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Essay on mesoamerica civilization
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Victors and Vanquished The history of the Western hemisphere is full of war and conquest. One of the most significant and defining of those conquests is the downfall of the Mexica/Aztec Empire. While there are many other events to choose from, this one stands out since it was one over one of the largest empires in Central America. It is also important to look at because of the immense cultural impact it had. The story of this takeover reads like a movie script, a small band of Spaniards single handedly takes down the most powerful empire in Central America. It was an epic battle, which unfortunately led to the destruction of a magnificent culture. As in any major historical event there are many underlying themes and storylines that come together to make the event happen. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec is no different. Three major themes are seen in this struggle. One of them is the incredible advantage that the Spaniards technology gave them over the Aztecs. A second major theme is the greed that fueled the conquests in the New World. The last major theme was the effect of the political divisions and rivalries within Montezuma’s Central American Kingdom. As this historical event progressed each one of these themes began to intertwine until they became an almost unstoppable force. One of the principle themes in the Aztec downfall was the immense greed of the Europeans. The principle goal of every major faction in Europe was to gain power and wealth it didn’t matter from what source. Everyone from popes and kings to the lowly soldier envisioned rivers of gold and fame. Ever since they had boats Europeans have been looking for lucrative trade routes and other ways to turn a profit. The ruling monarchs of these countries contributed a great deal to this. They saw vast profits from these ventures through taxes and the customary “ Royal Fifth” which was a fifth of all profits would go straight to the King and/or Queen. Also royalty or other nobility within the country personally funded a large majority of explorations. Trading and exploration companies just helped push the trend further and made the exploitation of newly discovered lands big business. While greed was defiantly a starting point for Cortez’s expedition, it was his greed while in Central Mexico that changed the tide of history. Cortez’s first encounters with the natives in Central... ... middle of paper ... ...g point of their empire. The downfall of the Aztec Empire was a major building block of the Spanish colonial empire in the Americas. Spain’s empire would stretch all the way into North America from the Southwest United States all the way up the Pacific Coast. The unfortunate side effect of this was the elimination of many nations of indigenous people. The three major themes shown in this conquest really give deeper look into the anatomy of this important historical event. Without context on the extent of native assistance given to Cortez in his fight with the Aztecs, a reader would be grossly uniformed. The Spanish conquest was closer to a civil war than an actual conquest. Until reading detailed personal accounts of the fighting it is difficult to judge the deadly effectiveness of the Spaniards technological superiority. Without it is difficult to imagine 500 conquistadors holding thousands of native warriors at bay. Once the greed of Cortez and greed in general of the Europeans one understands that if it wasn’t Cortez if would have just been a different man at a different time. Unfortunately fame and prosperity seem to always win over cares about fellow human beings
Before the 15th century, the Indians in the Americas were not connected with the world and would remain that way until Columbus's exploration. In the beginning of 15th century, the Aztecs were the dominant group in Mesoamerica leaded by Montezuma, the last leader, before the Spanish conquest. In 1519, Hernan Cortez led the Spanish mission to explore and conquer the New World. This paper will compare three primary sources about this event. First, an informing letter sent from Cortez to King Charles V, the king of Spain. Second, the Broken Spears which is an Indian recollection about the conquest of Mexico. Lastly, Bernal Diaz’s (one of Cortez’s men) account was written by him to share his experience with Aztec civilization. Moreover, this paper will show the credibility of Diaz’s account compared to the other sources because the objectivity of his tone, written after a while of the event, and the author’s great experience and his independent purpose of the source.
In 1518 Hernán Cortés took command of an expedition to secure the interior of Mexico in the name of the Spanish Crown. In the letters he detailed his expedition and the land and peoples they conquered and encountered. The first letter, dated 1519, is a problematic document as it is written in the third person and was most likely not actually wire by cortez. The second and third letters are much more reliable and were published in Seville in 1522 and 1523 respectively. The culture, geography, economy and other details of the Aztec civilization, as well as Cortés and his forces’ interaction with them, are detailed in his letters which are addressed to the monarch of the sponsor of his force, Spain. In his letters Cortés also gave justification and explanation of the actions he took in Mexico.
Victors and Vanquished by Stuart Schwartz attempts to explore differing perspectives of the conquest of Mexico as the historical narratives are from both the outlook of the Spanish conquistadors as well as the Nahua peoples. In these primary sources, there was a fundamental focus on the encounters between the Spaniards and the Mexica. The first source is an excerpt from The True History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a Spanish conquistador, who participated as a foot solider in the conquest of Mexico with Hernán Cortés. Although Díaz del Castillo was a witness of the conquest, he wrote his account of what he had witnessed decades after the Spanish victory, in 1521. In his account, Díaz del Castillo concentrated on the ways in which the Spanish viewed the Nahua peoples. The second source is taken from the Florentine Codex and is one which was collected twenty
Throughout history many people write what actually happened but from their point of view. One of them that really common is Eurocentric perspective since they have travelled to new places and wrote down what they saw when they were there. A lot of that has happened with Mesoamerica because they have been taken over by the Spaniards and they wrote what they thought has happened. They thought they were god like compared to them. The Americas wouldn’t be what it is because of them. Also they thought that the Aztecs were more savage like people who like to sacrifice people. All of this was from their point of view and not the Aztecs who are the ones who know better than them.
