History 101: Taco Bell and It's Dubious Connection To Cortes

Wait....you wanted what you ordered? Oh. Huh.

I ate at Taco Bell recently and after getting half-way through my 3rd crunchy taco without realizing that the underpaid and probably stoned Taco Bell employee put cheese AND sour cream on my tacos (I'm 100% Western European and lactose intolerant...figure that out) and suddenly felt ill. As my stomach gurgled and bubbled I was suddenly struck by how much of a complete jerk Hernando Cortes was to the people of Mesoamerica.

Now, in popular culture Cortes doesn't really make much of an appearance (the most notable being in The Road to El Dorado).  However that doesn't really diminish his tool-ness.


yo ho ho!

 Cortes (or Cortez) started off his conquesting on the island of Hispanola (which is currently split into Haiti and Dominican Republic these days) being all in charge of Indian slaves making sugar. He got tired of that soon enough and joined an expedition to conquer Cuba and by 1511 (after recovering from syphilis...icky) had proceeded to make himself ridiculously rich. Unfortunately he was a cocky little butthead and proceeded to get on the bad side of the governor, Diego Velazquez by shacking up with his bodaciously beautiful daughter, Catalina (and one of her sisters, too). Whether it was being married or whatever he got tired of being head honcho on Cuba he decided "hey? How about I go massacre ANOTHER indigenous people? And steal their gold, wenches and bicycles?"

So Cortes put an expedition together with the help of Catalina's father (actually, Velazquez got pissed at Cortes at the last second and took back his offer--Cortes went anyway).

Ain't he handsome for a mass murderer?

 Cortes first landed in Veracruz. Here, Cortes began his incredibly effective strategy of allying himself with all the Indians in between him and wherever he's going. These all happen to be the enemies or belligerents of the Aztecs--basically a huge army of bullies. This was his scheme the entire way to the Aztec kingdom, building up his army as he went along. He also "converted" a great deal of these Indians (mostly so he could claim his expedition had to do with God, at least in part) and by converted I mean "be baptized or I kill you."

While in Veracruz a bunch of his men still loyal to Governor Velazquez tried to chicken out and sail back to Cuba. Cortes, ever the benevolent leader, burned his ships and sank them (all but one, which he had them drag really far inland so it was very hard to escape with) so they'd have no way to get home unless he decided. Nice guy.

While marching towards the Aztec Empire Cortes picked up another babe, whose name was Malinche, an Indian who just so happened to speak Maya and the Aztec language, Nahuatl (one of his men spoke Maya, who'd translate it into Spanish).  So hot chicka + interpreter = perfect girlfriend (they had a child together named Martin).

Anyway. The Aztec calendar at this time foretold of the return of a god (whose name I won't record here, since it has like 9 vowels in it) who was pale skinned and bearded. Well they (at first) thought Cortes was this god, which Cortes totally exploited.

Well they go out to conquer the Aztecs, which they do spectacularly. We're talking complete devastation. We're talking intrigue. Betrayal. Murder. Robbery. Hair Pulling. Shoe-lace tying together.

Cortes+Aztecs=not getting the security deposit back

You know. General Mayhem.

When the upper-level Aztecs very quickly realized Cortes might not be who he said he was, there was enough of a question among the people to enable Cortes to squeak in and wreak havoc. He basically played Desperate Housewives among the Aztecs, who were already predisposed to arguing amongst themselves. They saw Montezuma --the king of the Aztecs at this time--as weak because he didn't strike out against Cortes when he had the chance.
Trapped within the royal Aztec palace (made out of gold, btw) Cortes paraded Montezuma around the top floor in view of the mob outside in attempts to quell a rebellion that had popped up. The people stoned Montezuma to death and Cortes narrowly escaped to regroup and resupply outside the city.
He'd pick and chose whoever would get him the most gold (rather like Hollywood).

From jackass point A to jackass point B

And brought it to him. aaaaaand brought it to him.

Let's just say that Charles V of Spain (King of Spain during this time) was able to finance 15 years of wars in Europe (including the kidnapping of the Pope!) with the gold they got from the New World.

Hernando Cortes was not a nice man. He didn't even really do anything beyond start 500 years of really really not-niceness in what is now Mexico and Mesoamerica. Well. I guess that is starting something. Cortes was a tool but at least he was good at it!!!