Hernan Cortes: Encolonizing The Mexicans And La Malinche

Both Malintzin and the Spanish benefited from Malintzin’s choices. Later on the Tlaxcala would benefit too. Initially the Tlaxcala’s and the Spanish were enemies, but eventually with the help of Malintzin they were able to form an alliance in order to fight the Aztecs. “For having arranged with the Tlaxcalans to provide military reinforcements (perhaps as many as five thousand)” (79). With the aid of the Tlaxcala the Spanish where able to press on forward toward Tenochtitlan. Even though their first attack didn’t end up so well they still kept an alliance due to Malintzin that would later prove useful. Later after the Spanish conquests, they keep their word and they didn’t destroy Tlaxcala along with the majority of other native settlements.

Hernando Cortes ignored the rules of the queen and took on Mexico, he arrived with 500 men and 11 boats around 1519. Cortes united with natives from the battle in Mexico, but killed others with a deadly force.

Hernan Cortes was a young man who dreamed of having his own fortune in the new world. When he was 19, he joined an expedition to Cuba and he realized that he could conquer new land. Years later, when he was all grown up, he was sent from Spain to conquer new land. He ended up landing in Mexico. He found new land for him to conquer and earn riches that he never dreamed of having in his life and

Hernan (also Hernando or Fernando) Cortes was born in Medellin, Estramadura, in Spain in 1485 to a family of minor nobility.

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.

Leon-Portilla based the stories told in this book upon old writings of actual Aztec people who survived the Spanish massacres. The actual authors of the stories told in this book are priests, wise men and regular people who survived the killings. These stories represent the more realistic view of what really happened during the Spanish conquest. Most of the history about the Aztec Empire was based on Spanish accounts of events, but Leon-Portilla used writings from actual survivors to illustrate the true history from the Indians’ point of view.

and fame. The accounts are based on the Aztec’s perception of the invasion and include the

- Cortes actions played a vital role in helping establish Spanish settlement in the new world. He and his fleet of about 600 men traveled into Mexico in hopes of finding gold as well as glory. During his time in Mexico he persuaded Indian societies who were rivals of the Aztec Empire, to join his force to take over this mighty empire. He used terror and intimidation to do so along the way. After a few years he took down the Aztec Empire, which opened the door for other explorers to invade the new world as well in their hopes of finding gold as well.

Although Marina helped Cortes during his expeditions, many townspeople have very different views of Dona Marina. If you ask some people about Dona Marina some will call her a traitor because she helped aid the spaniards and helped the foreign rulers rise to power, others would say she did what she had to do to survive. She had enough intelligence to learn multiple languages and enough social skills to be a cultural mediator for foreigners who may have not necessarily gotten along.4 Why is it that throughout her years serving Hernan Cortes’, she isn’t given a higher title other than Hernan Cortes Translator. She was obviously more than this, yet due to her background and sex all of her great accomplishments go unnoticed or even worse passed on to the male who “own’s her.” This goes along with how women were treated more like property rather than human beings. She was bought by Cortes as a translator, she followed him throughout most of his expeditions and helped him achieve great success by possibly taking her ideas and calling them his own, and due to the fact that she is a woman, she doesn’t get any credit for her hard work. About a year or so after I had left Mexico, I learned that Dona Marina had married a conquistador named Juan Jaramillo and that she gave birth to her second child, a girl, this time named Dona

They ignore that she saved thousands of Indian lives by enabling Cortes to negotiate rather than slaughter. Her ability to communicate also enabled the Spaniards to introduce Christianity and attempt to end human sacrifice and cannibalism. Herself a convert, baptized Marina, she was an eloquent advocate for her new faith. As for the charges against her, they are in my opinion baseless. So

Hernan Cortes was a Spanish conquistador which meant that he went out to conquer land with his army. He and his army were thirsty for gold, taking other people’s treasure to make it into theirs an example of that were the Aztecs. The Aztecs were people who had build a big empire in in Tenochtitlan and they had large amounts of gold but soon enough that empire was destroyed by Hernan killing and conquering people to the point that the Aztecs became afraid of the Spanish.Therefore, Hernan Cortes is a villain because of all of the pain and destruction he caused.

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.

Hernan Cortes was a fierce conquistador from Spain that grew up in a noble family. In 1504, he headed out for Hispaniola but ended up in Cuba in 1511. Cortes convinced the Cuban governor to let him be the leader and general of an expedition to Mexico. He then established Veracruz, and was elected official General. Cortes scorched his ships. His men were skeptical about

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.

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