{"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 Man Who Burnt the Maya Books: Diego de Landa","slug":"the-man-who-burnt-the-maya-books-diego-de-landa","published_at":"2026-07-23T03:06:38+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/the-man-who-burnt-the-maya-books-diego-de-landa","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-0171.mp3","audio_url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/episode-0171.mp3","summary":"In 1562, in the town of Maní on the Yucatán Peninsula, Spanish Franciscan friar Diego de Landa ordered the destruction of thousands of Maya codices — bark-paper books containing centuries of knowledge about astronomy, ritual, history, and medicine. Only four authenticated Maya codices survive today. This episode explores who Landa was, why he burned the books, and the paradox of his legacy: the same man who erased the Maya literary tradition also wrote the single most detailed account of Maya culture and religion, the Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán, without which much of what we know about the ancient Maya would be lost. Lucas and Luna examine the context of Landa's auto-da-fé, the content of the lost books, and the ongoing debate over whether Landa was a destroyer or a preserver of Maya heritage. They also discuss the surviving codices — the Dresden, Madrid, Paris, and Grolier — and the challenges of reading Maya hieroglyphs today. This episode touches on Inquisition procedures in the New World, the clash between European and Indigenous worldviews, and the complicated question of what is gained and lost when one culture's books burn in the flames of another's faith. #DiegoDeLanda #MayaCodices #Yucatan #Maya #RelacionDeLasCosasDeYucatan #Mani #Franciscan #AutoDaFe #Inquisition #DresdenCodex #MadridCodex #ParisCodex #GrolierCodex #MayaHieroglyphs #MesoamericanHistory #SpanishConquest #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo","meta_description":"In 1562, in the town of Maní on the Yucatán Peninsula, Spanish Franciscan friar Diego de Landa ordered the destruction of thousands of Maya codices — bark…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":507,"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-man-who-burnt-the-maya-books-diego-de-landa/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-man-who-burnt-the-maya-books-diego-de-landa.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}