CONQUEST OF MEXICO

EMPIRE OF THE SUN• The Aztecs (Mexicas), ―people of the sun,‖

constructed a great pre-Columbian civilization that rivaled those of the Old World.

• As Nahuatl-speaking nomads from the north, the Aztecs settled along Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico in the middle of the thirteenth century. After suffering much persecution and hardship the Aztecs became independent in 1428.

• In less than a century, the Aztecs conquered a vast empire stretching from the Gulf coast to the Pacific and as far south as Guatemala.

• Aztec rulers commanded an army of over 200,000 warriors, including those of the many tributary states they dominated. It was the largest army anywhere in the world at the time, and even today it would be among the largest.

• From Tenochtitlan, the Aztec heads of state launched far-reaching campaigns for over 90 years straight. They turned their adversaries into tributaries—allowing them to keep their own governments, but requiring the payment of tribute in the form of taxes or other commodities.

AZTEC HEGEMONY• To win control over the vast central and southern

areas of their land, the Aztecs created a militaristic society in order to terrify their neighbors into submission.

• Fearing the growing power of the Aztecs, neighboring city-states and peoples sealed treaties with Tenochtitlan and paid tribute to ―the empire of the sun.‖ By 1519 the Aztecs ruled over several million people.

• The Aztecs demanded heavy tribute from the vassal kingdoms they conquered. The vassal states maintained warehouses of food for the Aztec army so that the force would not depend on the Valley of Mexico for supplies and exhaust resources. If a tributary rebelled and ignored or refused to pay its taxes, it faced stern punishment by Aztec warriors and then a doubling of its tax levy.

• Boasted the Aztecs, ―The might of our powerful arms and the spirit of our … hearts shall be felt. With them we will conquer all nations, near and far, rule over villages and cities from sea to sea, become lords of gold and silver, jewels and precious stones, feathers and tributes, we shall become lords over them and their lands and over their sons and daughters, who will serve as our subjects.‖

THE TLAXCALAN MENACE

• The Aztecs, however, could never defeat the city-state of Tlaxcala, which was located 50 miles to the east of Tenochtitlan.

• The Tlaxcalans were an enemy which—like the prophecy of the return of the god Quetzcoatl—would haunt the Aztecs future.

TENOCHTITLAN• Founded in 1325, Tenochtitlan (the Place of the

Cactus in the Rock) was built on a low-lying island in the middle of Lake Texcoco.

• Spanish conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, upon encountering the Aztec capital, said he beheld such wonders that it must have been from a dream.

• Building and expanding upon the cultural traditions established by other Mesoamerican civilizations, the Aztecs erected magnificent temples, palaces, plazas, causeways, bridges, canals, fortresses, aqueducts, marketplaces, gardens, etc.

• The population of the metropolis must have been at least 250,000, home to fiestas, ritual sacrifices, military exercises, trade, slave labor, etc.

• Tenochtitlan was the largest city in Mesoamerica, if not the world, in the 15th century.

• Its ceremonial center boasted more than 25 major pyramids dedicated to a pantheon of deities and cultural heroes. Around the plazas and gardens that lay between these shrines were numerous public buildings in which officials administered the empire’s affairs.

• The city was divided into 60 residential wards, or clan districts, called calpulli, each one represented by a headman and containing the homes of all members of a clan and their families.

METROPOLIS• Laws, codes of conduct, and social position

dictated nearly every aspect of Aztec life. Nobles received education and rigorous training to serve as government officials, scribes, teachers, and military leaders. Nobles often lived comfortable lives in a palace or on a huge estate.

• For commoners life was considerably less comfortable. Commoners, such as farmers, laborers, fishermen, loggers, or stonemasons, might amass enough wealth to rival that of the nobles, but could never change their class. Commoners made up the bulk of the military forces. Exceptional military service could improve a man’s status, however.

• Women of both classes learned to weave cloth and were expected to take care of the household.

• Tenochtitlan was a bustling metropolis, with arsenals, monasteries, workshops, marketplaces, plazas, temples, professional buildings, schools, gardens, canals, storehouses, etc.

TEMPLO MAYOR

THE AZTEC WAY• The Aztecs possessed a mystical conception of

warfare, dedicating the Aztec people to the conquest of other peoples to capture victims for ritual sacrifice and to extend the power and influence of Tenochtitlan.

