Conquest of Mexico Essay

Death, starvation, illness, and hostile natives are some of the difficulties explorers faced during the 15th century. Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and Garcia Lopez de Cardenas were two Europeans who traveled great distances in hopes of discovering something new. Throughout their journeys, both men wrote down the problems and discoveries they made. With the passages from their journal one can compare and contrast their expeditions. In the upcoming paragraphs one will learn the similarities and differences between the two men during their expeditions.

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'

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

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

de la Casas describes the second voyage that he embarked upon with Columbus. He described how each island was depopulated and destroyed. His observations of the land were no so descriptive of the native people and the land, but of the gruesome images the Spanish painted upon the Indies. de la Casas says, “…the Indians realize that these men had not come from Heaven (9).” He goes into detail about how the Christians would take over villages and had no mercy describing one particularly crude act to show how ruthless the Spanish were. He says, “Then they behaved with such temerity and shamelessness that the most powerful ruler of the islands had to see his own wife raped by a Christian officer (9).” The Spanish were so coward and angry anytime an Indian was actually capable of slaying a Spanish man that a rule was made; for every Christian slain, a hundred Indians would die. Natives were captured and forced to work jobs like pearl diving where they would very rarely survive due to man eating sharks or just from drowning and holding their breaths

that President Polk had no right to do what he did. It is said that

This book is about how William Foster produces eleven maps of the expeditions that took place from Northeastern Mexico during the years of 1689 to 1768. Foster also explains the diary records kept in each expedition as the Spanish explorers passed through Texas. This book also deals with how the Spanish had to overcome the Indian threats that arose during the seventy-nine years of the Spanish expedition. The main purpose of this book is to study the routes followed and the important events that occurred during each of the eleven expeditions that took place in Texas.

Can you imagine setting sail with about 600 men on a conquest hoping to successfully complete a task. Instead your castaway and you are one of four survivor’s out of 600 men; We can all attempt to imagine, but this was reality for Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca. In the early 1500’s Alvar Nuñez was amongst the first Europeans to step foot in what is known as North America today. The narrative and film Cabeza de Vaca Relacion and Cabeza de Vaca the film, recounts the trials and tribulations of the eight year journey. The film adaptation of Chronicle of the Narváez Expedition compares to the text in many ways. The film is merely a mirror to the narrative and although the film is not as long as the book it gives its audience visual validation of the hardships Alvar Nunez and his men endured, The way in which Alvarez was inhumanly treated by the Indians and how Alvar Nunez became popular and respected in the Indian community.

“Since the survivors were held by different tribes or groups they were often separated. The next year at the time of the gathering of the tribes to eat prickly pears the four (Castillo, Dorantes, Estebanico, and Cabeza de Vaca) made their escape. (sjsu.edu). “During their escape, other tribes that they met along the way aided them and helped them. They escaped at the time when the tribes were going to pick pears, so food was not a problem at this time.” (sjsu.edu). “The Spaniards decided to build rafts and leave Florida by the sea.” (tshaonline.org). “Each raft was loaded with fewer than fifty men, and rose only six inches above the water. They had to sail their rafts as closely to the shore as possible in case something were to happen. They left on September 22, 1528, and all was going well until they crossed what is now the Mississippi River. Thrown off course by the strong winds, the five rafts eventually landed off the coast of Texas. (tshaonline.org). “By the spring of 1529, only thirteen Spaniards and an African slave were still alive, along with Cabeza de Vaca. Some of the men thought that he was dead because he had been gone for so long. Twelve of the fourteen men had headed towards the coast of Mexico.” (tshaonline.org). “They finally landed at a place that they named the Island of Misfortune, somewhere around what is now Galveston, Texas. Cabeza de Vaca and his men lived out on the island with the Karankawa Indians from 1529 to 1534, and were eventually separated due to a state of semi-slavery.”(americanjourneys.org). After Cabeza de Vaca and his men were separated from the Indians, he used his self-teaching skills and taught himself how to become a healer, or a doctor. “He explored all along the coast of East Texas, hoping to find a way into Mexico and explore some Spanish colonies. In 1534, the other survivors, Alfonso de Castillo, Andres Dorantes, and Estevan or Estebanico and

Cabeza made use of all the food that the indians gave him and that included spiders,snakes and rats. (document B). He used hit a branch from a tree that was struck by lightning and just kept walking. NIght after night he would huddle in a hole with his fire ( Document D).Cabeza did all these things because without it he would not have been able to survive his journey through Texas.

The Conquest of Mexico began with rumors in Spain about an island in the new world that where streets were built on water and filled castles with filled with gold. The city at the root of the rumors was Tenochtitlan, ruled by Moctezuma II. Cortés begins his journey to conquer Mexica in February 1519. The first major Battle was the Cholula Massacre, where Cortés along with translator Dona Marina and the Tlaxcalans he had persuaded to join him defeated the Cholulans; As Cortés sets his sights on the city surrounded by water, Tenochtitlan, word of his arrival had reached Moctezuma, who prepared for the arrival of what he believed was the sovereign God of Tenochtitlan; Moctezuma realized far too late the grave mistake he made in welcoming Cortés

Cabeza De Vacaśsurvival was a mystery among others or was it ? In the spring of 1527 five spanish ships set sail for the New world one of them was holding a man named Cabeza De Vaca.After waiting for winter to stop Panfilo De Narvaez (The leader of the expedition) hopelessly confused made accidental landfall near modern day tampa bay,Florida After 2 difficult months,Narvaez and his men arrived at Apalache Bay and only new he had to travel west to get to mexico and told the men to melt guns down into tools to build 5 rafts that could hold fifty men and one of the five rafts was led by Cabeza. Some wondered how Cabeza survived when he came back from his horrible trip and I have three of many to tell you abou. Cabezaś survival was attributed by having faith in god, the ability to be trusted by indians,and being able to heal the indians.

Cabeza may have taken the viewpoint of peaceful conversion rather than that of most other Spanish explores, who would use terror and violence for conversion, due to his experience with certain natives after the capsize of his boat. In reaction to their sight "The Indians, understanding our full plight, sat down and lamented for half an hour so loudly they could have been heard a long way off" (Covey 57). Cabeza then says in reaction to the natives' actions "It was amazing to see these wild, untaught savages howling like brutes in compassion for us" (Covey 57-58). The mindset of peaceful interaction between the Indians and Europeans in Cabeza's crew might have been confirmed after this encounter. Also after the wreck of the ship, Cabeza was brought to the natives' village and was given a place to sleep and was fed in the morning. This gesture

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions, Andres Dorantes, Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado, and Estevan were the sole survivors of a four hundred men expedition. The group of them went about the friendly Indian tribes preforming miracles of healing, with the power of Christianity. At one time five sick persons were brought into the camp, and the Indians insisted that Castillo should cure them. At sunset he pronounced a blessing over the sick, and all the Christians united in a prayer to God, asking him to restore the sick to health, and on the following morning there was not a sick person among them. De Vaca and his companions reached the Pacific coast where the Indians, showed signs of civilization, living in houses covered with straw, wearing cotton clothes and dressed skins, with belts and ornaments of stone, and cultivating their fields, but had been driven therefrom by the brutal Spanish soldiery and had taken refuge in the mountains, de Vaca and his comrades, being regarded as emissaries from the Almighty, exercised such power over these untutored savages that, at their bidding, the Indians returned to their deserted habitations, and began again to cultivate their fields, the assurance being given them by de Vaca and his companions that henceforth they would