The actions of a small expedition of Spanish conquistadors who landed on the shores of Mexico in 1519 under Hernan Cortes, and triumphed in an ambitious conquest against the powerful and well-organized Aztec state, formed one of the most important and decisive events in world history. It would go on to influence the rise of Spain to a colonial superpower, and to permanently transform the cultural identity of the South American continent.
Francisco Lopez de Gomara, the chronicler who wrote enthusiastically about the exploits of Cortes, described the conquest and the discovery of the New World in the opening lines of his History of the Indies, as 'the greatest event since the creation of the world' i. However, it was also one of the most calamitous periods of human suffering in history, and an event which was surrounded by a great deal of controversy even at the time. Aztec civilization was ruthlessly plundered by the conquerors, and their religion systematically laid waste in a campaign of cultural annihilation. Nothing of the Aztec capital city Tenochtitlan, which stood at the peak of its power as the conquerors entered in November 1519, would remain after the brutal siege of 1521, from which the Spaniards would rebuild the city according to their vision of a Christian New World.
Hernan Cortes and Francisco Lopez Gomara
Of all the conquests of Americas ‘there is none more striking to the imagination than the conquest of Mexico'.ii The victory of Cortes and his small company of adventurers who had subdued an empire of millions, being greatly out numbered, isolated and traveling across difficult terrain, would inspire a diverse body of literature, much of which portrays the conquest as a heroic battle between brave Christian soldiers and the blood thirsty warriors of a brutal regime.
Our knowledge of the events is based primarily on the accounts of Spanish writers at the time, as it is predominantly the case in colonial wars that the perspectives of the conquering culture are given precedence to dictate their version of history. One of the most significant primary sources to describe the events first hand are the letters of Cortes to the Emperor Charles V. These were published soon after reaching Spain and so effectively portrayed the conquest as Cortes' own personal achievement, that the Spanish crown eventually banned the text in an attempt to curb Cortes' dramatic rise to iconic status. His letters were in many ways an attempt to justify what was deemed by many as a scantily authorized expedition, in which Cortes had established a settlement and recklessly invaded the country without any authority to do so. Lopez de Gomara who acted as Cortes' chaplain, wrote his history based upon this correspondence, in which he portrays the Spanish leader as a larger- than- life figure whose charisma, cunning and bold decision- making were largely responsible for the Spaniards’ dramatic victory.
Fray Bartolome Las Casas
However to contrast this heavily one sided vision, a more critical account published in 1542 by the Spanish bishop Fray Bartolome de las Casas, A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, passionately condemned the conquest and the Spaniards' treatment of the indigenous population. Las Casas wrote that the Spanish acted like 'ravenous beasts...killing, terrorizing, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing this with the strangest and most varied methods of cruelty.'iii The divergent nature of these accounts, and the biased nature of the authors, results in the Spanish conquest of Mexico persisting – even to this day - as one of the most ambiguous periods in history.iv
Foot Notes
i In the writer’s Dedication to Emperor Charles V, Lopez Gomara,1979,p.7
ii Prescott,p.3
iii Las Casas,p.11
iv Las Casas, according to Young ( 2001) was the ‘ founding father of European anti-colonialism’ p. 75.
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