• The Aztecs believed that the source of all life, the sun, would perish unless replenished with a constant supply of human blood. Huitzilopochtli—the sun—was to be fed the most precious food of all—human blood. Huitzilopochtli’s rise to greatness coincided with that of the Aztecs themselves.

• The Aztecs engaged a perpetual state of war (for largely ceremonial purposes) with its neighbors

instead of conquering them in order to gain a steady supply of sacrifices.

• To the Aztecs, the offering of the human heart was the supreme sacrifice to their gods, ensuring the continued strength of the deities on whom the people’s life and well being depended.

AZTEC SOCIETY• Social classes:

– Pipiltin (nobles)

– Macehualtin (ordinary citizens)

– Mayeques (slaves or serfs, but not clearly distinguished from ordinary citizens)

– Tlamatinime (wise men of major cities, retained belief in single supreme god)

• Ceremonial attitudes toward war probably prevented the Aztecs from wiping out the Spaniards.

• Warrior’s first duty to obtain captives; trained from boyhood; weapons (macana, atlatl, bow and arrow, blowgun, spear); gave enemy customary ritual warning

• Education compulsory for all males

• System of writing combination of pictographic, ideographic and partially phonetic characters or glyphs, representing numerals, calendar signs, names of people, places, etc.

• Calendars: year count (astronomical year, 18 groups of 20 days each, w/ remaining period of unlucky 5 days; day count (20 months of 13 days each, calibrated to 52-year ―century‖)

• Literature (religious, lyric, epic, dramatic poetry, prose history, legends, moral teachings, etc.)

THE EUROPEAN WAY• The conquistadors emerged from a ―society

organized for war‖ and embodied the crusading spirit of the Reconquest. Spain, like the rest of Europe, was for most people a land of violence, squalor, pestilence, treachery, and intolerance.

• The Spaniards viewed the Aztecs as barbarian infidels and aimed at seizing their riches, converting them to Christianity, and forcing them to become Spanish subjects and slaves.

• The Spaniards brilliantly applied divide and conquer strategies to vanquish the Aztecs.

• Rival groups of the Aztecs, especially the Tlaxcala, chafing under heavy exactions of tribute and sacrificial victims, saw in the Spaniards their opportunity to revolt against Aztec hegemony and to further their own interests. They also learned of the several embassies Moctezuma sent to the Spaniards and may have feared an Aztec plot.

• Conquistadors invaded the New World for gold, glory, and God. They sought to seize and possess the land, conquer, subjugate, and exploit the inhabitants, accumulate wealth and power, and to civilize and Christianize the ―barbarian infidels.‖

CORTES• Cortes was a remarkable general and cunning

statesman.

• He came from a poverty-stricken province in Spain that offered few opportunities for advancement. After spending two unsuccessful years studying law, Cortes became a soldier of fortune, hoping to gain fame and fortune.

• In 1504, at the age of 19, Cortes journeyed to the New World. In 1518 the governor of Cuba chose Cortes to lead an expedition to explore and trade, but not to colonize, Mexico. Cortes and his followers gambled by disregarding orders, hoping to overcome charges of disloyalty by winning new riches and appealing directly to King Charles I of Spain.

• In 1519, at the age of 34, he landed at Vera Cruz with about 600 men, a few horses, a few pieces of artillery, and some guides with intentions of conquering Mexico and finding treasure.

• Cortes was an exploiter. Although he was married, he fathered several children by conquered Aztec women.

HOLY WAR• Conquistadors such as Cortes as well

as their followers fervently believed that right was on their side when they encountered the brutal religious practices of the Aztecs, and so saw themselves freeing souls from darkness by bringing them the graces of Catholicism and civility.

• Europeans tended to envision Indians as idolatrous, ferocious savages given over to cannibalism and sodomy or inferior natural slaves.

• Clearly the Spaniards believed that God was on their side. They wanted to spread Christianity as well as gain wealth and power.

• Ironically, Spaniards at other times marveled at the Aztecs’ stunning achievements. Some, at times, depicted them as ―models of natural virtue.‖

EL REQUERIMIENTO• The Requirement attempted to provide moral justification

for invasion, conquest, and exploitation. The document said that if the Indians refused or even delayed in their acceptance of Spanish domination, the Spaniards vanquish, subjugate, and enslave them in the name of God.

