|
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most significant events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The subjugation of the Aztecs is the most significant overall but the conquest of central Mexico was not the occupation of all of what is modern Mexico.〔The title of conqueror Bernal Díaz del Castillo's major work is ''The True History of the Conquest of Mexico'' and William Hickling Prescott's nineteenth-century bestselling book of the conquest is entitled ''The History of the Conquest of Mexico'' both authors take for granted that what is referred to is the conquest of the Aztecs.〕 The conquest must be understood within the context of Spanish patterns on the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquista by Christians, defeating the Muslims, who had ruled the peninsula since 711. These patterns extended to the Caribbean following Christopher Columbus establishment of permanent European settlement in the Caribbean. The Spanish authorized expeditions or ''entradas'' for the discovery, conquest, and colonization of new territory, using existing Spanish settlements as a base. Many of those on the Cortés expedition of 1519 had never seen combat before. In fact, Cortés had never commanded men in battle before. However, there was a whole generation of Spaniards who participated in expeditions in the Caribbean and Tierra Firme (Central America), learning strategy and tactics of successful enterprises. Spanish conquest of Mexico had antecedents with established practices.〔James Lockhart and Stuart Schwartz, ''Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil.'' New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. See especially chapter 3, "From islands to mainland: the Caribbean phase and subsequent conquests."〕 The Spanish campaign began in February 1519, and was declared victorious on August 13, 1521, when a coalition army of Spanish forces and native Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés and Xicotencatl the Younger captured the emperor Cuauhtemoc and Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire. During the campaign, Cortés was given support from a number of tributaries and rivals of the Aztecs, including the Totonacs, and the Tlaxcaltecas, Texcocans, and other city-states particularly bordering Lake Texcoco. In their advance, the allies were tricked and ambushed several times by the peoples they encountered. After eight months of battles and negotiations, which overcame the diplomatic resistance of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II to his visit, Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan on November 8, 1519, where he took up residence, welcomed by Moctezuma. When news reached Cortés of the death of several of his men during the Aztec attack on the Totonacs in Veracruz, he took the opportunity to take Moctezuma captive in his own palace and ruled through him for months. Capturing the cacique or indigenous ruler was standard operating procedure for Spaniards in their expansion in the Caribbean, so capturing Moctezuma had considerable precedent, which might well have included those in Spain during the Christian reconquest of territory held by Muslims.〔James Lockhart and Stuart Schwartz,''Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil'' New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983, p. 80〕 When Cortés left Tenochtitlan to return to the coast and deal with the expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez, Pedro de Alvarado was left in charge. Alvarado allowed a significant Aztec feast to be celebrated in Tenochtitlan and on the pattern of the earlier massacre in Cholula, closed off the square and massacred the celebrating Aztec noblemen. The biography of Cortés by Francisco López de Gómara contains a description of the massacre.〔Francisco López de Gómara, ''Cortés: The Life of the Conqueror by His Secretary,'' translated by Lesley Byrd Simpson. Berkeley: University of California Press 1964, pp. 207-08.〕 The Alvarado massacre at the Main Temple of Tenochtitlan precipitated rebellion by the population of the city. When the captured emperor Moctezuma II, now seen as a mere puppet of the invading Spaniards, attempted to calm the outraged populace, he was killed by a projectile.〔Ida Altman, et al. ''The Early History of Greater Mexico,'' Pearson, 2003, p. 59.〕 Cortés, who by then had returned to Spain and his men had to fight their way out of the capital city during the Noche Triste in June, 1520. However, the Spanish and Tlaxcalans would return with reinforcements and a siege that led to the fall of Tenochtitlan a year later on August 13, 1521. The fall of the Aztec Empire was the key event in the formation of the Spanish overseas empire, with New Spain, which later became Mexico, a major component. ==Sources for the history of the conquest of Central Mexico== The conquest of Mexico is not only a significant event in world history, but is also particularly important because there are multiple accounts of the conquest from different points of view, both Spanish and indigenous. The Spanish conquerors could and did write accounts that narrated the conquest from the first landfalls in Mexico to the final victory over the Mexica in Tenochtitlan on August 13, 1521. Indigenous accounts are from particular indigenous viewpoints (either allies or opponents) and as the events had a direct impact on their polity. All accounts of the conquest, Spanish and indigenous alike, have biases and exaggerations. In general, Spanish accounts do not credit their indigenous allies' support. Individual conquerors' accounts exaggerate that individual's contribution to the conquest, downplaying other conquerors'. Indigenous allies' accounts stress their loyalty to the Spaniards and their particular aid as being key to the Spanish victory. Their accounts are similar to Spanish conquerors' accounts contained in petitions for rewards, known as ''benemérito'' petitions.〔Sarah Cline, "Conquest Narratives," in ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerica'', David Carrasco, ed. New York: Oxford University Press 2001, vol. 1, p 248〕 Two lengthy accounts from the defeated indigenous viewpoint were created under the direction of Spanish friars, Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún and Dominican Diego Durán, using indigenous informants.〔Ida Altman, Sarah Cline, and Javier Pescador, ''The Early History of Greater Mexico,'' chapter 4, "Narratives of the Conquest." Pearson, 2003, pp. 73-96.