Hello, I’ve always been fascinated with the Spanish-Aztec war and the absolute absurd levels of culture clashing at work there. I’ve heard the stories that the Aztecs were terrified of horses and Platemail and halberds and what not, and how Cortez was appalled by the human sacrifice and blood rituals, but every time I search for the exact accounts, I find nothing. Just a bunch of news sights or other crap talking about injustice or the supposed accounts, never the writings themselves.
Can anyone tell me what accounts from either side of the war, Aztec or conquistador, we have, which ones are the most descriptive and the best overall? This is probably the most fascinating moment in (relatively) recent history, and I would love to dig more into it.
Some good sources include the Florentine Codex, translated from Nahuatl by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, an indigenous source, and then the Codex Aubin, The Death of Cuauhtemoc by Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahín, and Cantares Mexicanos (other indigenous sources). Spanish sources include: Popular Auguries and Prophetic Dreams by Fray Martín de Jesús de la Coruña, The History of the Indies of New Spain by Diego Durán, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz, letters from Cortés to Charles V, Another Spanish View of the Cholula Massacre by Andrés de Tapia, Istoria de la Conquista de Mexico by Francisco López de Gómara, and the Eighth Jornada by Francisco de Aguilar.