“They made us see - or at least, that was the history that I learned in school - that the conquest of Mexico had been almost romantic, and that there had simply been an ‘encounter of two worlds,’ ” she said. Sheinbaum, the Mexico City mayor and a protege of the president, recalled her youthful miseducation about Mexico’s origins. An alliance of convenience with the bearded outsiders brought the benefit of horse-bound cavalry, sophisticated military tactics and technologically advanced weaponry, including cannons, muskets and crossbows.Īs historical interpretations have evolved, the Spanish usurpation and how it is construed remain a tinderbox in Mexico. Today, some view the events of 1521 less as a Spanish-versus-Aztec struggle than as a tipping point in an internal Mesoamerican clash among the diverse Indigenous populations of the day. Resentment seethed among vassal communities fed up with their overlords’ demands for tribute, including victims for human sacrifice.Ĭortés skillfully played on these deep fissures, recruiting personnel to bolster the thin Spanish ranks. The Aztecs ruled a vast realm, from present-day Central America to central Mexico. “It was an alliance that not only fought with the Spanish, but provided the Spanish with food, shelter, helped fabricate their arms and build their boats.” “Many Indigenous groups collaborated with the Spanish,” said historian Miguel Pastrana Flores, also at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Post-conquest, historians say, other Indigenous peoples bowed to Spanish hegemony, while Cortés rewarded allies in the war against the Aztecs with favored treatment, including exemption from some royal taxes. The “resistance” tag overlooks an uncomfortable fact: More than 90% of Cortés’ troops in the siege of Tenochtitlán were Indigenous rivals of the Aztecs, notably warriors from the Tlaxcalan and Totonac cultures. Mexican officials have dubbed the remembrance “500 Years of Indigenous Resistance.” “The historic reality is never that simple.” “It’s a simple vision of history in which one sees everything as black and white,” said Alfredo Ávila, a historian at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. However, many historians also dismiss López Obrador’s good-versus-evil template as one-dimensional. No one disputes the culpability of Cortés and his captains in massacres, torture, forced religious conversion and enslavement in a quest for glory and gold. “We want him to do it in Mexico too,” López Obrador shot back. The Catholic Church pointed out that during a 2015 trip to Bolivia, Pope Francis already apologized for colonial-era abuses committed against Indigenous populations in the Americas. Events from five centuries ago cannot be judged by “contemporary considerations,” the Spanish government said. A culture was imposed, one civilization on top of another, to the point where Catholic churches were constructed on top of the temples of pre-Hispanic peoples.”īoth Spain and the Vatican have rebuffed the president’s demands for apologies. “Thousands of people were murdered during this period. “The so-called conquest was accomplished with the sword and the cross,” he declared a few months after taking office. Portraying the Spaniards’ arrival as a nationalist parable of good versus evil - a glorious native culture devastated by European marauders - Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has called for historic “reconciliation. Covering the issues, politics, culture and lifestyle of the Latino community in L.A., California and beyond.
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