After Reading Chapter 6 And The Material At The Website Plea
After Reading Chapter 6 And The Material At The Website Please Make A
After reading Chapter 6 and the material at the website, please make a 250-word initial post that answers the following questions about the primary sources: Many of the accounts of the Aztecs that we have were not written by them. They were written by the Spanish who conquered the Aztec empire (including Moctezuma’s greeting to Cortés). What do the Spanish (Cortés and Dàaz) find noteworthy about the Aztecs and their empire? How might their background and social position have influenced what they saw and described? Did they see everything they described or were things described to them by others? Did they think the culture that they were writing about was lesser than their own or equal to it? How does the Aztec explanation of the Spanish conquest of Mexico reinforce yet differ from the Spaniards’ versions? What do you think explains those differences?
Paper For Above instruction
The primary accounts of Aztec society and the Spanish conquest, predominantly authored by Spanish conquistadors like Hernán Cortés and Pedro de Alvarado, offer insight into how Europeans perceived and interpreted the civilizations they encountered in the New World. These narratives often highlight European perceptions of Aztec grandeur, their advanced societal structures, and religious practices, which the Spaniards found both awe-inspiring and, at times, threatening. Cortés, for example, emphasized the wealth and complexity of the Aztec civilization, portraying it as a formidable empire. His background as a European nobleman and conquistador influenced his depiction, often framing Aztec culture as both fascinating and inferior to European civilization. Similarly, Dàaz's descriptions were colored by his social standing and vested interests, which might have led him to emphasize certain aspects to justify conquests or to magnify the Aztecs’ supposed barbarism.
Much of what the Spaniards described was filtered through their cultural lens, and often, their accounts relied on secondhand reports from indigenous allies or informants, which could distort or exaggerate Aztec customs. Interestingly, the Spaniards generally viewed their own culture as superior, justified by the idea of religious and civilizational "mission." In contrast, the Aztec explanations of their conquest, often rooted in divine or cosmological interpretations, reinforce their view of being under divine protection and emphasizing their religious legitimacy. These contrasting perspectives illuminate the profound difficulties in constructing an objective historical narrative, shaped heavily by cultural biases, social positions, and the context of colonization.
The differences between Spanish and Aztec accounts primarily stem from their divergent worldviews: Europeans focusing on conquest and resource extraction, and Aztecs emphasizing divine destiny and cultural continuity. Understanding these perspectives enables a more nuanced interpretation of the conquest, recognizing the biases and motivations behind each account.
References
Brumfiel, E. (2010). Aztec Empire: People, Power, and Politics. Cambridge University Press.
León Portilla, A. (1992). The Broken Spears: The Aztec Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico. Beacon Press.
López de Gómara, G. (1552). The Conquest of Mexico. (S. S. H. M. Hill, Trans.).
Restall, M. (2003). Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. Oxford University Press.
Sanders, P., & Stark, J. (2010). The Conquest of Mexico. University of California Press.
Hernán Cortés. (1986). The Writings of Cortés. Yale University Press.
Dàaz, P. (2007). The Conquest of New Spain. Edited by J. Lockhart.
Thomas, H. (1993). The Spanish Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO.
Woodward, M. (2003). Conquistadors: A New History. W. W. Norton & Company.
Lockhart, J. (1991). From Aztec to Spanish: The Conquest of Mexico and the Transformation of Indigenous Cultures. Yale University Press.