• The Requirement read: ―But if you will not comply, or maliciously delay to obey my injunction, then with the help of God, I will enter your country by force, I will carry on war against you with the utmost violence, I will subject you to the yoke of obedience to the church and king, I will take your wives and children, and will make them slaves, and sell or dispose of them according to His Majesty’s pleasure; I will seize your goods, and do you all the mischief in my power, as rebellious subjects, who will not acknowledge or submit to their lawful sovereign. And I protest that all the bloodshed and calamities which shall follow are to be imputed to you, and not to His Majesty, or to me, or the gentlemen who serve under me;…‖

• As Lewis Hanke argues, the Requirement ―was read to trees and empty huts‖ as a formality and justification of conquest. The Requirement said to the Indians, ―the deaths and losses which shall accrue from this are your fault,…‖

CANT OF CONQUEST• In his first letter to King Charles I of Spain,

Cortes stated that the sacrifices were

―horrible, and abominable, and deserving of

punishment.‖ He considered the Aztecs

instruments of the ―Devil‖ and ―sodomites.‖

Even if accurate, the death toll exacted by

sacrifices pales in comparison to the

hundreds of thousands of Indians that died

due to Spanish invasion and genocidal total

war against men, women, and children.

• Cortes also claimed it was the Spaniards’

duty to convert the Indians to Catholicism.

Those who resisted conversion were to be

―punished‖ as ―enemies‖ of the ―Holy

Catholic Faith.‖

TROUBLING SIGNS

• In 1519, Moctezuma II, the 9th Aztec ruler, was the most powerful man in North America. From Tenochtitlan, he had reigned as emperor since 1502 over the lands of ten million Mesoamerican people. For 90 years his nation had strengthened the empire with its armies and become wealthy from the tribute of defeated states.

• But Moctezuma had been reading the troubling signs and prophecies, which warned of impending death and destruction.

• Traders and ambassadors brought tales of floating houses and armored monsters with white skin and hair on their faces.

• Aztec tradition held that it was their destiny to rule the world. But the dark side of that destiny was that the rule of the empire would be followed by its destruction.

BAD OMENS• A mysterious ―fiery signal‖ appeared

in the ―eastern sky.‖

• A fire that could not be extinguished burned the temple of Huitzilopochtli (sun god and god of war).

• A lightning bolt damaged the temple of Xiuhtecuhtli (fire god) during a light rain, causing a blaze that burned the temple.

• ―… fire streamed through the sky while the sun was still shining.‖ A comet?

• ―The wind lashed the water until it

boiled,‖ causing flooding and destruction.

• The people heard a weeping woman night after night. She cried, ―My children, we must flee far away from this city.‖ This may be a reference to Cihuacoatl, an ancient earth goddess.

• A strange ―dark-feathered‖ bird wearing a peculiar mirror on the crown of its head was captured and brought to Moctezuma, who was something of an amateur wizard. At noon the Aztecs could see three stars in the constellation Taurus through the mirror. When Moctezuma looked in the mirror a second time he saw people riding ―animals resembling deer‖ and ―making war‖ on each other in a ―distant plain.‖ Moctezuma’s magicians and wise men could not make sense of the visions.

• ―Monstrous beings‖ appeared in the streets‖ of Tenochtitlan. The creatures were ―deformed men with two heads but only one body.‖ They were taken to Moctezuma, but they ―vanished‖ the moment he saw them.

ARRIVAL OF SPANIARDS• According to Fray Bernardino Sahagun’s indigenous

informants, the Aztecs and neighboring peoples considered these omens portents of doom. Sahagun’s Florentine Codex claims, ―To the natives, these marvels augured their death and ruin, signifying that the end of the world was coming and that other peoples would be created to inhabit the earth. They were so frightened and grief-stricken that they could form no judgment about these things, so new and strange and never before seen or reported.‖

• Not long before the first omen was seen, Nezahualpilli told Moctezuma that, according to his fortune-tellers, Mexico would soon be ruled by strangers. Moctezuma replied that his own fortune-tellers had predicted otherwise. Nezahualpilli then suggested that they settle the matter by playing a series of ritual games, with the outcome to decide who was right. He then also offered to wager his whole kingdom against three turkey cocks. Moctezuma agreed and won the first two games, but Nezahualpilli won the last three in succession.

