Student 3

The Broken Spears

            In the book, The Broken Spears by Portilla, the conquest of the Mexica empire is portrayed through the eyes of the native peoples. These accounts present a unique picture of the arrival of the Spanish upon the shores of the New World. Many of the descriptions depict the Spanish in an unexpected light, that of gods coming back to their worshipers, the Aztecs. The king, Motecuhzoma, who thought Cortes was a god returning to his people, said to himself, “He has appeared! He has come back! He will come here, to the place of his throne and canopy, for that is what he promised when he departed!”[1]

            I chose the point of how the Mexica understood the Spanish because I believe it is an important aspect of the initial encounters between the Spanish and the Aztecs. The Spanish treated the Aztecs like wild beasts, unknown creatures, things to stare at, whereas the Aztecs initially worshiped the Spanish and showered them with gifts. The accounts from the Mexica show an extreme misunderstanding between the Spanish and themselves. The Aztecs met the explorers with gifts and human sacrifices, the latter of which disgusted the Catholic Spaniards, “The envoys sacrificed these captives in the presence of the strangers, but when the white men saw this done, they were filled with disgust and loathing.”[2] The two cultures could not have been more different, excepting the fact that both were bold warriors. 

            This subject is of importance to Atlantic World History because it is a major part of the Atlantic World. It was this meeting between the Old and New World peoples that demonstrated that the Atlantic Ocean could be a bridge instead of a barrier.[3] Furthermore, the fundamental misinterpretation that occurred in the meeting between the two cultures was one of the reasons that the story of the Mexica empire ended as it did. Neither the Aztecs nor the Spaniards understood one another, and this misunderstanding between cultures would last through centuries of contact between the Old and New Worlds.

Bibliography

Mann, Douglas. “The Old World and the New.” Lecture in HIWD 460 at Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA, 2013.

Portilla, Miguel León. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2006.