Leon-Portilla And The Spanish Conquest Of Mexico

Portilla starts out by giving a thorough background of the culture and religious beliefs. The reader can draw many theories on how this carried over to the Aztecs way of thinking and fighting. In addition to the religion and culture, Portilla shows the technology advantages the Spanish had over the

Miguel Leon-Portilla author of Broken Spears- The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, tells the story of the Spanish conquest over the Aztecs from the Aztec point of view. It is more familiar in history that the Spanish led by Hernan Cortez defeated the Aztecs with a powerful army and established an easy victory all while having intentions to gain power and greed. However, Leon-Portilla focuses on the Aztec Empire and their story. Leon-Portilla does a great job giving readers the real occurrences and events from Aztec members. This paper argues that history must be told from all sides. It is more common to hear about the Spanish conquest

Portilla starts out by giving a thorough background of the culture and religious beliefs. The reader can draw many theories on how this carried over to the Aztecs way of thinking and fighting. In addition to the religion and culture, Portilla shows the technology advantages the Spanish had over the

The reading “An Aztec account of the Spanish Conquest” is mainly about a story when Hernan Cortes came for the first time at Tenochtitlan (nowadays Mexico City). The Aztecs believes that when Hernan Cortes arrive they believe the he was Quetzalcoatl, the main god in the Aztec culture. Cortes were friendly invite to the Aztec city as the most important guest, the Aztec people made a big party to celebrate the return of their god, but the Aztec people did not know Cortes intentions of conquer the empire. Later the Aztecs were betrayed by Hernan Cortes. Cortes’s army began to attack the city and at the end they take over the city.

Throughout the book, writers mention that Aztec governments did everything that they could to give the Spanish everything that they needed, and that the Spanish took advantage of them. “…he took the Spaniards to be gods; he believed in them and worshiped them as deities.” The people of Mexico were loyal to those that they believed to be gods and “when they conquered the Mexica and all belonging to them, we never abandoned them or left them behind in it.” Under Spanish rule many men, women and children were exploited, tortured and murdered. The Broken Spears captured this in great detail while Traditions and Encounters skims over a lot of these details. This seems to create a gap between the two texts, making the differences between the authors more apparent.

Soldier and conqueror Bernal Díaz del Castillo in his book The True History of the Conquest of New Spain labeled Hernán Cortés “a valiant, energetic, and daring captain” and compared him to the likes of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Hannibal. Hernán Cortés was an ambitious conquistador and eventually defeated the mighty Mexican empire. A problem, however; emerges when distinguishing between the rational and romanticized versions of Cortés’ exploits. Bernal Díaz was present during the conquest, but his account was written much later and cannot be expected to be unbiased. Modern interpretations of Cortés can piece together all document and find that he stretched the truth to further his own gains. Cortés’ personality, goals, and actions have been interpreted differently since the days of the conquest, and have changed the way the conquest has been understood.

In Victors and the Vanquished, Schwartz poses the question of “How can we evaluate conflicting sources” (ix)? Through reading historical events such as the “Conquest of New Spain” there is an undeniably large amount of destruction of cultural material and bias testimonies of events recorded several years after they occurred. After analyzing the Spanish Conquest of Mesoamerica there is a debatable amount of evidence from the Mesoamericans and Spanish explanations of this event in history. The intentions of each explanation created a conflict to historians, art historians and anthropologists on which viewpoint holds to accuracy. There is also the issue of not only inaccuracies, but the motives behind each bias account. As many of these aspects are taken into consideration, interpreting each justification between both sides of history in Mesoamerica as a clash of ethnocentrism between two different cultures that causes an uncertainty of what actually happened in history.

Representation” by Michael Schreffler argues that “ . . . early modern rhetoric and iconography . . . constructed a distorted view of painting in Aztec Mexico and entangled it in the conventions of colonial historiography” (407). This essay is effective because of its thorough examination of the accounts that explain a painting made by the Aztec’s at San Juan de Ulúa on Easter Sunday of 1519.

To what extent was Mexico’s independence from Spain a “full-scale assault on dependency”? This essay will investigate how the Mexican independence from Spain was only slightly a “full-scale assault on dependency”, due to several political and social conflicts. Firstly, Mexico remained a monarchy (but not under the control of Spain) after the insurgency. Secondly, there was still an official state religion in Mexico. Another reason is because social conflicts reduced the desire for independence .On the other hand, it assaulted dependency because there were some changes within the social hierarchy, and because Mexico was free from Spain.

Cortés came not to the New World to conquer by force, but by manipulation. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, in the "Conquest of New Spain," describes how Cortés and his soldiers manipulated the Aztec people and their king Montezuma from the time they traveled from Iztapalaopa to the time when Montezuma took Cortés to the top of the great Cue and showed him the whole of Mexico and its countryside, and the three causeways which led into Mexico. Castillo's purpose for recording the mission was to keep an account of the wealth of Montezuma and Mexico, the traditions, and the economic potential that could benefit Cortés' upcoming conquest. However, through these recordings, we are able to see and understand Cortés'

Every artist's dream is to create something that leaves a lasting impression. The Last Conquistador follows the story of a sculptor who does exactly that. John Houser spent nearly a decade painstakingly crafted a 34-foot tall equestrian statue featuring the infamous Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate y Salazar. Following in the footsteps of his father who assisted in the carving of Mount Rushmore, Houser's fantasy of leaving his mark in one of the largest bronze equestrian statues in the world finally became a reality (Valadez). However, what an artist attempts to express and what message is truly received may not be one and the same. While the Hispanic elite of El Paso praised (and funded) the magnificent piece, the Acoma were horrified by the towering symbol of oppression and genocide looming overhead. This film not only provides a window into the conflict and controversy surrounding Houser's work, but also showcases several aspects of Texas political culture and highlights the dismissive attitude toward Native American culture that is still prevalent today.

The Mexican Cession refers to America’s expansion due West to the Pacific River that would lead to the Mexican-American War, and Mexico would ultimately cede land to the growing United States. Reasons for the expansion can be related to America’s mentality of manifest destiny. People believed that even God himself had blessed the country for expansion and this only added fuel to what soon would lead to advancing uncharted territory. Conditions throughout were strong, but America had an expedition and a mission to uphold that would make the United States a world power for decades to come.

     In 1519 Hernán Cortés led a couple hundred other Spaniards inland to the impressive Empire of the Mexica ruled by the Great Montezuma. Many historians today tell how quickly and almost effortlessly these Spaniards conquered the Empire. They paint an image of ignorant, helpless Indians practically giving up their land out of fear of this group because certainly the Spaniards must be gods since they have powerful weapons and strange animals. We know neither Cortés nor any of his men were gods, of course, but what was it that allowed Cortés to prevail over the inhabitants of the land?

Hernando Cortes was one of the bravest military leaders of all time. Born in Medellin, Spain, he was a Spanish Conquistador who conquered most of Central America. He also gave Spain three-hundred years of control over Mexico. Cortes started exploring in the early 1500’s. He explored to find riches and conquered by being observant of the natives. With a small army, he conquered the Aztec Empire. Cortes went to the university in Salamanca, Spain. He attended the university to study Latin and Law. Unfortunately, Cortes completed only two years of school. He returned to his family in Medellin, Spain. However, life became boring for him. Nevertheless, Christopher Columbus inspired Cortes to explore the New World. Finally, Cortes was able to

a city where an eagle with a snake in its beak rested on a cactus. This