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102 In undertaking the publication of Ensayo histórico de la últimas revoluciones de México, I intend to elucidate the character, customs , and different situation of the people involved rather than to create weary narratives in which, as Mr. Sismondi says so well, one encounters only a repetition of the same acts of cruelty, evil deeds, and baseness that fatigue the spirit, cause boredom in the reader, and, in a certain way, degrade the man who spends a large amount of time going over the horrors and havoc of parties and factions. “The history of peoples,” says this same writer, “commences only with the beginning of life, with the spirit that animates nations.” As the time prior to the events of 1808 is a period of silence, sleepiness, and monotony, with the exception of some glimmers that appear from time to time breathing liberty, the interesting history of Mexico truly commences only in that memorable year. But it is more advisable that readers, in order to begin reading this Ensayo histórico with understanding, be instructed about the customs of the inhabitants and of their condition before the referenced epoch. The discovery of the Americas that Christopher Columbus made at the end of the fifteenth century and the conquest of those regions carried out a short time later are among those events that, to a large degree, have contributed to changing the political course of societies. My goal is not to speak of the influence these events have exercised on Europe, but rather of the course that political matters in the ancient empire of the Aztecs have taken, not in the time immediately subsequent to the conquest, regarding which various Spanish and foreign scholars have already written. In their writings, one can encounter repeated facts that will confirm those that form the picture I am going to present to my readers and which, perhaps, will shed more light on important political 1 Introduction to Historical Essay on the Mexican Revolutions from 1808 to 1830 Original title: “Introducción.” Source: Lorenzo de Zavala, Ensayo histórico de las revoluciones de México, desde 1808 hasta 1830, vol. 1 (Paris: P. Dupont y Jaguionie, 1831). introduCtion to Historical Essay on tHE MEXican rEvolUtions : 103 questions which will doubtless recur successively in the course of the coming times. Is it not true that the heterogeneity of the elements that have made up European societies in different epochs has entered into the calculations and measures of their legislators and leaders in organizing their progress? The history of the middle age, of this period of grand vices and heroic virtues, of ignorance, energy, and universal upheaval , teaching statesmen what the basic parts that make up the nations they governed have been, showed them at the same time the different sources that are the basis of the rights or the aspirations of each class, of each hierarchy, of each family. In Spanish America, where there were no other foreign invaders, nor that tumultuous invasion of semisavage nations , we must assume that the conquistador laid down the law without conditions, and peaceably used the right of force with no restrictions except those to which he would subject himself. The historians of the conquest of Mexico have given to their accounts an air of exaggeration that has been the origin of many ridiculous fables and amusing romances. The most judicious writers have not been able to protect themselves from giving credit to some entirely false and even absurd facts, which has led them into errors of great consequence. We can affirm that no history has been more adorned with illusions, hyperbole , romantic stories, and episodes than that of those far-off lands, the distance and isolation in which the policy of the Spanish government maintained them causing almost the same results as those the heroic times produced. Cortés himself, in his letters to Carlos V, paints pictures so flattering, so poetic and extraordinary of what he had seen and conquered with his fearless companions, that it was difficult not to believe oneself transported to a new world, to a land similar to and even superior to the imaginary Atlantis, or to those lands of gold, incense, and aromas of which Eastern writers speak. Magnificent palaces covered with gold and silver; kings and emperors richer than the most powerful potentates of Europe; temples comparable to those of ancient Greece; rivers that carried grains of the most precious metals and emeralds and diamonds instead of stones; extraordinary birds...

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