more dangerous animals than they knew, escaped from their luxurious cages, and destroyed much of Mesoamerican society. Of course, the farther the hall is, the blurrier it gets to our modern eyes. The reason that I point this out is that this is a HISTORY book. In peeling back the myth we get closer to the truth of what actually happened in history between Cortés and the Aztecs. The famous meeting and embrace between Montezuma and Cortés was not a sign that the Aztecs were surrendering and accepting the Spanish as their overlords. Advertisement. Cortés men leveled the city and captured Cuauhtemoc, the Aztec emperor. I also imagined how I would assign chapters to a class. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. Was he murdered by the Spanish? Montezuma’s native language, Nahuatl, was a reverential mode of speech. Moctezuma and Cortes met for the first time outside the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan. 4 Discuss student answers as a class. It is rather more a critique of historians, poets, librettists, and others who have taken Cortes to be something more mythic than historic. The two great men looked at each other with a keen interest. A lengthy treatise on the conquest of Mexico from the view of a Post Modernist and Revisionist- that said- this book was interesting and gave me plenty to ponder. The book is dense at times and does jump around somewhat. This book makes a strong case of how people even today have not look at him and his claims critically enough even by those who teach. At the entrance to the capital, the two men exchanged gifts and greetings, and Montezuma then invited Cortés and his hundreds of followers into the city as his guests. On November 8, 1519, Aztec Emperor Moctezuma and Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes met for the first time outside the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan. When Montezuma Met Cortés By Matthew Restall. Much of what we think we know of the Aztecs and the Spanish conquest of Mexico is wrong. All European countries had a negative impact on all indigenous populations throughout the world, but people like Restall choose to use their platform to spread ignorance and hatred that impacts Spain and Hispanic populations. I learned a lot of new stuff despite having avidly read about the conquest of Mexico since I was an adolescent in 1962. The author is often mentioning himself and referring to his construct of the book. Welcome back. As Restall discusses throughout the book, this hall has been muddied by the eventual victor of the Spanish-Aztec War—the Spanish. Aztec accounts of the event, compiled by Miguel Leon-Portillo shortly after and published as The Broken Spears, claim that Moctezuma (also Montezuma) believed Cortes was a god. William Barret Travis, commander of the Texas troops at the battle of the Alamo. Matthew Restall is a historian of Colonial Latin America. 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