From: "Ricardo J. Salvador" <rjsalvad@iastate.edu>
Subject: Re: Conquest
Reply-To: nahuat-l@acc.fau.edu
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 22:51:05 GMT

forwarded message follows-------------------------

>From rjsalvad@iastate.edu Tue Aug 25 15:38:24 1992
To: keith.fulton@nwc.navy.mil (K.R. Fulton)
Subject: Re: Conquest 
From: "Ricardo J. Salvador" <rjsalvad@iastate.edu>

Keith.fulton@nwc.navy.mil writes:

>Several weeks back, a few books were posted. One of them really looked interes
ting. It dealt with the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire. I cannot remember
 the name or the author nor can I find the file in which I stored this informat
ion.
>Any help will be greatly appreciated.

You may be referring to a short reading list posted for folks
beginning to explore Aztec history.  That set of books would not be the
best if what you are interested in is the conquest itself (though I'll
forward a copy of that list to your personal email account to avoid
cluttering the list).

When reading material on the conquest it is always well to remember and
understand the context and purpose of the writer.  An often cited source
is Francisco Lopez de Gomara's "Cortes, La vida del conquistador." Gomara's
objectivity is seriously hampered by his explicit effort to rehabilitate
the popular image of Cortes, which even during his own lifetime was in
serious disrepute.  Therefore, there are often quite adorned justifications
or outright falsifications of critical events of the conquest in his book.
However, the book is useful because Gomara was Cortes' personal secretary
and as such had intimate knowledge of the conqueror's personality that
shows through in his writing.  The book is also good for comparative
analysis, particularly when compared against Bernal Diaz del Castillo's
"Breve Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva Espa~a."  Diaz del
Castillo was a member of the expeditionary force that conquered
Tenochtitlan.  Thought Diaz strains to show the necessary deference to
his former captain, he had a few scores to settle with both Cortes and
Gomara, and it is to our benefit.  Gomara, whose only knowledge of the
conquest was transmitted to him by Cortes and other secondary sources
(i.e., he was not in the conquest party), wrote his book first, and
Diaz wrote his book later, in part as rebuttal to Gomara's book.

Two other useful primary sources are Cortes' "Cartas de Relacio'n,"
written to Emperor Carlos V in very self-serving fashion by the
conqueror (you must remember Cortes had a great deal to account for
before the crown, having disobeyed the orders of Vela'zquez in 
leaving Cuba for Mexico, taking prisoner and possibly even executing
the sovereign monarch of a newly discovered people, then having
exterminated a company that Vela'zquez--the official representative
of the court in the new world-- sent to fetch him back to face
trial for earlier slights committed in Cuba and then perpetually
attempting to usurp court authority in matters pertaining to the
execution of the king's will in terms of land and power distribution
in New Spain).  The second useful source to contrast to Spanish
accounts in general is a collection of native writings assembled
and edited by Miguel Leo'n-Portilla as "Historia de los Vencidos."
The eloquence and poignance of these brief writings is their most
powerful contribution, but to the discerning eye there is useful
historical information that can be used to correlate with Spanish
accounts of the events surrounding the conquest.  All of these
works are available in English as well.

There have been many more contemporary analyses of the conquest, and
for these the list is almost endless.  An interesting one is
Prescott's "The Conquest of Mexico."

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