ipl-logo

The Broken Spears Essay

648 Words3 Pages

The Broken Spears by Miguel Leon Portilla portrays many themes about the spanish conquest in the account of the Aztecs.However, The Seven Myth of the Spanish Conquest by Matthew Restall conveys themes harmonize with The Broken Spears concepts. In The Broken Spear the spaniards were perceived as barbaric by the Aztecs and vise versa. When the spaniards attacked during the fiesta of Toxcatl they performed a lot of bloodshed and barbaric actions. “They struck others in the shoulders, and their arms were torn from their bodies. They wounded some in the thigh and some in the calf. They slashed others in the abdomen, and their entrails all spilled to the ground. Some attempted to run away, but their intestines dragged as they ran; they seemed to tangled their feet on their own entrails (pg 76).” This quote demonstrates that the spaniards …show more content…

One of the myths was the “completion” which portrayed the idea that the indigenous people were completely overtaken and were easily converted to catholicism.When the reality was that it took a lot of strife and battles to make the Aztecs finally submit to catholicism. “When the battle of Cholula was finished the Cholultecas understood and believed that the God of the white men who were His most powerful sons, were more potent than their own (pg 48).” This quote demonstrates how the Cholultecas believed in catholicism as well as deemed the spaniards as gods themselves. However, Restall reiterated in his book that the indigenous people knew that the spaniards were not divine, but ultimately confirmed and submitted to save their lives and entwined catholicism into their culture rather than being completely overtaken by it. In conclusion, The Broken Spears by Miguel Leon Portilla and The Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest by Matthew Restall convey similar concepts of the Aztecs and the spaniards during the Spanish

Show More
Related

Miguel Leo Portilla The Broken Spears Summary

1410 Words | 6 Pages

The Broken Spears, book written by Miguel Leon-Portilla, honorable Mexican anthropologist and historian that studied in the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1956. The book The Broken Spears or Vision de Los Vencidos (original Spanish book name) has been translated to six different languages; English, German, French, Polish, Catalan, and Otomi. The book was originally published in Spanish in 1959, and presented the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire from the point of view of the natives. Mr. Miguel Leon Portilla, with the help of Angel Maria Garibay K. (in the version of the texts), and Alberto Beltran (in illustrations), known to us in his book " The Vision of the Defeated " a little better about the conquest of the whole area of Mexico between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, long after the arrival of Hernan Cortés and his men to the territories of Mexico - Tenochtitlan. In his introduction Mr. Leon Portilla mentioned briefly what was added to the new edition (twenty-eighth edition to be exact), its new chapter entitled “What

Read More

A Brief Note On Explorers: Triumphs And Troubles By Pam Conrad

685 Words | 3 Pages

One of the members of his army killed a group of Aztec nobles. Eventually all the riches that belonged to the Aztecs, now belonged to the spanish. Killing, fighting, and punishing was normal for people to do, to find riches. Kidnapping was also something a lot of people did. Remember Cortez?

Read More

Hernando De Soto Columbian Exchange Disease

1018 Words | 5 Pages

De Soto kept a chart from the king and read a lengthy statement to each group of natives that he encountered. He informed them that they all belong to him and the Spanish crowd. The Indians were to pledge their allegiance to Spain and accept the Catholic faith. If they refused it, it came with the warning that the Spaniards will start a war and go after all of their

Read More

Inga Clendinnen In Fierce And Unnatural Cruelty

1376 Words | 6 Pages

Unlike DBC Pierre, Clendinnen has a more rigid contextual application to her history, having studied Anthropology and therefore approaching the Aztecs through the intensely human aspect, in the manner of history from below. In dealing with the reasons for defeat of the Aztec Empire, Clendinnen focuses on the intensely intimate and brutal cultural practices of battle and further war. She focuses intensely on the cultural forces, as defined by humans, in losing the war - and she raises the question of the adaptability of the Aztec Empire to the Spanish terms of engagement. She provides interesting insight into the inability for both the Spanish or the Aztecs to understand one another; clearly influenced by her background in Anthropology. Undoubtedly, her contextualisation of the downfall through the insuperable cultural clash and demands of ritual, that is hand to hand combat only and the criminal death system in battle is reflective of her familiarity with Anthropology - certainly her character dissection of Cortes is done in an intense, anthropological detail.

Read More

Spanish Conquistadors Research Paper

537 Words | 3 Pages

In the late 1400's, conquistadors started their first voyages to the “New World”. They sought gold, resources, and to convert any indigenous peoples they came across. The Spanish, the conquistadors were heroes for spreading Catholicism and returning new resources. Yet, from the point of view of the natives and Bartholome de Las Casas, they were villains. The conquistadors massacred the natives; enslaving those who escaped.

