Part IV: The Spanish Get Gold Fever

The Aztecs got word of the Conquistadors and sent ambassadors, who were awed by the Spaniards’ white skin, metal armor, guns and especially their horses. The Spanish were also fortunate that there was a legend that pale-skinned gods would return from the East. The Spanish snapped up gifts of gold. Cortez told the Aztec ambassador: “Send me some more gold, because I and my companions suffer from a disease of the heart which can be cured only with gold.”

It sounds like a line out of Monty Python, but the Aztecs were happy to oblige. When the Conquistadores got to the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, they were treated like gods, and were given a palace built by the father of the Aztec king, Moctezuma II (when I was a kid, he was called Montezuma). The conquistadores discovered a bricked-up room FILLED with golden artifacts, which they chopped up and divided as loot.

And there was more gold to come! The Aztecs gave the new "gods" ensigns of gold and other gifts.

According to a contemporary Aztec account: “When they were given these presents, the Spaniards burst into smiles; their eyes shone with pleasure; they were delighted by them. They picked up the gold and fingered it like monkeys; they seemed to be transported by joy, as if their hearts were illumined and made new.

“The truth is that they longed and lusted for gold. Their bodies swelled with greed, and their hunger was ravenous; they hungered like pigs for that gold. They snatched at the golden ensigns, waved them from side to side and examined every inch of them.”

Remember, the Aztecs put no real value on gold; to them, the Spanish were acting loco.

And the Spanish rewarded their generous hosts by embarking on a campaign of gruesome slaughter that eclipsed the bloodthirsty sun god Huitzilopochtli. Eventually, out of a total population of perhaps 25 million in Mexico at the time, as many as 22 million died.

It helped that the Conquistadores had a secret WMD – smallpox. It cut through the Aztecs like a scythe through wheat. The only germ warfare the Aztecs had to offer in return was syphilis; Cortez caught it. But that didn’t quench his desire for gold.

If it makes you feel any better, Cortez fell out of favor at court and died a lonely, bitter, broken man.

Check out my new gold and energy blog at MoneyAndMarkets.com