The Broken Spears, by Miguel Leon-Portilla, is an all-inclusive and compelling account of the Spanish conquest, told by the Aztecs also known as the conquered. Leon Portilla’s choice of events depicted in this book collides together giving the reader a broad view of the Spanish conquest. This book gives a history of emotional and spiritual human experiences, allowing the readers to comprehend, and relate to the Aztecs as they went through terror and faced their fears. This book provides an extensive amount of details concerning lack of leadership, bias and technological hardship that led to the Aztec defeat. After reading this book the reader will start to understand how and why the Aztecs suffered .
When Tenochtitlan was destroyed, the warriors “stared at the ruins of their city in dazed silence, and the women and children and old men were all weeping” (p.122), nevertheless they persisted and survived these events. The Broken Spears show the conquest’s emotional, human impact on the natives, despite the subjectivity this might entail. Nevertheless, the events ring true, and have been academically vetted—leading to suggest that this account is historically accurate,
Scholarly reviews provide a reader with an analytical insight to an author’s analysis on a monograph. In The Comanche Empire, Pekka Hamalainen creates a thesis, which claims the Comanche Native Americans created a powerful empire in the Southwest. Assessing Hamalainen’s thesis, reviewers Joel Minor, Dan Flores, Gerald Betty, and Joaqin Rivaya Martinez present a variety of views on the monograph. Providing the strengths and weakness of Hamalainen’s text, each reviewer agrees and disagrees on several of the monograph’s points. The scholarly reviews provide a structured assessment, which offers the reader with an individual perspective of the monograph under review.
Throughout history, there have been many literary studies that focused on the culture and traditions of Native Americans. Native writers have worked painstakingly on tribal histories, and their works have made us realize that we have not learned the full story of the Native American tribes. Deborah Miranda has written a collective tribal memoir, “Bad Indians”, drawing on ancestral memory that revealed aspects of an indigenous worldview and contributed to update our understanding of the mission system, settler colonialism and histories of American Indians about how they underwent cruel violence and exploitation. Her memoir successfully addressed past grievances of colonialism and also recognized and honored indigenous knowledge and identity.
Las Casas, believed that instead of just conquering the Indians, they should have a chance to defend themselves. "Hence every nation[s], no matter how barbaric, has the right to defend itself... And take away its
Las Casas viewed the natives as “docile and open to doctrine” (1) who presented themselves in a godly manner. Stating that he believes the Indians to be docile along with the fact that he saw they behaved in a godly fashion negates the notion that Las Casas felt threatened by the Indians. He believes the survivors endured the most difficult hardships in history. Las Casas carried a great respect for the natives and hurt for them and the injustice they had been
However, the Natives had not done anything wrong to make the Spaniards act to cruel towards them. Las Casas wrote in great detail what the Spaniards did. He wrote of the destruction and slaughter that the Spanish brought to the Natives. Las Casas wrote about indians being thrown into pits of stakes. He wrote of children being torn away from their mothers and killed.
He starts with how Europeans rose to power all over the world. He brings up that places such as Africa, Australia, Oceania, India, and Asia, on top of the Americas, were subjected to European rule where the native populations significantly decreased over the upcoming years. This relates to his thesis because he is using a pathos approach to appeal to his audience. For example he writes, “the overarching question for Native peoples in the twenty-first century is: will we survive?” (15).
“So we may well call these people barbarians, in respect to the rules of reason, but not in respect to ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarity” (Montaigne 156). Here Montaigne directly addresses the idea that Europeans are more savage and “barbaric” in many ways than the natives are. In this instance, once again while critiquing European society, he employs barbaric in a negative way. Montaigne argues that although Europeans may call the natives “barbaric” and mean this in a derogatory way however in reality, he inherently suggests the indigenous peoples should only be called barbaric if they are being described as
“Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress”, chapter one of “A People’s History of the United States”, written by professor and historian Howard Zinn, concentrates on a different perspective of major events in American history. It begins with the native Bahamian tribe of Arawaks welcoming the Spanish to their shores with gifts and kindness, only then for the reader to be disturbed by a log from Columbus himself – “They willingly traded everything they owned… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” (Zinn pg.1) In the work, Zinn continues explaining the unnecessary evils Columbus and his men committed unto the unsuspecting natives.
I completely agree with Rousseau on the term “noble savage”. Rousseau believed that man is born naturally good and then corrupted by society and this statement is correct. Kids are born not knowing race but are taught racism by society and their parents. In the civil rights movement, white children were taken away from black children because they were deemed dirty and not the same prestige as white people. Although both children did not see any problem with playing with each other, white and black parents advised their kid to stay away from them.
In all the different tribes, none of the women are seen as less than the men, however in European culture at the time, the women were seen as weak and lesser beings. Gunn Allen tackles this issue using ethos logos and pathos by appealing to the readers through logic, emotion and her personal experiences. With Ethos Gunn Allen makes herself a credible source by mentioning that she is a “half breed American Indian woman. ”(83) making her story worth paying attention to rather than if it were a story by an outsider who truly has nothing to do with the American Indian women.
The primary source, The Broken Spears, not only tells us about the Conquest of the Aztec Empire by the Spaniards, but it reveals us some of their social, cultural and political aspects. This Great Empire was able to develop a complex civilization that was divided into three social classes nobles, or pipiltin, the ordinary citizens, or macehualtin, and the serfs and
Listening and caring skills according to John Savage offers specific and teachable listening skills for improving relationships among those who do ministry. The skills are taught through oral exercises and unfailingly helpful examples from actual congregational situations. Some of the skills include expression of feelings and emotions which includes the skill of direct expression of feeling, indirect expression of emotions and direct expression of feelings. Our feelings and emotions can be induced by many things from the external world. The more [one] is aware of the emotions and feelings the more you can determine how you will act or behave (John Savage 49, 50).
They are often labeled as uncivilized barbarians, which is a solely false accusation against them. This paper aims to address the similarities between Native American beliefs and the beliefs of other cultures based on The Iroquois Creation Story in order to defeat the stereotype that Natives are regularly defined by. Native Americans are commonly considered uncivilized, savage, and barbarian. Nevertheless, in reality the Natives are not characterized by any of those negative traits, but rather they inhabit positive characteristics such as being wise, polite, tolerant, civilized, harmonious with nature, etc. They have had a prodigious impact on the Puritans
