The Conquest Of New Spain Summary

Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2003

Q: What were Cortes' and Bernal Diaz's motives for writing their accounts of the conquest? How did these motives color their narratives of the conquest?

Throughout history, as we study Spain we can clearly recognize high and low points in their success. In the fifteen hundreds Spain had no influence on European affairs, Spain essentially vanished out of Europe. However, within one complete century Spain had become not only a leading power but they also had a great sense of effectiveness in Europe. Spain experienced a Golden age with many social, economic, political aspects. On the other hand, within

Restall’s ultimate goal in writing this book is to provide readers and scholars alike with a more realistic viewpoint and history of the Spanish conquest. He wishes to dispel the many myths that accompany the epic tale so as to provide a better understanding of who the natives were and, more importantly to Restall, who the Spanish were. He does an excellent job of questioning the who, what, and where of the personalities and motives of the men involved in conquest. These questions are heartily answered in a well-written and easy to read history book.

“Victors and Vanquished,” through excerpts of Bernal Diaz del Castillo The True History of the Conquest of New Spain and indigenous testimonies from the Florentine Codex, represents the clash between European and indigenous cultures and how there was no simple “European” or “indigenous” view. Rather, there were a variety of European and indigenous opinions and interpretations that were influenced by personal interests, social hierarchy and classes, ethnic biases and political considerations.

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

To better understand the conflict between the Europeans and the Native Americans, one must closely examine the state of Europe’s economy at the time. Europe struggled with difficult conditions. This included poverty, violence and diseases like typhus, smallpox, influenza and measles. There were widespread famines which caused the prices of products to vary and made life very difficult in Europe. Street crimes and violence were prevalent in cities: “Other eruption of bizarre torture, murder, and ritual cannibalism were not uncommon”.2 Europeans

As all authors are undeniably guilty of, James Axtell has a bias, and not one shamefully swept underneath the rug. The enlightening article Axtell has published remains not only as informational; it stands convicting in a sense. Unfortunately, the reader may find themselves lumped into the assemblage of Americans that regard the Native Americans as “pathetic footnotes to the main course of American History” (Axtell 981). Establishing his thesis, Axtell offers plentiful examples of how Native Americans contributed to Colonial America,

Reséndez’s emphasis on the Europeans’ actions rather than the European disease changes the perspective of colonial studies and supplements, rather than replaces, existing theories of depopulation like Crosby’s epidemic theory. It assigns active responsibility to Europe for the decimation of native populations (Reséndez, conversation in HIST 900, 2017). By addressing the European responsibility for Native American decimation, Reséndez transforms the existing narrative of Europe’s impact on the New World and redefines the story of the depopulation of Native American tribes.

One of the weaknesses of this book was the way in which a strong opinion of the author frequently came to the surface. The impression given when reading was one of bias in that the Spanish were wrong to come in and refine everything. This was reflected in the fact that periodically within the book, when the Spanish conquistadors did something to the Indians, it was pointed out how inhumane it was. Yet, when the Indians retaliated in some way, it was quickly pointed out how justified they were. The mentioned advantages that the Indians gained through the Spaniards were infrequent and underdeveloped.

The two accounts for the siege of Tenochtitlan offer different perspectives on what occurred between the Aztec and Spanish forces in the city. The Aztec sources, for example, do not go into a lot of detail about the whole siege, instead they provide short descriptions of major events that occurred. The descriptions rarely provide full details about tactics used by either side. However, in The Conquest of New Spain, Bernal Diaz provides detailed descriptions of battles and the tactics used on both sides to try and take territory in the city. His account deals with the day to day battles, food shortages, tactics, mistakes, and pleas for surrender. The accuracy of his account must be considered, because he began writing it in his seventies, decades after the war.

In the year 1500, Spain conquered Mexico and named it New Spain. Life was very hard under Spanish rule and so many of the native Mexicans mostly (Mayas and Aztecs) were forced into hardship and slavery. More than 300 years later, on September 16, 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a renown Catholic priest, launches the Mexican War of Independence with the his issuing of the Grito de Dolores, or “Cry of Dolores”. In the early times of September 16, 1810, father Hidalgo, followed by several conspirators, Ignacio Allende, Doña Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, rang the bell of his little church, calling everyone to fight for liberty. This was the beginning of the Independence War, which had lasted for around 10 years. He and his naive Indian followers

In history, everyone seems to have a different opinion of what “really happened”. In fact, it is some people’s job to determine what the truth really is. So, when there are very few written accounts of what happened, as there is with the Spanish Conquest of Mexico, it can make these people’s jobs even harder. While each historian may have their own perspective on the events, they can all be used together like parts of a puzzle to discover the truth and by doing so it is clear to see that the Conquest of Mexico was a lot more than an adventure. In this paper, I will be putting this puzzle together by looking at a pro-Spanish and pro-Native sources. Using the works of Camilla Townsend, Hernando Cortes, and La Otra Conquista, I will analyze each perspective and look at how such different views can fit together and balance each other out.

The accountant of the conquest, and the making of what is today Latin America is a debatable subject in the field of humanities, especially in the field history. The most widespread approaches of this history are that of violence, war, oppression, possession of territories, and foundation of new colonies. In Frontier of Possessions, Tamar Herzog, a historian, professor of Latin American presents an account of the conquest from a different perspective, one that proposes that the acquisition of the territory of the New World by Spain and Portugal was a result of “interactions of many actors that caused territorial division in both Iberia and the Americas” (Herzog, 6). Hence, I conquer that one of the reasons of the conquest was the desire

During the Medieval Ages, the Iberian Peninsula was composed of different domains of which the north was occupied by the Christian kingdoms and the Islamic kingdoms in the south. The peninsula was a place of constant bloody war and sagacious politicking between kingdoms. The constant wars virtually made the sufferings and wailings of the common people eternal until two excellent monarchs of two contiguous Iberian kingdoms, heir-to-the-throne monarchs equal in beauty and genius, were united in a marriage ceremony that cemented the alliance of the kingdom of Aragon and the kingdom of Castille and Leon which became the primary catalyst of Spanish unity which will be instrumental in the rise of Spain as an empire and for a time a leading state in whole of Europe. These monarchs were Prince Ferdinand of the kingdom of Aragon and Queen Isabella of the kingdom