How Did The Americans Rationalize The Aztec Culture

When Hernando Cortes arrived in the New world he was greeted by a totally alien and unfamiliar culture. The Aztec people of Mesoamerica had similar infrastructure to Cortes’s native Spain, but the culture of the Aztecs was shocking to some of the Spanish who first encountered it. The Aztecs also had resources valuable to the Spanish. This difference in culture is what allowed the Spaniards to rationalize their decision to annihilate the Aztecs in order to gain access to their resources. The Spanish had just retaken the Iberian peninsula as part of the reconquista, and they had gained a strong sense of nationalism as part of that conquest (Gibbs). After the Moors were defeated the Spanish were more xenophobic than in the past, and also more

One of the highest positions in the Aztec system of government was the High Priest. Their capital, Tenochtitlan, was chosen not because of strategic or environmental factors, but because they saw a religious symbol there (Britannica). The Aztecs based their daily life off of the religious calendar, and festivals and ceremonies were of the highest importance. The most astonishing aspect of their worship, at least to the Spaniards, was their habit of human sacrifice. Sacrifice was something that the Aztecs viewed as normal and even necessary, but it was met only with disgust by the Europeans. As Richard Marks wrote: “The Spaniards proceeded westward...where in a prayer house they found the bodies of two indian boys who had just been sacrificed before a monster faced idol. The bloody torsos of the boys lay on the ground with the chests slashed open; the arms and legs had been cut off; the stench of human blood was intense. Standing by were four black-clothed, hooded Indian priests who were unperturbed...Now though, (The Spaniards) were outraged and drove the priests away” (Marks 34). This passage describes one of the first encounters the Spaniards had with the Aztecs and the practice of human sacrifice. The Aztec priests are clearly comfortable with the idea of human sacrifice, but the Spaniards look upon it as something unholy, and decidedly unchristian. This unchristian behavior is what allows the Spaniards

The Spaniards could never reconcile the idea that the Aztecs performed human sacrifice, and towards the end the Aztecs realized this, butchering and dismembering their captive Spaniards for the remaining Spaniards to watch (Marks 243). The Spaniards were certainly greedy and interested in the gold of the Spaniards, but the religion was the catalyst which escalated tensions between the two groups and eventually drove the Spaniards and the Aztecs to conflict. The Christian ideals of the Spaniards were simply too different from the Mesoamerican ideals of the Aztecs to allow the two to coexist. If Alvaro had not slaughtered the Aztecs at the Toxcatl conflict would have arisen from another source. The relationship between the Aztecs and the Spaniards was unsustainable in part because of the Spaniards’ greed, but primarily because of the irrevocable cultural differences between the two