ead of Christianity. Various views of him during his lifetime will be illustrated. A conclusion will address why Cortes remains such an enigma to many individuals because of his complex and controversial character, as well as discussing areas for future research.
The Spanish conquest of the southern portion of the New World was a series of events that forever changed relationships between European powers; a series of events that resulted in the almost total destruction of the flourishing New World civilizations, like the Aztecs and the Incas. Unknown to the Aztecs, the arrival of the Spanish seemed like they were being descended upon by strange and powerful gods, intent on destroying them. In Broken Spears: Aztec Accounts of the Conquest, Miguel Leon-Portilla describes the impression of the Aztecs on the arrival of the Spanish strangers: "Almost from the first, the indigenous people of Mexico expected a violent confrontation with the 'gods' who arrived in more sophisticated sailing ships than they themselves knew, accompanied by frighten
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