American Minutewith
Bill Federer
Cortez ordered his ships sunk.
There was no turning back. With 500 men Cortez set out FEBRUARY 10, 1519, toward Mexico City.
Cortez' secretary, Francisco Lopez de Gomara, recorded that after they triumphantly entered the city, Montezuma proudly showed them the grand buildings, including a theater made of human bones, wherein was counted 136,000 skulls... a tower was made of skulls too numerous to count...walls and steps covered with human blood, pits where the human bodies were thrown after people had eaten off the arms and legs ... black-robed priests with hair matted down with human blood.
Soldier Bernal Diaz del Castillo recorded that Cortez' remarked:
"'Senor Montezuma, I do not understand how such a great Prince and wise man as you are has not come to the conclusion...that these idols of yours are not gods, but...devils'...
He explained to him very clearly about creation of the world, and how we are all brothers, sons of one father and one mother who were called Adam and Eve....
That a cross (when they asked why we worshipped it) was a sign of the other Cross on which our Lord God was crucified...for the salvation of the whole human race."
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