Read More

The Aztec Dbq

679 Words | 3 Pages

While many worldviews exist, The fall of the Aztec empire was unavoidable. The Aztec’s were a group of people who were very religious and lived in Mexico for hundreds of years but one day a group of Spanish people arrived and executed all of the Aztec people. Many of them died from diseases the spanish brought with them like small pox. The others were killed by the spanish and some were taken to spain as slaves. This was led by an explorer named Hernan Cortes.

Read More

Conquistador Hernan Cortes Research Paper

617 Words | 3 Pages

As Cortes and his men travelled through Mesoamerica, they heard tales of a great city in the middle of a lake where the emperor ruled out of. He knew that if he were to be able to conquer the nation he would have to start there, so the Spanish set off towards Tenochtitlan encountering civilisation after civilisation so wonderful and different from the home they came from. One of these places was Tlaxcala, in the time that Cortes was there, he struck an alliance with the Tlaxcalan’s against the Aztecs and these warriors would eventually help him sway the tides and defeat the mighty Aztecs.

Read More

How Effective Was The Spanish Conquest Of The Maya Indians?

467 Words | 2 Pages

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.

Read More

The Broken Spears Summary

573 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More

Causes Of The Pueblo Revolt

2014 Words | 9 Pages

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.

Read More

Fall Of The Aztec Empire Essay

1135 Words | 5 Pages

The Spanish retreated from Tenochtitlan, by fighting their way out, away from the angry mobs. The Spaniards took shelter with the Tlaxacan where they devised a plan to finally to conquer the Aztecs once and for all. The Spaniards, Tlaxacan, and other allied tribes all returned to Tenochtitlan with reinforcements and a siege. After eighty days of bloody battles Cuauhtémoc surrendered to the Spaniards, and that was the end of the Aztec

Read More

Cultural Differences: Similarities Between Spanish And Native Americans

1187 Words | 5 Pages

These differences were also smaller details under the larger ideas of barbarianism, new cultures, and the even bigger idea of inhumanity. The Spanish saw the Native Americans as slaves because they showed to be hard laborers and gave into the Spanish power. The Native Americans had a natural knack for manual tasks, so much that most Spaniards compared them to insects because both insects and Native Americans could do certain tasks that normal humans, such as high class Spaniards, could not. The Spaniards would never do such work as they believed that work was meant for slaves. When the Spanish took over the Aztec capital city, Sepúlveda remarks of how the Native Americans were “oppressed and fearful at the beginning.”

Read More

Compare And Contrast Christopher Columbus And Cortes

957 Words | 4 Pages

The Aztecs were quite different. Cortes noted that the Aztec believed and worshipped multiple gods and idols. “Three halls are in this grand temple, which contain the principal idols” (Hernan Cortes: From the Second Letter To Charles V, page 3). Cortes even tried to “divert them from their idolatries, and draw them to a knowledge of God” (Hernan Cortes: From the Second Letter To Charles V, page

Read More

Portilla The Broken Spears Summary

742 Words | 3 Pages

Emily Huckabee HIS 122-601 Fall, 2016 Miguel Leόn-Portilla, The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico Mexican anthropologist and historian Miguel Leόn-Portilla gives his readers an alternative view of the destruction of the Aztec empire in his 1962 novel. His book is one of many written on the fall of the Aztecs. As an author, his book stands out from others because it tells the story from a different perspective, that of the ones being defeated. Portilla, being an expert on the Aztecs, begins by giving a synopsis of the Aztec Indians way of life and how Hernando Cortez, a Spanish conquistador, eventually overcame their empire in the search for gold.

Read More

Analysis Of The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account Of The Conquest Of Mexico

1506 Words | 7 Pages

The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, by Miguel León-Portilla is a singular account of the conquest of the Aztecs in the early 16th century, from the Indigenous perspective. As J. Jorge Klor De Alva writes in the “Forward”: “victors ordinarily write history” (p.xi), and the Spanish point of view, based on the conquistadors’ account of their encounter with the natives of South America is generally the common understanding of the conquest. León-Portilla recounts the conquest in a chronological order, which allows greater clarity for the non-specialist reader. The Broken Spears is split into sixteen chapters, each preceded by an “Introduction”, which summarize the chapter’s contents, the sources used, and any discrepancies

Read More

More about The Broken Spears Essay

Related Topics

Open Document