Why the Diaz account is sugar coated and biased
Throughout history, many events that have occurred had either been inevitable or contingent. Contingency is an important concept to allow historians to understand and investigate why these events occur. A major issue that occurs with this, is bias and sugar coating the truth. In historical context, many of the conquered are not given as much as representation as the victor, as proven with the Broken Spears account which is the point of view of the Aztecs. Between the two accounts that are being analyzed, the conquest of “New Spain” (Mexico) which is the Diaz account had been sugar coated, biased and unreliable, in the point of view of the Spaniards.
One of the main reasons the Spaniards arrived
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The culture of both the Aztecs and Spaniards have similarities, as many different groups of people do. A main theme that was insinuated between both accounts into the culture of the two groups was respect of authority. “When Motecuhzoma had given necklaces to each one, …” “Then he stood up to welcome Cortes; he came forward, bowed his head low …” (Broken Spears 608). Not only did king motecuhzoma/Montezuma show hospitality to his guests, but his guests showed respect by bowing their heads. “When Cortes saw, heard, and was told that the great Montezuma was approaching, he dismounted from his horse, and when he came near to Montezuma each bowed deeply to the other … Cortes, I think, offered Montezuma his right hand, but Montezuma refused and extended his own. Then Cortes brought out a necklace which he had been holding. It was made of those elaborately worked and coloured glass beads called margaritas, and was strung on a gold cord and dipped in musk to give it a good odour. This he hung round the great Montezuma’s neck, as he did so attempted to embrace him. But the great princes who stood round Montezuma grasped Cortes’ arm to prevent him, for they considered this an indignity” (Diaz 600). This shows the similarity between the two cultures of respect for elders, guests and or authority, however a difference that was shown in the Diaz account was the fact that Cortes tried to …show more content…
“The Spaniards examined everything they saw” (Broken Spears 609). “When the Spaniards were installed in the palace, they asked Montezuma/Motecuhzoma about the city’s resources and reserves and about the warriors’ ensigns and shields. They questioned him closely and then demanded gold. Motecuhzoma guided them to it. They surrounded him and crowded close with their weapons. He walked in the center, while they formed a circle around him. When they arrived at the treasure house called Teucalco, the riches of gold and feathers, richly worked shields, disks of gold, the necklaces of the idols, gold nose plugs, gold greaves, and bracelets and crowns. The Spaniards immediately stripped the feathers from the gold shields and ensigns. They gathered all the gold into a great mound and set fire to everything else, regardless of its value. Then they melted down the gold into ingots. As for the precious green stones, they took only the best of them; the rest were snatched up by the Tlaxcaltecas. The Spaniards searched through the whole treasure house, questioning and quarreling and seized every object they thought was beautiful” (Broken spears 610) These two pieces of evidence show how the Spaniards came in search of treasures and to only
Yet, they still have not found any gold along the trip. There was a city that was said to have treasures called, Quivira. So the men pushed in to Quivira. Unfortunately there was no gold there, either. They now returned home to Mexico City.
“Montezuma only awaited the Spaniards: he made himself resolute; he put forth heroic effort; he quieted, he controlled his heart; he submitted himself entirely to whatsoever he was to see, at which he was to marvel" (Codex 26). Montezuma loses his command as the Spanish authority dominates his tribe. He assumes they were the gods he saw only ten years ago in the heavens. However, shortly after his encounters with the Spaniards he comes to understand they are not gods. Even though he knows they have no supernatural authority, he prepares himself and resigns his empire and the Spanish conquer his lands.
Aztecs had a wide majority of power over Southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Yucatan. Spanish arrived in Mexico in 1519, and wanted to take advantage of the massive amount of silver, the mines produced in the Aztec’s land. In South America, ingitis labor was cheaper, so it was beneficial to the Spanish to use these people to work in the mines to earn them high valued items that they can take back to the Old
In the late 1400's, conquistadors started their first voyages to the “New World”. They sought gold, resources, and to convert any indigenous peoples they came across. The Spanish, the conquistadors were heroes for spreading Catholicism and returning new resources. Yet, from the point of view of the natives and Bartholome de Las Casas, they were villains. The conquistadors massacred the natives; enslaving those who escaped.
To figure out if these army individuals were royal, the Aztecs gave the Spaniards golden banners and necklaces to see how they would react to it. “Like monkeys they grabbed the gold. It was as though their hearts were put to rest, brightened, freshened. For gold was what they greatly thirsted for…” (Marcus,10) From finding out that the Spanish were not a type of god it really opened their eyes and they knew that maybe the Spanish were able to get
The Spanish took advantages of the Indians and seized valuable goods from them. As in The Broken Spears by Leon-Portila (Doc 4), it was mentioned that the Spanish interrogated Montezuma and demanded gold. After putting all of the gold into a pile, the Spanish burned everything else that had no value for them. Then, they molded the gold into ingots. The Spanish were apathetic about the lives of the Native Americans.
