Matthew Restall is a historian specializing in colonial Latin America and the Spanish conquest of Mexico, and this 2018 book re-examines the 1519 meeting between Hernan Cortes and the Mexica ruler Moctezuma II. Restall argues the popular account, that Moctezuma and the Mexica received Cortes as the returning god Quetzalcoatl because his arrival fell in a Ce Acatl year matching an old prophecy of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl's return, rests almost entirely on later, self-interested chronicles, above all Bernal Diaz del Castillo's account written decades afterward, rather than on a documented belief that actually shaped Mexica behavior at the moment of contact. He reads Moctezuma's conduct as calculating and defensive rather than as fatalistic surrender to a prophecy he believed was being fulfilled. Use it for the modern scholarly challenge to the traditional "returning god" narrative; it argues against, rather than confirms, that a live prophecy determined how the conquest unfolded.
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Matthew Restall is a specialist historian of colonial Mesoamerica; this trade published book presents peer reviewed academic research built on his own prior scholarly work on the conquest of Mexico. NotesA specialist historian's re-examination of the 1519 meeting between Hernan Cortes and Moctezuma II, arguing the traditional account that the Mexica received Cortes as the returning god Quetzalcoatl rests almost entirely on later, interested chroniclers, Bernal Diaz de Castillo prominently among them, rather than on a documented belief held and acted on at the time.
Citation
AuthorMatthew Restall
PublisherEcco / HarperCollins
Publication Year2018
Source TypeBook (scholarly)
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Americas directly: "Matthew Restall is a historian specializing in colonial Latin America and the Spanish conquest of Mexico, and this 2018 book re-examines the 1519 meeting between Hernan Cortes and the Mexica ruler..."
This source names Mexico directly: "America and the Spanish conquest of Mexico, and this 2018 book re-examines the 1519 meeting between Hernan Cortes and the Mexica ruler Moctezuma II."
This source names Quetzalcoatl directly: "received Cortes as the returning god Quetzalcoatl because his arrival fell in a Ce Acatl year matching an old prophecy of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl's return, rests almost entirely on later..."
Claims Backed By This Source (21 claims)
This source backs 21 claims across the atlas. As facts: 13 well-attested, 2 scholarly debate. As cited relationships: 5 holds. Plus 1 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Prophecies, 11 claims: 6 well-attested, 2 scholarly debate, 2 holds, 1 general references.
- Sources, 10 claims: 7 well-attested, 3 holds.
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