{"podcast":{"title":"The Conquistadors: Exploration, Greed, and Destruction — Fexingo History","slug":"the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470","podcast_index_feed_id":7864470,"rss_url":"https://feeds.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors.xml","website_url":"https://www.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/","image_url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/cover.png","author":"Fexingo","episode_count":182,"summary":"From the moment Hernán Cortés burned his ships on the Veracruz shore to the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521, the Spanish conquistadors remade the Americas through a volatile mix of courage, cruelty, and greed. Lucas and Luna guide listeners through the brutal collision of two worlds, examining not only the well-known figures—Cortés, Pizarro, Moctezuma, Atahualpa—but also the indigenous allies, enslaved Africans, and forgotten women who shaped the conquest. Each episode dissects a specific campaign or cultural encounter: the siege of Tenochtitlan, the conquest of the Inca Empire, the protracted Maya resistance, and the lesser-known expeditions into Florida and the Amazon. They explore the legal and moral debates of the Valladolid Controversy, the devastating impact of Old World diseases, and the encomienda system that bound native peoples to Spanish lords. The show also confronts the long legacy: how conquest myths were constructed, how indigenous memory survives, and how modern movements grapple with statues, repatriation, and historical memory. This is not a simple story of heroes or villains—it is a search for understanding amid the rubble of empires. Can we truly grasp the scale o…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-29T06:20:17.143281+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470"},"episode":{"title":"The Cholula Massacre: Cortés's Calculated Terror","slug":"the-cholula-massacre-cort-s-s-calculated-terror-2","published_at":"2026-07-09T15:49:34+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/the-cholula-massacre-cort-s-s-calculated-terror-2","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470","url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/episode-0144.mp3","audio_url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/episode-0144.mp3","summary":"In October 1519, just months before the march on Tenochtitlan, Hernán Cortés and his indigenous allies carried out a brutal preemptive attack on the religious center of Cholula. This episode examines the Cholula massacre not as a random act of violence, but as a calculated political strategy. We explore the city's significance as a center of Quetzalcoatl worship, the complex factional politics that led to the massacre, the conflicting accounts of whether a Cholulan plot actually existed, and how the massacre sent a chilling message across Mesoamerica. Drawing on native accounts from the Florentine Codex and Lienzo de Tlaxcala, as well as Spanish chronicles by Bernal Díaz del Castillo and Cortés himself, we unpack what really happened at Cholula and why it matters for understanding the conquest. #CholulaMassacre #HernánCortés #LaMalinche #Quetzalcoatl #FlorentineCodex #LienzoDeTlaxcala #BernalDíaz #Tlaxcala #Cholula #Mesoamerica #Conquistadors #SpanishConquest #IndigenousAllies #History #FexingoHistory #Massacre #16thCentury #WarCrimes Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo","meta_description":"In October 1519, just months before the march on Tenochtitlan, Hernán Cortés and his indigenous allies carried out a brutal preemptive attack on the relig…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":411,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/episodes/the-cholula-massacre-cort-s-s-calculated-terror-2/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/the-cholula-massacre-cort-s-s-calculated-terror-2.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}