But, above all, gold beckoned

From Carnage and Culture by Victor Davis Hanson. Page 201.

What drove on Cortés and his men were the quest for status back in Spain and the hope of material betterment in the New World: free land and vast estates in Mexico, of course, and, for the more idealistic, the spiritual rewards of converting millions to Christianity. But, above all, gold beckoned. Gold was the first topic of interrogation with the natives. Worthless trinkets, iron knives, and glass were traded for gold. Only gold, not the precious feathers, intricate cotton clothes, or even the elaborate silver plate of the Mexicas, satisfied the Castilians. Gold might make a man a noble in Spain; gold might ensure the bankrupt Spanish crown that it could keep up with the more efficient economies in England and Holland, and so maintain the Hapsburg empire in Europe. Eventually, a quarter of all imperial Spanish revenues would be bullion from Mexico and Peru: 180 tons of gold and 16,000 tons of silver were to reach Spanish shores from the New World between 1500 and 1650.

Mexica and Peruvian gold might fuel the galleys to keep the Turk at bay and pay the armies in Holland. Gold in the hand meant not beauty, but power, money, status — and so intricate Mexica golden lizards, ducks, and fishes, the products of hundreds of hours of careful New World craftsmanship, were melted down into portable golden bars that represented the purchasing power of both goods and services. To the Spaniard the shiny metal was an abstract and distant rather than an immediate and concrete pleasure; hours of native dexterity were of no value when compared to the goods, status, and security that such metal might buy. When Cortés saw the intricate goldwork of his hosts, his first thoughts were not merely of his own personal wealth to come, or even tribute to the Spanish crown, but of the stored capital to purchase more horses, gunpowder, harquebuses, cannon, and crossbows from ships arriving from Cuba and Spain. So bewildered were they by the conquistadors’ incessant demands for gold that the Indians of Mexico at first believed the Castilians’ ruse that they needed the metal as medicine for “their hearts”; some more thoughtful Aztecs believed that the Spanish even ate the silly gold dust!

As a young boy with a growing interest in archaeology, it broke my heart to comprehend the lost arts of the Aztecs and Incas; such fine pieces viewed solely for their gold content. It still breaks my heart to contemplate what was lost.

But Hanson's point is well taken. Everybody has goals - whether it is artwork or horses.