When both sources are read carefully together, they allow students to see that they can recognize the biases of authors without diminishing the truth-value found in the total sum of the accounts. Bernal Díaz, a Spanish conquistador, displays some cultural prejudices, but he also seems surprisingly objective in his observations, reporting that Moteucçoma scoffs at the idea that either he, the ruler of Mexico, or the Spaniards are gods. Both provide colorful descriptions that spark the imagination, explicitly dispel myths, and facilitate the development of skills for reading analytically.īoth the Nahua and Spanish versions record “welcome speeches” made by the great ruler Moteucçoma to Hernán Cortés that explicitly contradict myths about indigenous views of the conquerors. 1 These personal accounts of the conquest of Mexico tell of the Spaniards’ entrance into the finely engineered and magnificent city of Tenochtitlan. These include two 16th-century sources: an excerpt from Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s The True History of the Conquest of New Spain and a passage from fray Bernardino de Sahagún’s collection of Nahua accounts called The Florentine Codex. I use primary sources to dispel student convictions that Latin America is a dismal place, forever scarred by the oppression of backward Spanish civilization against poor, dark-skinned victims.
In lectures I emphasize that, like European contemporaries, preconquest Mesoamerican societies were urban, agricultural, literate, and militaristic, but the myths persist. Third, popular images of Native Americans as “Noble Savages” in the 19th-century American West encourage students to view the indigenous people of Mesoamerica as peaceful victims of Europeans. Second is the myth that the supposed inferiority of the Mayas and Nahuas (Aztecs) is “demonstrated” by the existence of human sacrifice, lack of Christianity, and their alleged awed belief that the Spaniards were gods. First, the “Black Legend” posits that Spanish Catholics were more tyrannical and violent than their Protestant competitors in the New World. I have also found that in discussing this topic, students frequently articulate three prevalent myths. Students enjoy the story of the Spanish conquest of the Mexican capital of Tenochtitlan (1519-1521) because it vividly dramatizes this cultural encounter. My undergraduate, general education course, Latin American Civilization, focuses on the revolutionary historical encounter of Europeans, indigenous people, and Africans in the New World. The True History of the Conquest of New Spain
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