The Conquest Of New Spain: A Historical Analysis

Looking back into the history of certain events affords the modern researcher the ability to examine a variety of documents and artifacts. It is important, however, to take into account biases, inaccuracies, errors in translation, and overall misinformation when examining primary sources, particularly historical documents. Examining the history of the conquest of the Aztec empire is no different, and in a scenario as tense as it was it is extremely important to consider the authorship of the text. Bernal Diaz’ The Conquest of New Spain and Miguel Leon-Portilla’s The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico offer two distinct looks into the same event in history. Both documents offer differing takes of the same events, so when

The source discusses many of the same events that The Broken Spears does, however they are more polished and detailed. The more detailed nature of the text itself can be attributed to the fact that The Conquest of New Spain most certainly contained less errors in translation when compared to The Broken Spears. The document was originally written in Spanish, whereas The Broken Spears contains a compilation of documents translated from the Aztec’s native Nahuatl. Another factor to consider when looking at The Conquest of New Spain as a source is the fact that Bernal Diaz himself was a solider under Cortes’ command. His account is perhaps one of the most accurate due to the fact that he was actually present during all of the events he describes in his account. It is also extremely important when looking at this document through the lens of history to consider the differences in faith between the Aztecs and the Spaniards. Diaz and his fellow soldiers were Christian and many of the abnormalities that he attributes to Aztec life, such as human sacrifice, choice of clothing, and their temples, are related to their native religious traditions and were extremely foreign to him. Another interesting aspect of The Conquest of New Spain to highlight is Diaz’ status as a soldier under Cortes’ command. Diaz often depicts Cortes as less of a heroic figure, which is often how Cortes describes himself. In one particular passage Diaz describes Cortes as “…very frightened,” when he sees how numerous the Aztec forces are in their canoes. He goes on to say that Cortes, “…stationed himself in the lake, so that if he his men hard pressed he could sail out freely and hurry to any place he chose.” These types of descriptions of Cortes by Diaz aim to attribute his feats to those of his