In multiple cases the colonizers also brought their own method of savagery. The Spanish Inquisition being the best example.
One form of barbarians doesn't justify a more advanced form of barbarians.
The Spanish Inquisition is in nowhere comparable to the sacrifices made in pre-Columbine America, having a significantly different role in their respective societies, being structured differently and having different goals. Most notably, the Spanish Inquisition did not had a large presence in America, it had no jurisdiction over Indians and it was mostly a political tool, not a religious one.
According to modern historigraphy, the Spanish Inquisition sentenced less than 80 people to death in America in its three centuries of history and most of them were sentenced for political reasons. For example, foreign agents and pirates like John Drake, anti-monarchists, anticlerical members, Masons, those that forced Indians to work on Sunday and so on.
The Spanish Inquisition used torture to extract confessions, as it was usual in Europe at the time, both at religious and secular tribunals. However, it was used more sparingly than secular tribunals of the time. One must also keep in mind that the majority of administrations of the Spanish Inquisition did not handle witchcraft cases (it was a secular matter) and the official position was that witchcraft, quite simply, was not a real thing.
Most of the view of the Spanish Inquisition is shaped by anti-Spanish propaganda on the behalf of England and the Netherlands as well as anti-Catholic sentiment in the anglospehere during the late XIX century and beginning of the XX.
This is not at all similar with the Aztecs, who sacrificed
over 20.000 people a year and had rituals that included ripping out people's hearts alive and then throwing their bodies so the audience could eat them nor with the equally gruesome, ultraviolent acts we are talking about in this thread.
In fact, it's one of the reasons why Hernán Cortés was so successful: Many Indian tribes, like the Txaltecans were not particularly happy with being sacrificed and saw the Cortés offer of mancommunity and a god that required no sacrifices as being better than their current position.
