Mohamad Obaidi

Mohamad Obaidi Thursday, February 13, 2014 History 125 Paper #1 The Fall of the Aztec Empire In the sixteenth century Mesoamerica was revealed to the Spanish after Columbuss hard efforts that unintentionally lead him to discover the Americas. The Aztec empire soon became a target for the Spanish who had an agenda and a list of motives that they wanted to achieve in this New World. Some of those goals were to spread Christianity and to look for new things that they can trade and become rich from. Three accounts in particular discuss the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire: one of which was by Bernal Diaz, the author of the book The True History of the Conquest of New Spain; another by Hernan Cortez, who was reporting the events to King Charles V; and The Broken Spears account, which was a collection of Aztec and Indian records written during and right after the conquest, and later assembled together by a historian (The Broken Spears, 1). After reading all three accounts and identifying the similarities and differences between them, it seems that The Broken Spears account is more reliable than the other accounts because of the motives behind its writing, the audience of the account, and the fact that it was written by the attacked rather than the attacker. There are many similarities between the three accounts and one of the similarities is that both the Bernal Diaz account and the Cortez account mention Christianity in their accounts. According to the Bernal Diaz account for we told them then that we were Christians and worshipped one true and only God, named Jesus Christ (Diaz, 4) and according to the Cortez account They should observe that God was on our side, and to Him nothing is impossible (Cortez, 2). However, the Broken Spears account never mentions Christianity because they may have found it unnecessary to talk about Christianity, since they were satisfied and convinced

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with their polytheistic religion. After all in the Diaz account Montezuma states throughout all time we have worshipped our own gods, and thought they were good, as no doubt yours are, so do not trouble to speak to us anymore about them at present (Diaz, 4). One of the similarities between The Broken Spears account and the Diaz account is that both discuss the human sacrifices that the Aztecs were undertaking. This is evident in the Diaz account when he states they feed them on the bodies of the Indians who have been sacrificed (Diaz, 7), similarly in the Broken Spears account The two captives were then sacrificed before his eyes (The Broken Spears, 2). However, The Broken Spears account is more reliable because it was written by the Aztecs themselves and they explain that the true motive behind the sacrifices is related to religion This was done because the messengers had completed a difficult mission: they had seen the gods, their eyes had looked on their faces. They had conversed with the gods!, while Diazs motive was more of as to portray the Aztecs as barbarians and make them look bad (The Broken Spears, 2). Last but not least both the Diaz account and the Broken Spears account talk about Cortezs encounter with Montezuma, the leader of the Aztec empire. Montezumas encounter with Cortez is evident in the Diaz account when Cortes gets of his horse to greet Montezuma and both show their respect to one another (Diaz, 2), likewise the encounter is evident in The Broken Spears account when Montezuma orders his messengers to show respect to Cortez and to inform him that Montezuma sends his regards (The Broken Spears, 1).However, The Broken Spears account is more reliable because it sounds more logical that Montezuma, a god and a secular leader, would send messengers, rather than go and meet Cortez in person. Moreover, in The Broken Spears Montezumas messengers end up running for their lives then they left in great haste and continued to the City of Mexico (Spears, 2), while in the Diaz account the encounter
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goes very well. It seems that Diaz was bending the truth to make the Spaniards look more like civilized people, rather than barbaric humans who were actually challenging messengers to a fight! Moving on to the differences The Broken Spears is the only account that discusses the devastating plague that had played a huge role in wiping out many of the people of the Aztec empire. This is evident in The Broken Spears where it mentions striking everywhere in the cit y and killing a vast number of our people (The Broken Spears, 2). This makes The Broken Spears account more reliable because it shows that maybe Diaz and Cortez were not even present at the event to talk about the plague and this questions how reliable they truly are. Moreover, it could be that Diaz and Cortez did not mention it because they did not want to tarnish the great Spanish history with a plague that has done most of the conquering for them. The audience of each account is another significant different. To begin with, the Cortez account addresses King Charles V and this makes Cortezs account unreliable because when you are addressing the King you cannot mention the complete truth and you do not mention any of the bad news because you are trying to please the king. Diazs account on the other hand addresses the Spanish people and this hurts his reliability to a certain extent because as mentioned earlier, Diaz did not mention the horrible plague that occurred at the event in order to prevent tarnishing the Spanish image, so who knows what other important events Diaz omitted in order to preserve the Spanish image. The Broken Spears on the other hand addresses the Aztec empire and is more reliable than the Diaz and Cortez accounts because it does not have a personal agenda such as satisfying the king or forgoing important events to preserve their image. Instead it explains to its readers the important events that occurred, such as the plague and how they were terrified by the Spanishs weapons, food, and body descriptions.
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The tone of the accounts is another significant difference. The tone in the Cortez account was very aggressive and boastful and this is evident when Cortez states When they saw that they could not resist, several men of rank of the town came to me and begged me to do them no more harm, for they wished to be Your Highness's vassals and my allies (Cortez, 1). Diazs tone on the other hand was objective and this is evident when he states "It is obvious from his comments that Bernal Daz was greatly impressed by many of the sights he beheld in this strange land and realized that in some ways its civilization equaled or even surpassed that of his native Spain (Diaz,1). However, the problem with Diazs objectivity is that his account was written in his old age, many years after the event and this raises some doubt over whether his details were accurate or not (Diaz, 1). The Broken Spears, however, displays a tone of terror and fear and this is evident in the Broken Spears when Montecuhzoma was terrified to learn how the cannon roared, how its noise resounded, how it caused one to faint and grow deaf (The Broken Spears, 2). However, although The Broken Spears has a fearful tone, it is more reliable than Diaz and Cortez because The Broken Spears was written by the defeated Aztecs and at that point in time it would not seem logical that the Aztecs would make something up or lie about what happened in the event because the damage was already done and they had nothing to lose or gain. In conclusion The Broken Spears seems more reliable because first of all it contained events that were not mentioned in other accounts such as the plague, secondly it did not have any personal motives instead it just enlightened its readers with explanations behind occurrences such as the human sacrifices, and finally although the tone of The Broken Spears displayed terror and fear, we have to keep in mind that they were the attacked and at that point in time it seems that they just accepted what had transpired and just wanted to inform their audience about a bad day in their history.
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