Although a few previous works on the "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die"list had some basis in historical events – "Romance Of The Three Kingdoms," "The Lusiads," "Monkey: A Journey To The West" – this is the first piece that at least purports to be a non-fiction report on what actually happened. This makes it interesting for its demonstration of how an author's personal world view can impact his understanding of history, even history he participated in.
Bernal Diaz del Castillo traveled to what is now the Mexican coast – some miles west of Yucutan – three times from Cuba, the last under Hernan Cortes, to spread Christianity and find gold for himself and for Spain. In that last endeavor he was not particularly successful. Although Cortes' army found plenty of gold, del Castillo himself died poor, but apparently satisfied with what he and his companions had done.
Which is where we come to his world view. Today, we are taught that the conquistadores, and Cortes in particular, were a bunch of greedy thugs who had no business marching into someone else's home and declaring themselves in charge. In writing his book, del Castillo, on the other hand, looked back on the conquest after nearly 60 years as a profoundly virtuous and necessary enterprise. This may explain why he describes the natives of the land as largely ready to jump at the chance to convert to Christianity, despite a lifetime of worshiping other gods. Well, in view of the fact that the expedition spent a good bit of time asking the people they met to not only convert, but to stop idol worship, human sacrifice, and sodomy, we might possibly say that they were anxious themselves to stop doing those things, but apart from the human sacrifice, there's nothing particularly unpleasant about those practices if you're not a Christian already.
Del Castillo's narrative doesn't spend much time on his own activities, and indeed he wrote it partly to contradict by his eyewitness testimony the claims of some other writers regarding the conquest. J.M. Cohen, who published his translation in 1963 at the age of 60, didn't even consider del Castillo a particularly good writer, and if this English version is any indication he was probably right – the narrative is serviceable but nothing artistically impressive. Cohen even cuts out some pretty large chunks that he considers unnecessary, repetitive, or too angry at those other writers.
On the other hand, del Castillo has the virtue of humility in his work. His language, if not beautiful, is plain, clear, and comprehensible, not to speak of informative – bearing in mind that he wants his audience to think of his journeys and activities as virtuous. He also manages to do what any author must do, unless he or she is highly experimental – he makes us root for his main characters. Thus, when the Mexicans send an overwhelming force against the Spanish, I found myself hoping that they would not only survive, but win. It wasn't until afterwards that I remembered that the Spanish were not necessarily the good guys here, at least according to my own world view.
So I hesitate a little bit to recommend "The Conquest Of New Spain" to anyone who, like myself, knows little about the conquistadores. Too many questions remain. Was Cortes really as generous with the Mexicans as he appears here? Did he and Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, really get along this well? Did the Spanish governor of Cuba, who first appointed Cortes as the leader of the major voyage, really betray him because someone convinced him that Cortes was out for nothing but his own gain? Was he?
Without further reading, I can't say, of course, and in all honesty I don't know that I'm interested enough in the subject to pursue the necessary research. With that in mind, "The Conquest Of New Spain" is a pretty good adventure story, especially considering that it was written by the 80-year-old last surviving conquistador remembering things he did when he was in his 20s.
Benshlomo says, Respect your elders, but don't necessarily take their word for everything.
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