GODS• Historian Miguel Leon-Portilla suggests that the, ―…

Nahuas tried to explain the coming of the Spaniards by a projection of earlier ideas: they assumed that the new arrivals were Quetzlcoatl and other deities.‖

• According to the Florentine Codex, Moctezuma consulted wise men to discern the meaning of the omens, but received no answers. A poor common man from the Gulf Coast city of Mictlancuauhtla brought news of floating ―towers.‖ Another report told of white men with beards. Moctezuma sent messengers and gifts to the strangers, believing that they might be Quetzcoatl and other deities returning to Mexico to retake the throne, as the codices and traditions promised they would. Moctezuma was distressed and depressed over the news. Cortes frightened the messengers—chaining them and then firing a cannon. Indian descriptions of the Spaniards were filled with awe and fear, particularly of the Spanish cannon, armor and clothing, weapons, horses, skin color, food, and dogs. The Florentine Codex notes that Moctezuma was ―conquered by despair.‖ Cortes, conversely, resolved to put the fierce reputation of the Aztec warriors to the test.

MOCTEZUMA• During the Spaniards ―irresistible march‖

inland, Moctezuma sent ambassadors bearing gifts and treasure to Cortes, hoping to turn him away from Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs offered to pay Cortes tribute, but he would not listen.

• Moctezuma next changed his strategy by sending messengers to the caciques of Cholula, urging them to annihilate the strangers. Cortes discovered this conspiracy and massacred the unwary Cholulans in the courtyard of their temple to Quetzlcoatl. This turn of events may have confirmed Moctezuma’s suspicions that Cortes and his men possessed supernatural powers. As Cortes drew closer to Tenochtitlan, he may have developed a sense of resignation.

QUETZALCOATL• When the Spanish conquistadors invaded

Mexico, Moctezuma was overwhelmed by the fatalistic belief that the white men must be Quetzalcoatl and other gods returning from across the Gulf of Mexico to bring about the demise of his reign.

• The prophecy of the god-hero Quetzlcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, said that in the One Reed (1519) he would return to retake the Valley of Mexico.

• Quetzlcoatl lived in the hearts of the subjugated Indians, who could view consider him a liberator.

• Moctezuma viewed the invaders as a threat—whether they were gods or men.

• A new force could destroy his fragile empire of conquered city states, which had already showed signs of rebellion.

• The prophecies indicated that Quetzlcoatl would be the sacred color white.

• Moctezuma decided to appease the invaders, sending emissaries, gifts, and eventually allowing the Spaniards to enter Tenochtitlan as guests.

CLASH OF CULTURES• Both the Aztecs and the Spaniards were

aggressively expansionist.

• Both had strong ideological motivations of saving the world. The objectives of both sides required much bloodshed.

• Both sides wanted more land and laborers to exploit.

• The Aztecs held a seemingly overwhelming advantage in sheer numbers.

• Cortes destroyed Aztec military power between 1519 and 1521, opening the continental mainland to Spanish conquest.

• Historian Francis Jennings contends that, ―…the marvel is not that Spanish conquest was so swift, but that it took so long.‖

• Both sides experienced ambivalence and division—Spanish (govt. and church) and the Aztecs (some Mesoamerican cities joined the Spaniards as well as internal disagreements)

• According Jennings, the Spaniards had a ―visible advantage in technology and social organization.‖

– Sea-going vessels

– The ability to reach out and exploit divisions among Aztec subjects

– Superior weaponry—firearms, crossbows, steel swords and lances, mail armor

– Horses (cavalry) and other domesticated animals (food and work)

– Phonetic writing (coordinate strategy and tactics)

– Gold and silver (money, capital, credit, wealth, supplies, etc.)

– Social and political structure that enabled the Spanish crown to preoccupy itself with power struggles in Europe while permitting private conquest under charter at no expense or trouble to the Spanish crown.

– Epidemic diseases fought and killed in behalf of Europeans.

LA MALINCHE• Even though the Spaniards shared a

burning desire for wealth, Cortes faced dissension among some of his men, who wished to to abandon the expedition. To prevent their sailing to Cuba, he scuttled his ships, forcing the dissenters to remain with him.

