Kathryn Walbert's Essay On Primary Sources

While reading Kathryn Walbert’s essay on primary sources I learned many important things. The first thing I learned was that primary sources are anything created for the purpose of studying that was created in historical times. The second thing I learned is that primary sources are important to read about because they are very important keys to what life was like in the past. This is very important because it gives you an in depth understanding of how life was and gives you more information on what you are trying to study. The third thing that I learned was that simply because something is made now from the historical time period doesn’t make that item a primary source. In order for an item to be considered a primary source, it has to be made during that time. This piece of information is very important because it can help distinguish between an authentic primary source and a false one. The last thing that Walbert’s reading helped me to understand about primary sources is that they are very important to historians because historians only rely on details that are left behind from the past. Without primary sources,

A second reason why Portilla wrote this source was to help us understand the Aztec’s battle against the Spanish and their win from military conquest and disease that is represented from the native’s point of view. He wrote “Broken Spears” in order to shed light on the history between the Spaniards and the Indians. For example, in “Broken Spears” Portilla described the meeting between Motecuhzuma, the leader of the Aztecs, and Cortes, a Spanish conquistador. The entire purpose of “Broken Speakers” was to show the truth behind most successes of the world back then and show what caused most of the fallen Indian