Cortes : The Two Face :: essays research papers

Cortes The Two FaceDon Fernando Cortes was either a mistaken religious extremist on a quest to serve his mortal king and immortal god or simply an entrepreneur who wished to progress to great status, power and wealth. Cortes is in love with the idea of conquering unused worlds in the name of immortal to convert their heathen inhabitants into righteous chase of Jesus. The problem is that Cortes is also in love with himself and the future power that he might one day hold. Cortes is largely a hypocrite and shows that precise much through his fareions. He often tells his men and the king that God undoubtedly on there side. He attempts to prove this through his accounts where describes his teensy regiments of no more than one thousand men defeating massive armies of forty thousand to two-hundred thousand Indians. Many times it seems though Cortes rightfully is macrocosm helped by God but he quickly contradicts these possibilities with his sinful actions.Cortes seems to motor a large amount of help from God for someone who reacts with barbarian vengeance and accepts slave women as gifts. However, one might say that Cortes could be forgiven for his ignorance in accepting human beings as property because in the 1500s the Catholic Church in Spain lead its followers to believe that the act of slavery was in fact not a sin. Cortes explains that he just now wants to enslave the Indians so that they may better learn the ways of the Catholic Church and of Spanish culture. He figured that it was his duty to enslave these mountain because it was the lone(prenominal) way of turning them away from their horrible sins such cannibalism, sodomy, and their repulsive practices of sacrifice. Cortes attributes much of his success and victory to the will of God. They should observe that God was on our side, and to Him nothing is impossible, for, as they saw, we had won so many victories in which so many of the enemy had died, and none of us.(Cortes, 63) He feels that G od is helping him to visit theses people for their sins and save their souls by helping to enslave them for its the only way to lead them towards Jesus Christ. There is a chance that Cortes truly was a genuinely a religious man believed strongly in the true principles of the Catholic faith but its not likely.