• A native woman of present-day Tabasco named Malintzin (La Malinche or Dona Marina) provided Cortes with invaluable assistance as an interpreter and diplomat as he marched inland, forming alliances along the way with disaffected city states of the Aztec empire.

• Many in the rebellious city states viewed Cortes, at least initially, as some sort of liberator. The most significant alliance was made with Tlaxcala, a fiercely independent city state and fearsome enemy of the Aztecs.

TERRORISM• The peoples of Central Mexico had

long been accustomed to military conquest. They labored on, paid tribute to new masters, and the more things changed, the more they continued as before. Cortes initiated a different type of conquest in Mexico that would transform both the Old and New worlds. As Jennings writes, ―Military conquest was accomplished by familiar European techniques of massacre, devastation, terrorism, and resultant demoralization of native peoples. It was quintessentially the product of free private enterprise by mercenary killers whose functional identity lurks behind the glorious mask of conquistador. The crown contributed chartered permission, and the church contributed blessing….‖

CHOLULA• Aided by his Tlaxcalan allies, Cortes furiously

massacred over 6,000 Cholulans. According to Aztec scribes, ―The there arose from the Spaniards a cry summoning all the noblemen, lords, war leaders, warriors, and common folk; and when they had crowded into the temple courtyard, then the Spaniards and their allies blocked the entrances and every exit. There followed a butchery of stabbing, beating, killing of unsuspecting Cholulans armed with no bows and arrows protected by no shields … with no warning, they were treacherously, deceitfully slain.‖

• Moctezuma received news of the slaughter with utter shock and was paralyzed with doubt.

• Las Casas understood well the military value of terrorism: ―This was their common custom that they no sooner had set footing in any place, but they committed immediate some notorious violence upon the people, that the rest might stand in greater fear of them.‖

• Cortes claimed that Moctezuma had organized an army near Cholula in an attempted plot to destroy the Spaniards.

TREACHERY• Cortes tried to justify his actions to the crown:

―I decided to forestall an attack, and I sent for some of the chiefs of the city, saying I wished to speak with them. I put them in a room and meanwhile warned our men to be prepared, when a harquebus was fired, to fall on the many Indians who were outside our quarters and on those who were inside. And so it was done, that after I had put the chiefs in the room, I left them bound up and rode away and had the harquebus fired, and we fought so hard that in two hours more than three thousand men were killed.‖

• Cortes claimed that he attacked the Aztecs only after he learned of an Aztec plot to destroy the Spaniards. Because he took the Aztec chiefs prisoner and the people by ―surprise,‖ Cortes said the Aztecs ―were easily overcome.‖ He repeatedly employed this same tactic of terror, fully grasping the expediency.

VALLEY OF MEXICO• Cortes arrived at gateway to Tenochtitlan on

Nov. 8, 1519. Spanish chronicler and conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo expressed the sense of awe that overcame the Spaniards when they first gazed upon the imperial Aztec capital: ―When we saw so many cities and villages built in the water and other great towns on dry land and that straight and level Causeway going towards Mexico [Tenochtitlan], we were amazed and said that it was like the enchantments they tell of in the legend of Amadis, on account of the great towers and cues [pyramids] and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers even asked whether the things we saw were not a dream…. I do not know how to describe it, seeing things as we did that had never been heard of or seen before, not even dreamed about.‖

• Aztec scribes continually noted that the Spaniards ―… hungered like pigs for that gold.‖

APPEASEMENT• According to Aztec accounts,

Cuitlahuac counseled Moctezuma not to allow Cortes entrance, but the ruler agreed with Cacama that the Spaniards should be welcomed with gifts, else it would be cowardly and dishonorable.

• Throngs of stunned and curious viewed the strangers in awe and disbelief.

• Moctezuma, riddled by fears, behaved indecisively, which proved costly.

• Cortes turned upon his hosts and seized Moctezuma as a hostage, forcing him to lead the conquistadors to the Aztec treasury. Aztec scribes later related, ―They took all, seized everything for themselves as if it were theirs.‖ For six months the Spaniards lived in splendor and pillaged the city.

RESISTANCE• The Aztecs eventually rose against Moctezuma largely

because he accepted Spanish soldiers who perpetrated in Tenochtitlan the same sort of massacre that they carried out against the Cholulans.

