Broken Spears Research Paper

_The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of _Mexico, edited and with an introduction by Miguel Leon-Portillo (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), pp. 196 Reviewed by: Nicholas Adams Broken Spears is an accumulated, chronological collection of texts and accounts of the invasion of the Aztec empire by the Spanish from April 22, 1519 to August 13, 1521. This time period from arrival to the surrender of the Aztec empire to the Spanish is filled with interactions between two different people and the events that encompass what it takes to conquer an indigenous people with complete disregard. Broken Spears also allows the history of the conquest of the Aztec empire to be seen from the Aztec point of view, as priests and natives who survived
the conquest were able to write down accounts of the Spanish and what they did to the Aztec people. This produces a balance between what the conquerors wrote and what the Aztecs endured, because most history is written by the conquering party or the sustained civilizations and cultures. Spanish conquistador, Cortes and about six hundred Spaniards landed at Veracruz on April 22, 1519.
They came with ambitions of greed, riches, and the conversion of the Aztec people into Christians and Spanish counterparts by what seems force, due to their feeling that the aztecs were barbaric people. They brought with them horses, armory , guns and swords, and to the Aztecs’ demise, disease. The Spanish were considered Gods, and guests of Motecuhzoma(god) as they entered the historic metropolis city of Tenochtitlan, where they reached the summit of a pyramid where the main temple was built. There they give an account of the awes of the city, and its complex structure: three causeways, irrigated water to the city, canoe travel, great marketplace, fortresses, and a view of all surrounding areas. A direct showing of the crudeness of the Spanish in their conquest is the way in which they slaughtered during the festival in Tenochtitlan. It is said that they immersed themselves among the people and began to kill by cutting heads off, arms, abdomen wounds causing entrails to come out, attacked the drummer discontinuing the music, wounds to the thighs and calves, and the celebrants tried to
run. Some of them with their entrails out, only to find no escape. A complete massacre during a most joyous time in the city.
The lack of understanding in which the Aztecs displayed for the purpose of the Spanish being present created an easier transition to power for Cortes and his Spaniards. The Aztecs talk of their horses, as stags or deer, that bellow and snort with bells that clamor, and how their hooves break open the Earth. The king saw no trouble in their arrival, claiming that they were gods who had returned from the sea. The power and technology the Spaniards exhibited only heightened the Aztec confusion and disaster. A true sign of fear and abdication was the fact that the Spaniards were able to develop native allies with Aztecs from far out by the coast away from the strong city. These allies were aids for navigation and connection to the King and the metropolis, in which the Spaniards wanted to reach. However, the precursor for the invasion by the Spaniards seemed to be a set of omens that were accounted for starting ten years before the Spaniards arrival. And now it is burning, the wooden columns are burning! The flames, the tongues of fire shoot out, the bursts of fire shoot up into the sky! The flames swiftly destroyed all the woodwork of the temple. When the fire was first seen, the people shouted: "Mexicanos, come
running! We can put it out! Bring your water jars ... ! " But when they threw water on the blaze it only flamed higher. They could not put it out, and the temple burned to the ground.” This is an instance of a terrible happening that could not be explained and seemed to incur future doom. At the Spanish arrival, the king, Motechezuma sent messengers in response to a messenger sent by the Spaniards. The messenger’s reports frightened the king but still did not stir him enough to feel threatened by the newcomers. However, he sent wizards and magicians to possibly harm or scare off the Spaniards, and they failed in their attempts, thus revealing their true intent to march on the capital. The king then orders sacrifices for the Spaniards as he looked at them as gods, and when subjects were sacrificed in the presence of the Spaniards they were disgusted and saw the practice as inferior and barbaric. Thus the Spaniards inquired to see the king and this is when he resorted to the thought of fleeing as his heart was filled with discomfort and terror due to the insecurity of his people. Especially when Cortes arrived in Tlaxcala where the people became his allies and centered their hatred for Cholula to the Spaniards so the result would be the destroy of their enemies. The valiant Cortes answered them with a stern face: "Have no fear. I promise you revenge." And he kept this promise, waging a cruel war in which vast multitudes were slaughtered, as is recorded in the chronicles.