In his book, Andean Worlds: Indigenous History, Culture and Consciousness under Spanish rule. 1532-1825, the author, Kenneth J. Andrien, examines the Spanish invasion of the Incan Empire (called Tawintinsuyu) in 1532. This invasion brought cataclysmic change to the entire Andean region, resulted in the complete collapse of the empire and the deaths of most of the citizens through war and pestilence in later years. What had once been the proud and content citizens of the most advanced, powerful…
-“Thousands of native warriors swarm like bees upon the vastly outnumbered conquistadors, who against all odds fend them off and survive to fight another day” (44). -Restall intrigues, “what has so often been ignored or forgotten is the fact that Spaniards tended also to be outnumbered by their own native allies.…
Schwartz fills in that general background with a collection of documents that illustrate the clash of two cultures and how this conflict created a new environment for the Nahua and the Spanish, for other Native Americans and other Europeans. Both the Spanish and the Mexica were "renaissance conquerors" and strongly religious, and Victors and Vanquished reveals the shared complexity, violence, pride, and prejudice of these seemingly different societies and…
The Battle of San Pasqual was a conflict between Californios and Americans during the Mexican-American War. The battle took place in present-day California between the indigenous people, named Californios, and the United States (U.S.) Army. By analysing this battle with the Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP) 1 Warfighting it becomes clear that the Californios had strengths in leadership, training, and combat power (U.S. Marine Corps, 1997). Even with these strengths, the battle is still debated on who was the successor between the two countries. This paper reflects the success of the Californios because of their specific actions during the Battle of San Pasqual.…
Abstract: This essay addresses the question ‘To what extent did Spanish military superiority facilitate the success of Cortes’ conquest of the Aztec Empire between 1519-21?’. In order to reach a conclusion, a range of primary and secondary sources have been consulted, including The Conquest of Mexico by Hugh Thomas, The Conquistadors documentary by Michael Wood and letters from Hernan Cortes and Bernal Diaz to King Charles V of Spain. In 1521, a relatively small number of Spanish adventurers managed to conquer the vast Aztec empire and destroy a civilisation. Their story has been popularised in Western culture and become somewhat of a legend; however, the role that the Spanish themselves played in their eventual success is often exaggerated. Traditionally, explanations for the success of the Spanish have focused on their military and strategic superiority and the notorious leadership of…
When discussing the importance of Spanish alliances, it is important to discuss Matthew Restall’s interpretation of “the myth of the white conquistador”. A common myth in regards to the Spanish Conquest is that the Aztecs were conquered by a small group of white Spanish men. Within Restall’s book titled “Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest”, he debunks the myth of the white conquistadors. Restall’s argues that “there is no doubt that the Spanish were consistently outnumbered by native enemies on the battlefield. But what has so often been ignored or forgotten is the fact that Spaniards tended also to be outnumbered by their own native allies. Furthermore, the invisible warriors of this myth took an additional form, that of the Africans, free and enslave, who accompanied Spanish…
Following the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the territory of northern Mexico became the burgeoning American South West. Nuevomexicanos, residents of the area of New Mexico, were attempting to dissuade Anglo perceptions that they were still loyal to the Mexico. What emerged was the idea of “hispanidad”, Spanishness, seeing as Spain is a white European country and being white was paramount to gaining political and social status in America at the time. Nuevomexicanos felt being of Spanish descent would shift white perceptions and remove them from their link to Mexican heritage. What emerged from this culture of hispanidad, was a rigid caste system that aimed to use bloodlines to prove Nuevomexicanos were descended from Spanish colonizers. Their goal was to “conjure up an entire history of conquest and settlement with which Americans could identify and that they could even admire.” (pg. 9)…
When in reality it was the Spaniards who were the true savages for treating Native Americans as an evil creature due to their religious views. It was sad to read about how Indians families were torn apart and many choose not to have kids because of this. I was disgusted by how the Spaniards would cut off native women’s breasts and throw their infants to a pack of dogs. The teachings of Popes prepared the ground for the mass Genocide of Native Americans because they taught genocide because anyone who would go against their God would be killed. There are many major statements in this book. One of which is the statement that history books have incorrect information on the conquest of the Americas by the Spaniards. This is important to understand because it shows how young students are being taught wrong information as well as being taught to think that Native Americans are horrible people when the reality was that they were the victims in the situation. Another important statement addressed in the book was how it explained the mistreatment of Native American by the…
