Saturday, March 19, 2011

Conquistadors and Indians

Tenochtitlan

As part of a program on engineering marvels of world history, the achievements of the Aztecs were highlighted. Truly truly impressive, especially for a people who used neither the wheel nor pack animals. (Though they had sewage and garbage systems far outstripping the Europeans, who had...none.) Human intelligence and direct human labor did it all. It was a refreshing change to see the Aztecs treated as a morally ambiguous imperialist power rather than noble savages in a brown paradise. So when the Spaniards arrived, part of what allowed them to take down this civilization so swiftly was the cooperation of many thousands of subject Indian peoples who hated the Aztec yoke. 

Another oddity was the passivity of Moctezuma, who knew of the strangers' arrival very quickly, but waited until they approached Tenochtitlan before taking any action against them. It's not unrealistic to think that he could have wiped out the 500 invaders if he had rushed to the coast. But he waited. (Sound familiar?)


 Mexico City

Pizarro had less than 200 men and he took down the Inca empire.

In both cases, the technological superiority of the numerically tiny Spanish was greatly amplified by the internal divisions in both empires and by the temporizing and inaction of their leaders.

In the end, disease might have been the deciding factor, a biological weapon that the invaders did not even know they had and the vast extent of which has only recently been discovered.

But when I contemplate the (inevitable) fate of the native peoples of what is now the Americas, nowadays I am much less inclined to feel sorry for them than I am to see them as a lesson for our own future as contemporary Americans that we ignore at our peril.

1 comment:

Leah said...

According to VDH during La Noche de triste, Hernan Cortez almost lost his life on the battle field. But the Aztecs wanted the prisoners alive so they could perform their ritual human sacrifice at the Temple.
Cortez survived to fight another day with many of the locals at his side.
Btw, as a museum docent, I like telling the older kids that the Virgin of Guadalupe makes all the sense in the world. From a blood thirsty destructive god to one who offers eternal salvation and a bloodless worship here on earth. Not only would she show up so soon after the conquest - she would become the new symbol of Mexico. Regardless of religious belief - never insult the Guadalupe.

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