〕 The first Spanish account of the conquest was by lead conqueror Hernán Cortés, who wrote a series of letters to the Spanish monarch Charles V, giving a contemporary account of the conquest from his point of view, but also justifying his actions. These were almost immediately published in Spain and later in Europe. Much later, Spanish conqueror Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a well-seasoned participant in the conquest of Central Mexico, wrote what he called ''The True History of the Conquest of New Spain'', countering the account by Cortés's official biographer, Francisco López de Gómara. Bernal Díaz's account had begun as a ''benemérito'' petition for rewards but he expanded it to encompass a full history of his earlier expeditions in the Caribbean and Tierra Firme and the conquest of the Aztecs. A number of lesser Spanish conquerors wrote ''benemérito'' petitions to the Spanish crown, requesting rewards for their services in the conquest, including Juan Díaz, Andrés de Tapia, García del Pilar, and Fray Francisco de Aguilar.〔Patricia de Fuentes, ed. ''The Conquistadors: First-Person Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico,'' Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1993. Previously published by Orion Press 1963.〕 Interestingly, Cortés's right-hand man, Pedro de Alvarado did not write at any length about his actions in the New World, and died as a man of action in the Mixtón War in 1542. Two letters to Cortés about Alvarado's campaigns in Guatemala a published in ''The Conquistadors''.〔"Two Letters of Pedro de Alvarado" in ''The Conquistadors,'' Patricia de Fuente, editor and translator. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1993, pp. 182-196.〕 The chronicle of the so-called "Anonymous Conqueror" was written sometime in the sixteenth century, entitled in an early twentieth-century translation to English as Narrative of Some Things of New Spain and of the Great City of Temestitan (i.e.Tenochtitlan). Rather than its being a petition for rewards for services, as many Spanish accounts were situation, the Anonymous Conqueror made observations about the indigenous at the time of the conquest. The account was used by eighteenth-century Jesuit Francisco Javier Clavijero in his history of Mexico.〔"The Cronicle of the Anonymous Conquistador" in ''The Conquistadors: First-person Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico'' Patricia de Fuente, (editor and trans). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1993, pp. 165-181.〕 On the indigenous side, the allies of Cortés, particularly the Tlaxcalans, wrote extensively about their services to the crown in the conquest, arguing for special privileges for themselves. The most important of these are the pictorial Lienzo de Tlaxcala and the ''Historia de Tlaxcala'' by Diego Muñoz Camargo. Less successfully the Nahua allies from Huexotzinco (or Huejotzinco) near Tlaxcala argued that their contributions had been overlooked by the Spanish. In a letter in Nahuatl to the Spanish crown, the indigenous lords of Huejotzinco lay out their case in Nahuatl for their valorous service. The letter has been published in Nahuatl and English translation by James Lockhart in ''We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico'',.〔James Lockhart, ''We People Here,'' University of California Press 1991, pp. 289-297〕 Texcoco patriot and member of a noble family there, Fernando Alva Ixtlilxochitl, likewise petitioned the Spanish crown, in Spanish, saying that Texcoco had not received sufficient rewards for their support of the Spanish, particularly after the Spanish were forced out from Tenochtitlan.〔Fernando Alva Ixtlilxochitil, ''Ally of Cortés: Account 13 of the Coming of the Spaniards and the Beginning of the Evangelical Law.'' Douglass K. Ballentine, translator. El Paso: Texas Western Press 1969〕 The most well known indigenous account of the conquest is Book 12 of Bernardino de Sahagún's ''General History of the Things of New Spain'' and published as the Florentine Codex, in parallel columns of Nahuatl and Spanish, with pictorials. Less well known is Sahagún's 1585 revision of the conquest account, which shifts from an entirely indigenous viewpoint and inserts at crucial junctures passages lauding the Spanish and in particular Hernán Cortés.〔Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, ''The Conquest of New Spain, 1585 Revision'' translated by Howard F. Cline, with an introduction by S.L. Cline. University of Utah Press 1989.〕 Another indigenous account compiled by a Spanish friar is Dominican Diego Durán's ''The History of the Indies of New Spain'', from 1581, with many color illustrations.〔Fray Diego Durán, ''The History of the Indies of New Spain''(), Trans., annotated, and with an introduction by Doris Heyden. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.〕 Another text from the Nahua point of view, the Anales de Tlatelolco, a very early indigenous account in Nahuatl, perhaps from 1540, remained in indigenous hands until it was later published. An extract of this important manuscript has been published by James Lockhart in Nahuatl transcription and English translation.〔James Lockhart, ''We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico'', University of California Press 1991,pp. 256-273.〕 A popular anthology in English for classroom use is Miguel León-Portilla's, ''The Broken Spears: The Aztec Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico.''〔León-Portilla, M. 1992, 'The Broken Spears: The Aztec Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico.'' Boston: Beacon Press, ISBN 978-0807055014〕 Not surprisingly, many publications and republications of sixteenth-century accounts of the conquest of Mexico appeared around 1992, the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's first voyage, when scholarly and popular interest in first encounters surged. The most popular and enduring narrative of the Spanish campaign in central Mexico is by New England-born nineteenth-century historian William Hickling Prescott. His ''History of the Conquest of Mexico'', first published in 1843 remains an enormously engaging narrative of the conquest, based on a large number of sources copied from the Spanish archives.〔William Hickling Prescott, ''History of the Conquest of Mexico,'' introduction by James Lockhart. New York: The Modern Library, 2001〕 Prescott based his narrative history on primary source documentation, mainly from the Spanish viewpoint, but it is likely that the copy of the Spanish text of the 1585 revision of Bernardino de Sahagǘn's account of the conquest was done for Prescott's history.〔S.L. Cline "Introduction," ''History of the Conquest of New Spain, 1585 Revision by Bernardino de Sahagún,'' Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press 1989.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|