Hernan Cortés was a Spaniard who defeated the Mexica Confederation in many different ways. The most successful tactic he used to defeat the Aztecs were by European Weapons, but he also had different ways. Cortés had different advantages that the Aztecs didn't, the Spanish brought over small pox. Many of his people were immune to it while the Mexica Confederation was not. Many people thought the Spanish were gods and gave them many gifts. Motecuhzoma thought Hernan Cortés was Quetzalcoatl, which was a god they were waiting for. He had two translators that were able to help him through his journey. The two translators knew different dialect; he had La Malinche and Geronimo de Aguilar. Hernan Cortés had many advantages that allowed…
The myth is that the conquistadors conquered the America’s relatively quickly in a sovereign effort but Restall explains that the Spaniards had a lot of help from the Natives and African’s and the “completion” of conquest was anything but; as mass portions of the land remained unscathed by the conquest. Restall effortlessly explains how the conquistador myths of superior communication between the Spaniards and Natives were just as fabricated as the modern misconception of inferior communication by historians. The communication between the two, or lack thereof, fell somewhere between both myths. Restall uses his concise writing style to explain the resilience of the Natives, debunking the myth of Native desolation and how the myth of superiority derives from Eurocentric beliefs of racial dominance which lead to racist ideologies that “underpinned colonial expansion from the late fifteenth to early twentieth centuries.”…
The subject of the Yucatan caste war is a subject that is not particularly studied and there is not an abundant amount of written material pertaining to this topic out there. Nelson Reed’s The Caste War of Yucatan is a monography that gave a detailed overview of the Yucatan caste war in its entirety. Nelson looked at not only the physical confrontation of the war, but also the factors contributing, such as the landscape, social structure of Yucatan society, and the impact of the conflict had on the religion and economy of Yucatan. The Yucatan Caste War is a complex confrontation of ethnic tensions between the indigenous peoples and the Dzuls, white peoples, of Yucatan, which all is steaming from Spanish influence and oppression after conquest.…
The investigation and analysis of Native American warfare has been an important part of ethnohistory and anthropology for many years (Burch 1974; Codere 1950; Lowie 1913; Slobodin 1960; Swadesh 1948; Turney-High 1971). While most early investigations were descriptive (McClellan 1975a, 1975b; Turney-High 1971) or brief footnotes in ethnographies (Birket-Smith and de Laguna 1938), more recent works have attempted to place Native American conflicts in the context of modern anthropological theory (Chagnon 1988; Ferguson 1983, 1984, 1990, 1995; Maschner 1997a; Maschner and Reedy-Maschner 1998; Whitehead 1992). The result of these investigations has been two broad and nearly universal conclusions: that indigenous warfare has existed for thousands of years in the New World (Haas and Creamer 1993; Lambert 1994, 1997; Maschner 1992, 1997a; Maschner and Reedy-Maschner 1998; Mason 1998; Milner et al. [End Page 703] 1991; Wilcox and Haas 1994) and that the nature of that warfare changed dramatically with the expansion of…
The following article comes from a Mexican scholar, Josefina Zoraida Vazquez. She wrote this article with the purpose of tracing the origins of the Mexican War.…
In this paper, I will be summarizing the following chapters: Chapter 3: "A Legacy of Hate: The Conquest of Mexico’s Northwest”; Chapter 4: “Remember the Alamo: The Colonization of Texas”; and Chapter 5: “Freedom in a Cage: The Colonization of New Mexico. All three chapters are from the book, “Occupied America, A History of Chicanos” by Rodolfo F. Acuna. In chapter three, Acuna explains the causes of the war between Mexico and North America. In chapter four, Acuna explains the colonization of Texas and how Mexicans migrated from Mexico to Texas. In chapter five, Acuna explains the colonization of New Mexico and the economic changes that the people had to go through.…
During the colonization of the America’s, Spanish priests burned the culture of the indigenous people both literally and figuratively. By taking their culture and forcing the natives to follow Christian traditions, the oppressors were slowly removing their history. As a result, they became what Paulo Freire in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed defines as ahistorical; they lived like animals, and as animals “they can give no meaning lacking a tomorrow and a today,” (pg 34) Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. They had been conquered, hence, intermixed by so many people that their history had been lost, and no one was interested in reclaiming it. They had no homeland, no defined roots.…