“We Spaniards know a sickness of the heart that only gold can cure.”
Hernan Cortés

How a culture narrates its past says a lot about who they are today. When many of us were taught history in schools we were told heroic tales of explorers discovering new lands. We memorized the dates of those momentous events and celebrated them.

However before 1492, 1521, 1534 there were already things happening on this side of the world. In fact, the first people from Europe to arrive in what we now call the Americas were the Vikings. Around 1000 AD, the Viking explorer Leif Erikson, sailed to a place he called “Vinland,” in what is now the Canadian province of Newfoundland.

Prior to these extranjeros touching down, there was a lot of action and living already occurring in the Americas. William M. Denevan writes that, “The discovery of America was followed by possibly the greatest demographic disaster in the history of the world.” Research by some scholars provides population estimates of the pre-contact Americas to be as high as 112 million in 1492, while others estimate the population to have been as low as eight million. In any case, the native population declined to less than six million by 1650.

In this issue we look at the Aztecs. This mighty civilization was sophisticated and some say more advanced in many respects than those who destroyed it.

When I was in school and learning about the people who sailed into the unknown I wondered what could possess them, where did they get the drive? Was the hunger for riches and power so enticing? Where did the motivation come from? I thought as I grew up and understood the ways of the world it would be become clear, but if I am honest, it only bewilders me even more. How great is our need for supremacy over one another? Perhaps it is our value system that needs an overhaul?

If looking at the news is any indication, we never know in the moment whether we are on the ‘right’ side of history. Maybe at the end of the day there is no right side, for even on the side of our ‘enemies’ are those trying to forge new paths of cooperation.

See you next month,

Jane