The readings were about the invasion of Spanish colonizers in Mexico and Latin America. In “An Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico,” a Mexican anthropologist named Miguel Leon Portilla gathered accounts made by the Aztecs when Hernan Cortes landed in Mexico and made his way to the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. Written in 1528, the Aztec writer of these accounts was unknown, but it recounted how the Spanish colonizers brutally killed the natives of Tenochtitlan, despite the amiable and friendly gestures being shown to them by their chief, Montezuma. In “Cortes: The Fall of Tenochtitlan,” Fernando Cortes provided the other side of this story through his letters to Charles V describing the attack on the Aztec capital. This siege stood “as probably the most famous single event of Spanish American history,” as Cortes employed “a powerful stylistic effect was achieved by a simple and straightforward recounting of incidents.” Cortes and his troops were clearly there not to make friends, but to plunder Tenochtitlan as he stated, “I feared that but a small part of the great wealth existing in the city, as shown by what I had before obtained for Your Highness would be secured for Your Majesty.”
On the other hand, the “Chronicles of the Incas, 1540″ was written by Pedro de Cieza de Leon, a Spanish conquistador. It described the life and culture of Incas in Cuzco, which is now modern-day Peru. De Leon’s description also included how the ancient city of Cuzco was governed as he wrote: “At the beginning of the new year, the rulers of each village came to Cuzco, bringing their quipus, which told how many births there had been during the year, and how many deaths. In this way, the Inca and the governors knew which of the Indians were poor, the women who had been widowed, whether they were able to pay their taxes, and how many men they could count on in the event of war, and many other things they considered highly important”. De Leon’s observation was important in which it described how the Incas led their lives before the Spanish conquest decimated them.
In “Indians of the Rio Grande” (1528-1536), Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, a Black slave of the Spanish colonizers, wrote the accounts on their experience after being captured by the natives. His narration described the lives of the natives and the environment of what is now Texas and northern Mexico. In his story, Cabeza de Vaca informed that they “remained with the Avavares Indians for eight months,” and they found themselves “so pressed by Indians coming from all sides” that all of them “had to become medicine men.” After they gained friends with other natives, Cabeza de Vaca and his companions managed to escape and made the overland journey from Texas through the Southwest and south to Mexico City.
All of the documents were accounts of how the Spanish colonizers and the natives of Latin America described their experiences during those times. In “An Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico,” it was supposed to be the point of view of the Aztecs about how Cortes and his troops seemingly tricked the natives about their real intentions of coming to their city. Why the Aztec ruler Montezuma did not immediately attack Cortes has been the subject of a great deal of speculation; one theory is that Cortes was viewed as an incarnation of Quetzalcoatl, the Serpent God, who, according to Aztec religious belief, would return from an eastward direction. Arranging a meeting with Montezuma, Cortes then entrapped the leader and ruled the empire after a massacre of thousands of Aztec nobles and royalty. With the exception of the “An Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico,” all the writings were biased toward the Spanish colonizers. Although “Indians of the Rio Grande” was written by a Black slave, the accounts were already biased because the writer was already Christianized, and he thought that the natives were all savage. Despite the realization that most of the accounts were one-sided, these documents are still important in looking at the history of Latin America because these documents proved that Aztecs and Incas had built a civilization of their own before the colonizers came. Through these accounts, we will be able to see their rich culture and how their culture was eventually decimated after the Spanish colonial rule.