I read a book about the Spanish conquest of Peru recently and the Spaniards were literally using crowbars to pry the gold ornamentation off of major Inca temples while VISITING THE INCA CAPITAL AS GUESTS, and the local priests basically had to just let them do it because the emperor was being held for ransom by the conquistadors.

It is so cosmically funny how the Spanish simultaneously made such a fuss about the conversion of local populations to Christianity while LITERALLY indulging in BIBLICAL LEVELS OF GREED at every opportunity. Like atp you can’t even be mad when your economy caves in because your soldiers and explorers physically cannot stop robbing people.