Spanish Accounts

Spanish Accounts

Lessons about Cortes

Purpose

The purpose of Gomara was to describe the expedition of Hernan Cortes in the Americas. This is because he had firsthand access to Cortes, and thus his accounts are considered largely accurate. Audience

The target audience for Gomara was the Spanish elite and the general public. Conquests were celebrated to honor the heroes and develop and store the history of military encounters in lands that were found.

Subject Matter

The subject matter is about how Conquistador Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec lands and how he was claiming Mexico for Spain. Gomara effectively uses his proximity to Cortes to capture how the charismatic leader showed great courage in times of utmost turmoil as he led his men through the Americas

The stance of the author

Gomara aimed at not only showing the achievements of Cortes but also to depict the fighting spirit of his men and to show how he turned a weakness into an advantage to surprise his enemies. Key passage

The key passage from the text definitely has to be Cortes’s speech to his men. According to Cortes, “I have spent large sums for which I have put pawn my own estate and those of my friends for it seems to be the less I retain of it, the greater will be my honor.” This speech allowed Cortes to take control of his army and survive in tough times despite mutiny and divisions from within.

My connection to the text

I have learned a lot about leadership from Cortes and also about quality use of rhetorical appeals from Gomara based on his presentation of events during Cortes’s expedition. One thing I learned is that Cortes was able to turn his weaknesses into advantages.

Spanish and Natives communication

The encounter between the native tribes and the Spanish was at first a stumbling block in the way they related. It was clear from the beginning that this was a clash of cultures. While locals talked in Mayan, the Spanish could only speak Spanish. As a result, Cortes had to hire translators who could make it easy for him to communicate with the natives. Gestures and body languages were common early forms of communication as the cultures interacted. Still, it was difficult to sustain a conversation in the long term when the Spanish hit American shores. There were a lot of conflicts at first since Cortes relied on the translators he had captured but could not trust them completely (Schwaller and Leon-Pórtilla, 2009). According to Gomara, Aguillar, and Dona Marina were Cortes’ translators during the Spanish Conquest of the Americas. Cortes suspected many truths of the conquest were manipulated to his view and account of events. On the other hand, Diaz states that Cortes captured two whites from the natives who would provide translation services during the conquistador. However, he also accepts that Cortes later started doubting his translator’s messages due to frequent attacks and divisions within his ranks. He suspected that they had provided intelligence to the native tribe’s forces.

Florentine Codex versus the Spanish accounts

The Florentine Codex is ethnographic writings about the Americans from the perspective of Native American people. Most of the ethnographic study was carried out by Sahagun in close collaboration with the Nahua people of the larger Aztec tribe. Most of their work was documented from between 1545 and 1590 through illustrations of art, craft, nature, human interactions, and objects (Schwaller and Leon-Pórtilla, 2009). Most of the work was first hand and very reliable and original. This is because Sahagun spent 50 years studying the Aztecs and documenting the world view of the natives. His writings aimed at evangelizing the Mesoamerican people, and his writings largely take a divine perspective of events because he was a missionary. This is opposed to the military and political like the Conquistadors. He also aimed at creating a vocabulary for the Aztecs. The Spanish accounts, on the other hand, depicted events from military, religious, economic, and political perspectives, leaving out essential details about the Aztec people. This is because the motivation was mainly to spread the Christian faith, get indigenous conversions, and then conquer the Americas for wealth. Moreover, most of the accounts about Cortes by Diaz and Gomara were mainly secondary information because the writers were not really in the nettle front.

References

Schwaller, J. F., & Leon-Pórtilla, M. (2009). Broken Spears or Broken Bones: Evolution of the Most Famous Line in Nahuatl. The Americas, 66(02), 241-254. https://doi.org/10.1353/tam.0.0168