The spaniland did not accept his offer and so they made an alliance with the opposing of the Aztec ruling. They formed a pact with Montezuma’s enemies. According to Montezuma’s rulers, Montezuma had welcomed Cortés into the capital city of Technochtitlan for their meeting, they were to discuss about their countries and their territories and when Cortés realized that it was a trap, he took the emperor hostage and made him his prisoner in belief that the Aztecs soldier would not attack since he had held their captain captive. Henan Cortés(1986) Montezuma’s incident of being a captive to the Spaniards made his respect erode from his own people and when he tried to meet with his people at public walks he was stoned and
However most of the treasure was sent back to Spain. Cortes wrote a letter to King Carlo’s to bring Franciscans priest and other missionaries, so they could convert the surviving Aztecs to the Catholic faith because they were gonna earn fame. They wanted to convert them because they wanted to expand civilization and wanted to have more power around the world, also the Spanish brought diseases with them, like smallpox, smallpox killed almost 1.2 million Aztecs or more, and the Spanish killed 4 to 8 million Aztecs because when they were going to Moctezuma’s palace, they were killing Aztecs in their villages and they also made peace with others, to help when Cortes and his men were getting
In Victors and the Vanquished, Schwartz poses the question of “How can we evaluate conflicting sources” (ix)? Through reading historical events such as the “Conquest of New Spain” there is an undeniably large amount of destruction of cultural material and bias testimonies of events recorded up to several years after they occurred. After analyzing the Spanish Conquest of Mesoamerica there is a debatable amount of evidence from the Mesoamericans and Spanish explanations of this event in history. The intentions of each explanation created a conflict to historians, art historians and anthropologists on which viewpoint holds to accuracy. There is also the issue of not only accuracy but the motive behind each bias account.
The author gives insight on how many ways the Spaniards used their power to assist in the downfall of the Aztecs. The reason why the Spaniards became victorious, was because the Spaniards were looked upon as if they were gods because of their outer appearance. The Aztecs broke bread and welcomed the Spaniards with gifts and parties. The Aztecs triggered their relationship with the Spaniards by holding a ritual for the arrival of the god which included a human sacrifice. The Spaniards didn’t agree with the rituals and began to despise the Aztecs.
Conquistador, written by Buddy Levy about the famous ventures of Hernan Cortes, places the reader in the 16th century, or the era c.1450-c. 1750 ce. During this time, the idea of exploration was spreading quickly, as kingdoms and empires in Europe sought to expand their territory. Portugal, with Spain following after, led the way for exploration as they headed south. Spain, however, ventured west, driven by a patriotic attitude of expanding past their borders. Levy tells the story of Hernan Cortes, originally setting sail from Spain, as he sailed from Cuba to the shores of Mexico in 1519, eager about the discovery of new lands.
Battle of Tenochtitlan – Fall of the Aztec Empire The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the historical Battle of Tenochtitlan and apply critical reasoning and battle analysis techniques to assess the utilization of intelligence assets and provide alternate outcomes. Prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in 1519, the mighty Aztec Empire was at the height of its power. From their capital city, Tenochtitlan, the Aztec controlled much of what is now known as Mexico and Central America, ruling an estimated 15 million people. The Aztec palaces were as vast and sophisticated as any of those in Europe and their temples rivaled the Egyptian pyramids.
There was not a simple clear and distinct dichotomy between the “good” and the “bad”. As established previously, the Aztecs did not all live in perfect harmony, leading to tensions, and side-taking when Europeans arrived. A number of Indigenous peoples had a part to play in the downfall of the Aztec empire. Furthermore, the importance of gold in these relations was of great significance, and “Cortes bullied… tortured the Aztec lords… to obtain gold” (p.116). León-Portilla chooses to end on the topic of the tributes of “gold that had been lost in the Canal of the Toltecs” which the Captain expects to be returned to him.
One of the members of his army killed a group of Aztec nobles. Eventually all the riches that belonged to the Aztecs, now belonged to the spanish. Killing, fighting, and punishing was normal for people to do, to find riches. Kidnapping was also something a lot of people did. Remember Cortez?
There were certainly strong challenges to the viewpoint of de las Casas as he took a minority position. Bartolome de las Casas, like other Spaniards of his time had marveled about the discoveries of Columbus seeing beautiful green parrots, masks made of precious stones and sizable samples of fine gold and other items never before seen in Spain (De las Casas B:38). The prospect of sharing such wealth was exciting to many Spaniards. De las Casas believed that the wealth coming at the expense of the Indians was irrelevant to the Spanish settlers and the focus of the Spaniards should be to reap the spoils of the new world (De Las Casas B: 39).