Reading for October 8, 2026

I read 11 pages of The Conquest of New Spain in 30 minutes, another eight pages in 20 minutes, and then 23 more pages in 56 minutes.

The descriptions of human sacrifice in these pages were especially shocking. Díaz says that Moctezuma had ordered the coastal people to stop trading with Cortés, while a prince devoted to Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli sacrificed people each day in hopes of learning what the gods wanted done about the Spaniards. Later, Pedro de Alvarado reported finding newly sacrificed men and boys in towns subject to Mexico: blood-covered shrines, hearts laid before idols, sacrificial stones and flint knives, and bodies missing limbs that local people said had been carried away to be eaten. Díaz closes the passage by saying that the Spaniards encountered such sacrifices in every town they entered.