In this week’s reading, “Spanish Conquest” by Elizabeth Carmichael and Chloe Sayer discuss the subjugation, ethnocide, and struggle the indigenous population of Mexico endured during the Spanish conquest. The Spanish conquistador, Hernan Cortez, enslave and forced the Aztecs to believe that Christianity was the one true religion. Therefore, the indigenous people were forced to convert their faith through the Spanish missionaries to lose their indigenous roots. Later, the authors explain the many difficulties and conflicts Spanish priest underwent to teach the Christian faith to the Aztecs. The Spanish friar first taught the indigenous people Christianity in Nahuatl.
In 1519, Hernándo Cortés, a Spanish Conquistador ventured into Tenochtitlan, the capital of Aztec empire, searching for gold and glory. He set out to conquer the empire and to capture the Aztecs in order to achieve his ambitions. Moctezuma, the highly respected leader of the mighty Aztec Empire, came confronting with Hernán Cortés, the leader of a small band of professional European soldiers from a huge island that lay six day’s sail to the east. In “Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Women in the Conquest of Mexico” and “Mexico and the Spanish Conquest”, Camilla Townsend and Ross Hassig respectively present one histories in their own interpretations of the conquest of Mexico.
In the book Fifth Sun by Camilla Townsend we explore the history of the Aztecs, but from the perspective of the Aztecs themselves, opposed to the norm of the story being told from the European perspective. This opened up a lot more of the Aztecs history that got lost in the later tellings of the same story. We see similarities but mostly differences when looking at it from the Aztecs point of view. This unique perspective we get as Townsend is leading us through this story helps us better understand the Aztecs but also in my opinion better understand how the European conquistador fully took advantage of the Aztecs' kindness and their cluelessness about who they were and why they were there. As we review the book I am more focused on the ways/events
This type of book was worked in an epic style about the main events of the Conquest, from its beginning until the fall of Tenochtitlan, and other happenings that followed in this conquest. One of the criticisms that Bernal Diaz del Castillo has by my point of view is that he never learned to speak indigenous languages and yet is able to describe whole dialogs indigenous from the first day he stepped on the continent. Some of the chapter, he mentioned “Well, I will not continue describing this.” For that reason, many people describe the author as a simple to writer. So, I imagine him that this book was wrote while he was talking about what he saw in the conquest and he was writing while he was thinking about that.
This chapter recounts the events of Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Incan Empire. It offers firsthand accounts from Pizarro's men when they managed to capture Emperor Attahualpa at a time when the monarch was surrounded by around 80,000 men. It also discusses how such a a feat was accomplished by men outnumbered 500 to 1, attributing the Spaniards victory to their possession of steel, guns, and literacy. The author's intentions for this chapter were to describe how Europeans managed to conquer the new world using only groups of a few hundred, and he does this by using Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Incan Empire as an example.
The Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 was a turning point in the Americas, where the territory of the United States expanded and the landscape of North America changed. However, the question behind the motive for the war is whether it was an act of American imperialism motivated by territory or whether the reasons were mixed. The discussion examines the perspectives of distinguished historians Ramon Eduardo Ruiz and Norman A. Graebner. In Manifest Destiny and the Mexican War, Ramon Eduardo Ruiz argues that the war was American imperialism. He explains that "the war was an exercise in American expansionism, fueled by a belief in America's divine mission to expand its territorial boundaries.
The Spanish conquest on the Mayans was a significant event during the 1500’s. The Spanish conquest brought their military equipment’s that was no match for the Mayan Indians. As the conquest continued to expand throughout Central America there was little unity among other tribes beside the Mayan empire. The reason for this is because they believe that the Spanish were much inferior to their own beliefs and ancestry.
The document states “In the vicinity of San Antonio, Bexar [County], Texas, parties of armed men had been organized for the exclusive purpose of pursuing the Mexicans upon the public roads, killing them and robbing their property, and that the number of victims was stated to have been seventy-five. That it was also informed that Mexican citizens by birth, residing peaceably at San Antonio, under the protection of the laws, had been expelled from the place, and finally that some of the families of the victims of these extraordinary persecutions had begun to arrive in Mexico on foot and without means, having been obliged to abandon all their property in order to save their lives.” (“The Fate of the Tejanos” ) The text examines the ways that the American people and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo negatively affected the Mexican people. The American settlers killed many of the Mexican people and stole their land.
Introduction: The Aztec civilisation was one of the most advanced civilisations of its generation (1325 AD- 1521 AD) led by Moctezuma II. The powerful society centred on Tenochtitlan and owned impactful weapons such as wooden spears and metal shields. When Hernan Cortes and the Spanish conquistadors entered the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan on 20 April 1519AD, for God, gold and glory it would only take two years before his small army had conquered and annihilated this powerful civilisation. Aztec warfare and tactics were a significant factor in their collapse of the civilisation because, their wooden weaponry was ineffective and their tactics of diplomacy were no match for the superior weaponry such as steel swords, iron armour and cannons made
Summary Paper The Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs had massive empires with amazing achievements, but each of them had their downfall. European exploration drastically changed the lives of these empires. They valued the Earth and the land where as Europeans did not causing them to conclude that they were different which made them think of the native Americans as savages. However European exploration was not the main factor of their downfall; the Incas and Aztecs downfall was from poor leadership, however the Mayan’s downfall came from over farming and civil disorder.
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.
From 1540 to 1600 the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico were subjected to seven consecutive waves of soldiers, missionaries, and settlers. These encounters, referred to as the Entradas, were characterized by violent actions between Spanish colonists and Pueblo Indians. The Tiguex War, fought in the winter of 1540-41 by the expedition of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado against the twelve pueblos of Tiwa Indians, was particularly catastrophic to Pueblo and Spanish relations. (Handbook of North American Indians. pg.
In the 16th Century, Spain became one of the European forces to reckon with. To expand even further globally, Spanish conquistadors were sent abroad to discover lands, riches, and North America and its civilizations. When the Spanish and Native American groups met one another, they judged each other, as they were both unfamiliar with the people that stood before them. The Native American and Spanish views and opinions of one another are more similar than different because when meeting and getting to know each other, neither the Spaniards nor the Native Americans saw the other group of people as human. Both groups of people thought of one another as barbaric monsters and were confused and amazed by each other’s cultures.
This power imbalance and these payments are key in the subjugation of the natives. Furthermore, the paternalism of the Spanish toward the Indigenous peoples is obvious: “Captain [Cortes] stared at him [Cuauhtemoc]…then patted him on the head” (p.117). Post-conquest, and still today, “difficult relations” between the descendants of the Indigenous peoples and the “others” (p.117) still exist. The European view of the natives “as idolatrous savages” or, on the contrary, as “models of natural virtue” (p.175) demonstrate the versatile and often contradictory views held. Similarly, the Aztecs at times saw the Spaniards as gods, and other times as gold-hungry savages who “fingered it like monkeys” (p.51).
The article Bag Ban Bad for Freedom and Environment, by Adam B. Summers, argues that a ban placed on plastic grocery bags would be detrimental to the environment as well as to people. Summers builds his argument with the use of pathos, ethos, and statistics throughout the article. Summers uses pathos in the article to strengthen his argument. He is able to use two examples of the negative impacts of the possible ban on plastic bags.