Spain, as one of the most powerful nations in the old world, had a great influence on many events in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Spanish also had an influence on many other empires/nations' fate. One of the empires that suffered a grave fate at the hands of the Spanish was the Aztec empire. The Aztec empire was not the oldest Mesoamerican empire and it was formed from an agreement between three city-states. The Aztec's class system had the emperor on top, then the priests, and everyone else below them. The priests were responsible for keeping the gods happy. The sacrifice of goods and people was a commonplace in the Aztec culture, and it was often the goods/people of other nations that were taken for sacrifices. As one can imagine,
Aztecs were tribe. In Chronicler’s Account talked about Spaniards with Aztecs from 1519 to 1521.When the Spaniards arrived in Tenochtitlan, and they bought horses, guns and also smallpox that killed a lot of people there. A Text from the Chronicler’s Account saids “ at about the time that the Spaniards had fled from Mexico….there came a great sickness, a pestilence, the smallpox. It …. spread over the people with great destruction of men.” The Aztec chronicler was trying to be objective in what happened at that time. Aztec Chronicler wrote about struggled in
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 Aztec Empire was the most powerful Mesoamerican kingdom of all time. They dominated the valley of Mexico in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Aztecs were an advanced and successful civilization that built beautiful, sophisticated cities, temples, and pyramids. They also created a culture full of creativity with mythological and religious traditions. Aztecs lead a structured and evocative life that let their society to become a very superior civilization. The Aztec’s communication skills were very well developed for their time; through religious beliefs, government involvement, and family life they lived a full and productive life. Until in 1519 when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico, and defeated the Aztecs.
In schools, students are being taught wrong information. “Our gods were vanquished after the fall of Tenochtitlan as were our traditions. Our warriors and nobles were eradicated, our children starved and our women ravished by the white conquerors and their allies.” (157). In books across America, the Spaniards were said to be good people, but the way that Huitzitzilin described what happened, shows the complete opposite of how the Spaniards actually were.
Two of the biggest and greatest civilization in the Americas were the Aztecs and Incas. These two civilization were both said to be conquered by the Spanish, but it wasn’t just the Spanish who conquered them. These two civilizations both fell from a combination of a weak government, lack of technology, new disease introduced by the invaders, and not being prepared for the invaders. For many centuries the Aztec civilization revolved around a ideological, social, and political system in which expansion was the cornerstone. Expansion was the cornerstone of their whole civilization, because their religion requested that a large number of human sacrifices where to be made to the gods.
... (Schweikart 5-6). The Aztecs’ greed for sacrificial hostages turned these Indian neighbors against them (Kingfisher 196-197). The Aztecs were defeated, partially because they had been weakened by smallpox, but also because the Spanish fought together as a single force, while Aztecs fought as individuals (Schweikart 6-7).
The Aztec Empire was the largest civilization of the Americas in the early 16th century until Spanish conquistadors arrived in the New World. A motley crew of men from Spain, they were led by Hernan Cortes who intended to expand lands for the Spanish monarch and through many factors he was able to do just that. The three main factors that contributed to the fall of Tenochtitlan by the hands of Spanish conquistadors were significance of native allies, difference in battle tactics among the natives and conquistadors, and widespread disease. Another chapter in the Spanish colonization of the Americas, this one stands out in particular due to its unorthodox sequence of events that led a small group of men to defeating an entire empire in a few short years.
In 1519 Hernando Cortes` led over 500 men into Aztec territory in search of gold, what he found were the magnificent golden statues of the Aztec deities. The Aztecs believed him to be the representative for some white skinned god, and hence feared and respected him. It was not until they saw him melting their statues and shipping the blocks of gold to Spain that they acted. They attacked Hernanado and his men, and succeeded in driving them off. However, Cortes returned later with the support of local Indian tribes that hated the Aztecs for centuries of cruel treatment to defeat the mighty Aztecs and take the empire. This ended the Aztec civilization forever.
...The last two reasons that the Aztecs were defeated had to do with the disease that the Spaniards brought with them from Europe mainly small pox and the Aztec warfare rituals. The Aztecs had never been exposed to this disease and therefore their immune systems could not beat it and it eventually claimed the lives of thousands of Indians not only the Aztecs. The Aztecs had many rituals that they performed and most of them had to do with human sacrifice and this was something unspeakable and unholy in the eyes of the Spaniards which only fueled their cause in killing them and stopping such barbaric acts. Also the Aztecs would perform rituals before declaring war which the Spaniards used to their advantage and caught them off guard with their immediate attack of Tenochtitlan. These were the most important factors that led to the eventual fall of the Aztec empire.
The Aztecs landed in Mesoamerica around the start of the thirteenth century. The Aztecs, who were then called the Mexica, were a poor, nomadic people from the harsh deserts of northern Mexico (McDougal 453; ch. 16). The Aztecs assembled extraordinary urban communities and created a complex social, political, and religious structure. The force of the Mexica individuals got to be more merged and they started to structure partnerships. Their military force developed also, and they started to vanquish individuals in the encompassing regions. A large number of the locale's city-states were under their control by the fifteenth century. Aztec public opinion was exceedingly organized, in view of agribusin...