• Cuitlauac, Moctezuma’s brother, formed a resistance movement. The Spaniards, under the command of Pedro de Alvarado, surrounded and attacked Cuitlauac’s unarmed warriors and other citizens, who had gathered for a religious observance. A fierce battle ensued, and a peaceful city rose in rage.

• One Aztec warrior saved his life by playing dead and later described the scene: ―They charged the crowd with their iron lances and hacked us with their iron swords. They slashed the backs of some…. They hacked the shoulders of others, splitting their bodies open…. The blood of the young warriors ran like water; it gathered in pools. And the Spaniards began to hunt them out of the administrative area buildings … even starting to take those buildings to pieces as they searched. Great was the stench of the dead…. Your grandfathers died, and with them died the son of the king and his brothers and kinsmen. So it was that we became orphans, O’ my sons! So we became when we were young. All of us were thus. We were born to die!‖

CORTES RETURNS

• Cortes was absent from the city and had returned to the coast to deal with a power struggle. Cortes returned with reinforcements, but eventually had to make a strategic retreat from the city.

• The Aztecs forced the Spaniards to retreat behind the walls of the great palace. In an attempt to save his army, Cortes brought Moctezuma out in chains to convince the populace to stop fighting. But the Aztecs soon lost faith in Moctezuma, and Cuitlauac ascended to the throne as the tenth Aztec emperor.

• Cuitlauac mobilized his army in the fall of 1520 and led an uprising against the Spaniards.

• During the fighting, Moctezuma was killed. Each side blamed the other for his death.

LA NOCHE TRISTE• After 27 days besieged in the palace, almost

one year after their occupation of the city, the desperate Spaniards attempted to escape under cover of darkness using one of the main causeways.

• From canoes, Aztec warriors pelted the fleeing Spaniards with a barrage of arrows and spears. Many weighted down with plunder, drowned. An Aztec account of the ―Sad Night‖ says, ―The canal was filled, crammed with them. Those who came along behind walked over on men, on corpses…. And when the Spanish thus disappeared, we thought they had gone for good, nevermore to return.‖ For a short time, Tenochtitlan was free of Europeans.

• However, the long Spanish occupation had cost the Aztecs the allegiance of numerous allies on the mainlaind surrounding the lake.

• Cortes lost perhaps as many as 2/3 of his forces. The survivors found refuge in Tlaxcala.

PESTILENCE• Nevertheless, the Spaniards unwittingly brought

a devastating invisible weapon, a smallpox epidemic that decimated the Aztecs in ghastly fashion. The Aztec account narrates: ―But at about the time that the Spaniards fled from Mexico … there came a great sickness, a pestilence, the smallpox … it spread over the people with great destruction of men. It caused great misery…. The brave Mexican warriors were indeed weakened by it. It was after all this had happened that the Spaniards came back.‖

• Among the casualties was Cuitlauac. Moctezuma’s nephew, Cuauhtemoc, a 25-year-old warrior, succeeded to the throne.

• Meanwhile, Cortes rebuilt his army and made

new alliance. The Spaniards and 50,000

Tlaxcalan and other allied Indian soldiers returned to set siege to Tenochtitlan.

• Clearly, Cortes could not conquer the Aztecs with his own resources unaided. He depended on the aid of Indian allies seeking liberation from Aztec tyranny.

SIEGE OF TENOCHTITLAN• The conquistadors and their allies laid siege

to the weakened city. Cuauhtemoc and his warriors resisted the invasion with ferocity. An Aztec account says, ―Fighting continued, both sides took captives, on both sides there were deaths. Nevertheless, great became the suffering of the common folk. There was hunger. Many died of famine. There was no more good, pure water to drink…. Many people died of it…. The people ate anything—lizards, barn swallows, corn leaves, saltgrass…. Never had such suffering been seen…. The enemy pressed about us like a wall … they herded us…. The brave warriors were still hopelessly resisting.‖

• After 4 months of one of the longest continuous battles in history, the Spaniards, with their superior weaponry and numbers of allies ended the resistance.

• Cuautemoc was taken prisoner and exiled. Tenochtitlan was leveled.

BROKEN SPEARS

• An anonymous Aztec author described the fate of Tenochtitlan:

And all these misfortunes befell us. We saw them and wondered

at them; we suffered this unhappy fate.

