European (Arabs) Psychopaths in México (receipts)

europeans raped and pillaged their way through the Americas in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. In their wake, they left destroyed empires and millions of lives lost to white greed

beyond the pure number of people slain, what is most disturbing are the horrific ways conquistadors murdered the native population.

While the ways conquistadors killed people were no doubt brutal, many historians argue that some of the most extreme elements may have been exaggerated as part of an anti-Spanish smear campaign known as the Black Legend. Nonetheless, there is no doubt among historians that the Spanish conquistadors ruthlessly slaughtered millions of native people.

They Vowed To Spare An Inca Ruler For Converting To Christianity, Then Ended Him Anyway

In 1533, Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro captured the Inca leader Atahualpa. In order to save his own life, Atahualpa promised to fill a 24-foot-long, 18-foot-wide, and 8-foot-tall room with gold (and then double that amount in silver). Pizarro quickly accepted the deal.

But as the riches were slowly delivered over the next two months, the Spanish conquistadors grew paranoid that it was a trick, so Pizarro sentenced Atahualpa to be burned alive.

But Atahualpa knew Pizarro would never burn a Christian, so he converted. This worked - and the conquistadors garroted him instead.

They Gathered Aztec Nobles In A Courtyard, Then Ended Them All

In 1519, Aztec nobles, priests, and leaders were led into a courtyard in the city of Cholula. Then conquistadors, under the orders of Hernan Cortes, attacked and slaughtered the unarmed crowd.

Soon thereafter, the city itself was attacked by Tlaxcalan soldiers. The Tlaxcalans were longtime enemies of the Aztecs, and allied with the Spanish against them.

In the end, thousands of Cholulans were ended, and Cholula, one of the key cities of the Aztec Empire, was left in ruins.

They Fed Native People To Dogs

In his book Devastation of the Indies, Fray Bartolome de Las Casas wrote about conquistadors training dogs to attack natives:

The Spaniards train their fierce dogs to attack, kill and tear to pieces the Indians... The Spaniards keep alive their dogs' appetite for human beings in this way.

They have Indians brought to them in chains, then unleash the dogs. The Indians come meekly down the roads and are killed. And the Spaniards have butcher shops where the corpses of Indians are hung up, on display, and someone will come in and say, more or less,"Give me a quarter of that rascal hanging there, to feed my dogs until I can kill another one for them."

They Devised A Way To Hang Natives And Burn Them Alive Simultaneously

The conquistadors often devised ways to make the demise of native peoples as elaborate and painful as possible. In the book American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World, Las Casas is quoted as saying:

They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles...

Then, once the natives were near their end, "straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive."

They Took The Lives Of Newborn Babies

The conquistadors' brutality wasn't limited to native soldiers, or even adults. According to contemporary reports by Spanish priest Fray Bartolome de Las Casas:

They snatcht young Babes from the Mothers Breasts, and then dasht out the brains of those innocents against the Rocks; others they cast into Rivers scoffing and jeering them, and call'd upon their Bodies when falling with derision, the true testimony of their Cruelty, to come to them, and inhumanely exposing others to their Merciless Swords, together with the Mothers that gave them Life.

They Threw Native People Into Pits And Left Them To Perish

The Spanish conquistadors would dig large pits and fill them with sharp stakes.

Then "pregnant and confined women, children, old men, as many as they could capture," were thrown into the pits, and left there - often impaled on the stakes - until the pits were filled and everyone had perished.
They Used Native People To Test The Strength Of Their Blades

Captured natives were sometimes butchered by conquistadors aiming to test the quality of their swords as well as their own strength.

The conquistadors would even "place bets on the slicing off of heads or the cutting of bodies in half with one blow..."

They Spread Devastating Diseases

The most effective tool of the conquistadors was inadvertent: disease. Like previous European explorers before them, when the conquistadors landed in the Americas, they unknowingly spread smallpox.

Since these diseases were new to the Aztec world, the epidemic spread quickly - eventually wiping out 90% of the indigenous population. According to Michael Oldstone in his book Virus, Plagues, and History:

As [smallpox] raged in the city, not only did the susceptible Aztec forces die in droves, but the psychological aspect of seeing Spaniards, who fought under a Christian god, resist this new malady while warriors of the Aztec gods were dying of infection demoralized the natives even further.

They Cut Off Native People's Hands

In his book The Devastation of the Indies, Bartolome de Las Casas wrote that conquistadors would cut "...off their hands and [hang] them round the victim's neck"

They Forced Native People Into Slavery And Worked Them Until They Perished

The Spanish would treat the captive native population abhorrently, "driving them day and night with beatings, kicks, lashes and blows..."

They even created a group to specifically hunt down anyone that tried to escape.

They Burned Them Alive In Their Own Homes

In one horrific episode in Fray Bartolome de Las Casas's book The Devastation of the Indies, he wrote of a group of native Indians who had given a great deal of gold to the Spanish.

Afterward, the conquistadors "shut them up in three big houses, crowding in as many as they could, then set fire to the houses, burning alive all that were in them..."

They Mutilated Their Faces

The conquistadors were known to mutilate the native population, often for no reason and with no provocation.

Spanish priest Fray Bartolome de Las Casas wrote, "With my own eyes I saw Spaniards cut off the nose, hands and ears of Indians, male and female, without provocation, merely because it pleased them to do it."

They Used Skull-Crushing Spiked Weapons During Battle

Recently unearthed skeletons belonging to Inca warriors in Peru reveal fatal skull fractures caused by Spanish weapons - specifically "medieval weapons tipped with steel spikes or sharp beaks".

According to anthropologist Melissa Murphy, who uncovered Incan remains from the period, "The nature and pattern of these skeletal injuries were unlike anything colleagues and I had seen before... Many of these people died brutal, horrible deaths.”

They Enslaved 2,000 Men And Burned Priests Alive In Retaliation For 15 European Casualties

In 1546, 15 European colonists were slain by the Maya. The Spanish conquistadors in turn punished the Maya by enslaving 2,000 men, hanging their women, and burning Mayan priests alive.

According to historian Henry Kamen, "The cruelty of the Spaniards [in the New World] was incontrovertible; it was pitiless, barbaric and never brought under control by the colonial regime."

They Tied Up A Queen And Used Her For Target Practice

In 1539, conquistador Francisco Pizarro invaded the Neo-Inca state of Vilcabamba. Pizarro was looking for their leader, Manco Inca, but instead found the queen, Cura Ocllo. She was tied to a stake as conquistadors used her as target practice, firing bamboo arrows at her.

After she had perished, they put her body in a basket and sent it down the Vilcanota River so it could eventually be found by Manco Inca.