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Essay on Spanish Colonization
Essay on Spanish Colonization
Essay on Spanish Colonization
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Cortes, as well as many other explorers during this time, was inspired by the Three G’s: God, gold, and glory. He planned to conquer the new lands for Spain, to convert the natives to Catholicism, and to obtain the riches of the land, mostly gold. Conquistador is basically a record of the last days of the Aztec civilization, as the two groups, the Aztecs and the Spaniards, clash, and the Spaniards ultimately come out on top.
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.
“Three Kings” (“Es ist schoen Koenig zu sein”) is a 1999 war film written and directed by David O. Russell. It tells the story of four American soldiers in the immediate aftermath of “Operation Desert Storm” in Kuwait and Iraq, as they scheme to find a secret trove of stolen Iraqi gold. While the film contains unique filmmaking and narrative techniques, it has clear signs marking it as a traditional American three-act film. In the first act (Set-up in Syd Field’s “Paradigm”), we see the exposition of the film.
Most books have either portrayed Hernán Cortés as either a brave conquistador hero who helped transform Mexico for Spanish use, or as a cruel racist who helped instill a genocide upon millions of Mexican natives. The truth, however, can be a lot less black or white. In the book Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico, we see that the moral nature of Cortés is more grey than most think. Cortés, in his conquest of Mexico, has performed good and bad deeds towards his own men and towards the Nahua people. To begin with the analysis of Cortés’s actions, we can look at the various good deeds he exhibited during his time in Mexico.
The Movie director in a interview also mentioned how the victory of the Mexican army over the French change the course of world because if the French army would of defeated Mexico in may 5th of 1862 the south would of won the Civil War and Mexico would have belong to France territory, as well as some part of the central United States. That why we can say that Cinco de Mayo battle change the history of the world we
Que Vivan Los Tamales analyses the history of Mexico's evolving national identity via food. Mexican cuisine has changed dramatically from the the era of the aztecs, to the period of Spanish colonialism through to the Porfiriato dictatorship. Through these periods we we see food being used in a manner to unify the nation and create a national united identity. Below I will argue how the country attempted to unify its people though cuisine. When the Spanish conquered Mexico, they tried to impose old world techniques and spices onto the Mexicans.
In the altar’s center is “a plaster image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, quarter-life size, its brown Indian face staring down on the woman” (Paredes 23). The implication of the stare is of criticism as the Virgin, symbolic of an ideal Mexican womanhood, looks down on Marcela, whose Anglo features starkly contrast with the Virgin’s, and whose actions are in opposition to the values that she represents. This carefully constructed scene is meaningful. Marcela’s lifeless body lies between the bed and the altar, and opposite to the altar is Marcela’s shrine dedicated to Hollywood movie stars. These are the visual images of the opposing forces that characterize the Mexican-American struggle for resistance against American cultural hegemony.
Hernan Cortes entered Aztec territory in the 1500s. The Aztec didn’t understand why they were there. The Spanish were looking to convert people to the Catholic religion and gold to capture. They sure captured gold. The city was filled with shops and restaurants and even hairdressers.
“Aztlan, Cibola and Frontier New Spain” is a chapter in Between the Conquests written by John R. Chavez. In this chapter Chavez states how Chicano and other indigenous American ancestors had migrated and how the migration help form an important part of the Chicanos image of themselves as a natives of the south. “The Racial Politics behind the Settlement of New Mexico” is the second chapter by Martha Menchaca.
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 .
Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet and essayist, is one of the many philosophers with a written piece regarding his understanding of Lo Mexicano. Paz’s “Sons of La Malinche” was first published in the Labyrinth of Solitude in 1950 and is a rather grim interpretation of the Mexican character, however, it captures the crisis of identity that Mexico was burdened with after the conquest. Paz uses the Spanish term “chingar,” (when literally translated means “to screw, to violate”) and its associated phrases to understand the conquest and the effect
For countless years, the Natives suffered under the hands of the Spaniards. Slavery, abuse, war, theft, and much more were the result of Spain taking over the Natives homeland and the Native people themselves. In the year 1542, Bartoleme de Las Casas wrote a manuscript called “Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies”, which held a very detailed account of how the natives suffered, and the actions of the Spaniards. This paper will be a brief summary and analysis of the destruction of the Indies. The Indians were said to be very moral people.
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
The Spanish were able to colonize Mexico without much resistance.” After the smallpox epidemic, the Aztecs were even more vulnerable. The Spanish exploration and conquering of Tenochtitlan was to gain power for the Spanish empire, but the city’s people were somewhat considered rebellious, and consequently, Cortes needed to conquer/kill the people first. By taking down the people of the city, Cortes was exposed to the city’s great treasures for his reward of gold; he retrieved all the gold he could, and travelled back to Spain where he was labelled a hero for his acts of
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