1519 TENOCHTITLAN

1 5 1 9 TENOCHTITLAN

Tenochtitlan,
when the Spaniards came
Tenochtitlan,
something beyond all beauty
he had ever seen,
this traveled Spanish soldier wrote:

From the summit
and heights of Ahualco,
we saw what we thought
was an illusion,
something from dreams or fables:

An island-city in the lake, Texcoco
White, shimmering in the valley
The valley covered with dozens of
cities and towns

Commerce, civilization, engineering feats...
As we entered the valley,
past the smaller cities and towns,
as we crossed the main
five mile long causeway-bridge,
mainland to island,
into the city of 350,000
(Tenochtitlan),
we marveled at
the orderly masonry
of the scores of towers
and countless canals;
the aqueducts
that brought spring water;
the wide boulevards;
the 78 temple pyramids;
and the magnificent
elaborate regalia
of the Tenochtitlan Mexica

This Spanish soldier was
enchanted by the conjured magic
of these "Indians":
that they could make
this city
larger than any city in Europe,
more splendid
than any city in Asia
or any other part
of the known world
---and without Europeans

He could not manage
more superlatives
to describe
the largest marketplace
that any of them had ever seen
He told of these
Tenochtitlan Mexica
and spoke of how
curiously, daily, they bathed;
and dined on fowl and corn
with chili sauce,
ate something called tamal,
amaranth, tomatoes and...
told how civilized,
refined, these people were
with just and detailed laws, universities,
empire,
zoos,
botanical gardens,
medicine,
surgery,
engineering marvels,
architectural wonders,
mathematical genius
artistic brilliance,
astronomy mastered
---obsessive cultivators of beauty

He saw all of this, and felt that
it had to be destroyed
His captain, Hernando Cortez,
made it so,
because woven into the fabric
of all of this human
accomplishment
was the work of Satan:
monstrous bloodthirsty “gods”
human sacrifice;
and the absence of Christ
and the absence of
European civilization

On behalf of Christ, king,
and Europe
they demolished the thousands
of gigantic sculptures,
executed, butchered,
the tens of thousands
of male and female
Mexica priests
the nobility,
the sages,
the teachers,
the warriors
---the leadership, killed them

In the name of the Father:
they burned the libraries
of philosophy, poetry, history,
science, medicine, and theology
they destroyed
the temples,
destroyed the other cities
of 50,000 people or more
---and of course destroyed
Tenochtitlan

In the name of the Son:
they enslaved the people,
made them property
of the Spanish crown of Europe;
took from us our land, our names,
our language
and our identity as a people,
our destiny as
sacred human beings

In the name of the Holy Ghost:
they buried Mexica history,
castrated the culture,
racially raped
the population,
forbad the Mexica
beliefs in Our Creator, Ometeotl

And did this with the cross,
without sin,
for the sons and daughters
of Europe
who would come
to take the land
from the
23-million-killed of Anahuac
and the rest of our people of this continent
and rule over those remaining
1,900,000, the 5% of us that survived
their biological weapons, their savagery
---in the name of civilization
without memory of the crimes...
without guilt,
without shame

This,
that Spanish soldier recorded,
of events
beginning in 1519

When the Spaniards came

BIBLIOGRAPHY

None of these books are perfect, but they are the best of the best that are out there. Read these with caution. These books are from 90 to 100% right on the history and issues of our people.

(Read in this order, please)

1 Daily Life of the Aztecs by Jacques Soustelle

2 Mexico by Michael Coe

3 Mexico Profundo by Guillermo Bonfil Batalla

4 American Holocaust by David E. Stannard

5 Anahuac Book by Olin Tezcatlipoca located on this website click here

6 Year 501 by Noam Chomsky

7 Colonizer's Model of the World by J.M. Blaut

8 Mexica Handbook by Olin Tezcatlipoca

9 Mexico's Indigenous Past by Lopez Austin and Lopez Lujan

10 American Indian Contributions to the World by

Emory Dean Keoke & Kay Marie Porterfield