Naif Alawaji AC3 History Final Draft Professor Scott March 7, 2014

The Conquest of Spain Historical documents re-count events that explain the Spanish conquest of the New World; the city of Mexico. These events occurred in 1519. The king of Spain Tapped Hernan Cortz to lead the campaign and expand the control of Spaniards in the new world The purpose of the conquest being to spread Christianity as a religion and gain wealth from the new world. Bernal Daz del Castillo joined the expedition as a soldier. Diaz described in detail the life style of the Aztecs along with the experience of the Spanish Forces. On the other hand, the Aztecs, who were probably somewhat terrified after being conquered by the Spanish empire, wrote the Broken Spears document in the 16th century. These primary sources reveal facts about the Spaniards objectives to capture central Mexico. These documents narrate the same event, but the authors have interpreted it according to their interest, tone and targeted audience. The documents contain some similarities about Religion and human sacrifice that might enhance their reliability as a primary source of evidence. However, some differences in the documents could also be a source of doubt for the audiences today, like the events description and period The second letter of Hernan Cortz seems somewhat more reliable than the other accounts since the leader of the campaign wrote this to the king of Spain during the conquest. Some of the documents have some similarities in showing the same events of the Spanish conquest in the new world, and one of these is describing the religion. These similarities would prove the reliability of the accounts. Both Cortez and Diazs documents define the Spanish

religion to be superior to the Mexicans, and they strongly valued their Christianity as Cortez states Moreover, as Christians we were obliged to wage war against the enemies of our Faith; and thereby we would win glory in the next world (Hernan Cortez; 2). In addition Diaz explains the strong belief that they have towards their religion Christianity by saying We were Christians and worshipped one true and only god, named Jesus Christ- (Bernal Diaz; 4) since both talked about their religion, it shows that these two accounts are believable in describing this subject. However the Aztecs account did not talk about Christianity because they believe in their own god who they think is Motecuhzoma, as they over worshipped him. The similarities in the accounts of Diaz and Cortez give a more believable recollection of the events mentioned rather than the Aztecs, as there is nothing to compare or contrast the Aztecs accounts to. Another resemblance is that all accounts demonstrate human scarifies, where both Hernn Corts and Bernal Daz describe the Indians from the very small tribes in the islands of the Gulf coast to the Aztecs in Tenochtitlan as vicious and savage people who conducted human sacrifice. According to Diaz I have heard it said that they feed them on the bodies of the Indians who have been sacrificed. - Bernal Daz) however if Diaz did not mention the human sacrifices in his account, the reader would say that Diaz is less reliable because he may accuse the Aztec as evil since they were his enemy. Nevertheless the Aztecs have mentioned in their narrative the two captives were then sacrificed before his eyes (Broken spears ;2) and that would prove the credibility of the accounts because the enemies have exchanged the truth in their documents.

These documents show some differences that would affect their credibility, and since the events description varied from one account to another, Cortezs account is slightly more authentic in describing the event as it was written to the king of Spain during the conquest. Cortez mentions the important events that happened during the conquest as he states they 2

wished to be your highnesss vassals (slaves) and my allies. They now saw that they were wrong in not having been willing to assist me (cortez; 1) as a leader of the campaign. Cortez justified his position to the king by informing what he has done with the enemies who were not following his command, as this piece of information was important to the king, and it would make the king aware of what is happening there. Cortez used a lot of formal language in his account like highness or Majesty and these were used repeatedly in his account to inform the king of the important events that occurred. However Cortez was exaggerating somewhat in describing some events and that would affect the reliability of his account they had attacked me in the road while I was unprepared and had killed two horses and wounded others this would be less believable because being unprepared would make it difficult for someone to face his enemy and overcome them. It is possible that he exaggerated in order to show himself as a powerful person in front of the king. On the other hand the Diaz account overall is less believable than Cortez in describing the events since he mentioned a lot of details that are not so important to the reader, even though he was objective in describing the events, but using numerous details in providing information like describing the food accurately after lapse of sufficient time between the event and the authorship of the book would effect the believability as he said over thirty different dishes were prepared by his cooks according to their ways and usage(Daiz; 5). These kinds of details have nothing to do with the importance of the Spanish conquest and that would make it less believable. In contrast the broken spears account showed that the Aztecs were negative in describing the events, and since the Spaniards attacked them they were somewhat terrified. Meanwhile they wrote to it to their people (Aztec), and they described their enemies as people who showed no mercy as it said, if the cannot is aimed against a mountain, the mountain splits and cracks open. If it is aimed against a tree it shatter the tree into splinters (Broken spears;2).It

is less believable because they lowered the behavior of their enemy by showing only the negative sides of them without being objective, and being terrified would add to it, so their audience do not blame them for not resisting the enemy.