Mayan Imperialism

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When we rewind time and go back further in history, we begin to review a historic pattern of brutish colonization, to which the oppressors took it up themselves as champions pursuing a manifest destiny. For the most part, it was all about gaining a foothold on a region's resources and programs of asceticism for the locals. Our first example can be found in Central America with a young man named Deigo de Landa. Shortly after 1519 when the Spanish conquistadors conquered the Aztec Empire and stripped its temples of gold and other riches, a motivated young Landa was sent in with a group of monks whose task was to convert 300,000 natives on the Yucatán Peninsula. Wanting to serve the catholic church the best he can, he learned the Mayan language with such proficiency, that he was able to deliver his holy dogmatic message in a way that the locals could understand. …show more content…

Seeing them in all their glory, he looked upon the buildings of T’ho and then converted them into catholic cathedrals and forced the locals to worship, while convincing them about their evil ways. Soon, those that were freshly converted were filled with the same religious zeal expressed by Landa and were ordered to destroy their own shrines, followed by their culture. While observing the full conversion, Landa documented, “We found large numbers of books with illustrations, but these contained only lies and devilry. We burned them all, which sorely aggravated the Maya causing them to sorrow greatly.” One can imagine all the useful historical documents that were set ablaze amongst the chaos, and as a consequence of this historic blunder, many researchers and archeologists are still picking up the pieces

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