Broken spears lie in the roads;

we have torn our hair in our grief.

The houses are roofless now, and their walls

are red with blood….

We have pounded our hands in despair

against the adobe walls,

for our inheritance, our city, is lost and dead.

The shields of our warriors were its defense,

but they could not save it….

They set a price on all of us: on the young men, the priests, the boys and girls. The price of a poor man was only two handfuls of corn, or ten cakes made from mosses or twenty cakes of salty couch-grass. Gold, jade, rich cloths, quetzal feathers—everything that once was precious was now considered worthless.

The captains delivered several prisoners of war to Cuautemoc to be sacrificed. He performed the sacrifices in person, cutting them open with a stone knife.‖

NEW SPAIN

• The Spaniards replaced Indian buildings and institutions with their own.

• They enslaved countless Indians, exploiting them for their labor and other resources. Thousands died from overwork, malnutrition, and disease

• They introduced the harsh encomienda system.

• The Mexican population declined from 25 million in 1519 to 1 to 2 million in 1600.

• In Mexico, one oppressor was replaced with another.

• Despite all this, the Indians of Mexico survived and persisted. Indian cultures still profoundly influence the way of life, art, and values in Mexico today.

STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE• Spanish conquest had two main

motivations, to acquire land and wealth and to reduce the Indians to civility and convert them to Christianity. This dual motivation made conflict inevitable. They were attempting mission impossible. Spaniards sought imperial dominion, prestige and revenue, while at the same time trying to win voluntary Indian converts. In order to achieve both objectives, however, the Spaniards would have to overthrow traditional Indian values and disrupt or destroy Indian cultures.

• The Spanish crown and the Catholic Church wrestled with the conflict. A great debate over Indian policy ensued. Was it lawful for the king of Spain to wage war on the Indians before preaching the ―true faith‖ to them in order to subject them to his rule, so that afterward they may be more easily instructed in the faith?

SEPULVEDA

• Humanist scholar Juan Gines de Sepulveda argued that it was both ―lawful and expedient‖ to wage war against the natives for four reasons—the idolatrous, barbarous, and cruel religion of the Indians, the Indians were subhuman and fit only for slavery or extinction, conquest would make it easier to convert the Indians, and to protect the weak among the Indians. Sepulveda asked: ―How can we doubt that these people, so uncivilized, so barbaric, so contaminated with many sins and obscenities … have been justly conquered by such an excellent, pious, and most just king as was Ferdinand the Catholic and is now Emperor Charles, and by such a humane nation which is excellent in every kind of virtue?‖

• Sepulveda contended that there is much difference between Spaniards and Indians as there is ―between apes and men.‖

LAS CASAS• Although he participated in the conquest,

Dominican friar Bartolome de Las Cas later became the greatest ―defender of the Indians.‖

• Even though he often portrayed the Indians as mere lambs, Las Casas called that conquest and the encomienda system unjust and altogether contrary to the Spaniards’profession of wanting to convert the Indians to Christianity.

• Las Casas advocated conversion by peaceful persuasion, contending that the Indians are human beings deserving of natural rights.

• Las Casas eventually persuaded the Spanish court to forbid waging war in for the purpose of forcibly converting Indians to Catholicism and the enslavement of the Indians.

• Las Casas argued that ―… all of the races of the world are men….‖ He maintained, ― … the entire human race is one; all men are alike with respect to their creation and the things of nature, and none is born already taught….‖

THE OTHERS

• One of the dominant themes in human history has been and continues to be that the people who are different—the others—are the ones who are persecuted.

• The concept of ―the other‖ too often has been used to justify conquest and exploitation.

BIBLIOGRAPHYThe Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Edited and with an

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Hanke, Lewis. The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America. Philadelphia:

University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949.

Jennings, Francis. The Founders of America. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993.

Josephy, Alvin M. Jr. 500 Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians. New

York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

Stannard, David E. American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1992

Wheeler, William Bruce and Susan D. Becker. Discovering the American Past: A Look at the

Evidence. Fifth Edition. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2002.

Witness: Writings of Bartolome de Las Casas. Edited and translated by George Sanderlin. New

York: Orbis Books, 1992 (1971).

1492--Discovery, Invasion, Encounter: Sources and Interpretations. Edited with an introduction

by Marvin Lunenfeld. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1991