The Revenge of Quetzalcoatl: Hernando Cortes and the Invasion of Mexico (Paperback)

Aztec legends warned of the fearsome return of a white, bearded god from across the seas who would destroy their civilization. This prediction came true with the arrival on American shores of Hernando Cortes. Leading a small band of ruthless, determined Spaniards, Cortes and hundreds of thousands of Indian allies marched into the Aztec capital city Tenochtitlan, and, after incredible adventures, finally laid waste to that metropolis and rebuilt it into modern-day Mexico City. This is the full, incredible-but-true story of how a few hundred Europeans overturned history. Important revelations in this book include: - That smallpox was brought to the Americas not by Europeans, but a Negro in Spanish service; and - That despite propaganda about "guns and steel," the Spaniards would not have succeeded in overthrowing the Aztec Empire had the surrounding Indian tribes, long victims of their cruel neighbors, not provided hundreds of thousands of warriors in the final sacking of Tenochtitlan.