They did the same to the Incan Quipu, which more recent study and discoveries suggest was an actual full written language, not just a counting system.
The conquistadors came across full-fledged empires with sophisticated arts and cultures who’d built cities that dwarfed their European counterparts with building techniques and on terrain that would’ve flummoxed western builders at the time (and still cause us to pause today) and destroyed as much of it as they could put their hands on. Smallpox was the disease, but the Spaniards were the plague.
The conquistadors came across full-fledged empires with sophisticated arts and cultures who’d built cities that dwarfed their European counterparts with building techniques and on terrain that would’ve flummoxed western builders at the time (and still cause us to pause today) and destroyed as much of it as they could put their hands on. Smallpox was the disease, but the Spaniards were the plague.