Conquistadors - The Spanish conquistadors (or conquerors) that lead the conquest of Peru were ambitious, greedy and remarkably brave. Their expeditions had the spirit and potential of a gold rush but with the blind, selfish conviction of a religious crusade. Most of them were only in their twenties, though some had gained substantial experience fighting natives in North Africa and the Indies.

Which conquistador would you have wanted to travel with- Cabeza de Vaca, Orellana, Pizarro or Cortes?

Hernando Cortés - Conqueror of Mexico, born at Medellin in Spain c. 1485; died at Castilleja de la Cuesta near Seville, 2 December, 1547.

He was married first to Catalina Xuares, from which marriage there was no issue, and, after her death, to Doña Juana de Zuñiga, niece of the Duke of Bejar. From this union there sprang four children, one son (Martín) and three daughters. His parents were Martín Cortés de Monroy and Catalina Pizarro Altamirano, both of honourable extraction, belonging to the middle class of nobility, but not wealthy.

They sent their son to school at Salamanca when he was fourteen years of age, but study was irksome to him, his restless and ambitious temper chafed under restraint, and he returned home much to the displeasure of his parents. As he was the only son, they looked upon him as their hope and future support, and had wished that he would adopt the profession of the law. Dissatisfied at home Cortés turned his eyes to the newly discovered Western world, and after an unsuccessful attempt to embark for the West Indies with Ovando, succeeded in reaching Española in a craft commanded by one Quintero, who signalized himself during the voyage by trying to deceive his superiors and reach the New World before them in order to secure personal advantages. It may be that the example of Quintero was a school for Cortés in his subsequent career. The life Cortés led in the Antilles was that of the military man of his time, with intervals of rest on such estates as he gradually acquired. He was a favourite of both Ovando and Velazquez, but he quarrelled with the latter, deceived him and made him a mortal enemy. The consequences were very serious, for Velazquez was Governor of Cuba and a man of influence at court. The conduct of Cortés during his stay in the Antilles (1504-1519) revealed, besides military aptitude (which he had small opportunity of displaying), shrewdness, daring (in his dealings with Velazquez), and no excess of scruples in morals.

 

When the Spanish explorer Hernan Cortes landed on the coast of Mexico in 1519, the Aztec Emperor thought he was a returning god. Moctezuma II believed the Spanish explorer to be Quetzalcoatl, the fierce Toltec leader, who, at his death, said he would return one day to govern the land. Hernando Cortés, with just 500 soldiers and a few cannons, overthrew thousands of mighty Aztec warriors.

Dona Marina,
Malinche per la Storia

La Malinche/Doña Marina was the daughter of a noble Aztec family. Her father had passed away at a young age and her mother remarried and gave birth to a son. Deciding that he should rule the mother gave Marina to some passing traders and faked her death. She wound up as a slave of the Cacique (the military chief) of Tabasco. By the time Cortes arrived, she had learned the Mayan dialects used in the Yucatan while still understanding Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and most Non-Mayan Indians. Marina became an interpreter for Cortes. At that time Marina spoke no Spanish. She translated what the Aztecs said into the Mayan dialect understood by de Aguilar and he relayed it to Cortes in Spanish. The process was then reversed, Spanish to Mayan and Mayan to Nahuatl. It is very possible that without her, Cortes would have failed. He himself, in a letter preserved in the Spanish archives, said that “After God we owe this conquest of New Spain to Doña Marina.”

This past weekend I flew down to Southern California to visit some family I boarded the plane and found my seat. I immediately pulled out my lap top and began to work on my Humanities assignment. The plane was filling up fast yet I still had an empty seat next to me. Just as I was getting excited about having an empty seat a beautiful exotic woman came and filled the seat next to me. It was time for take off and the captain notified us that we needed to fasten our seat belts and put away all electronic devices.

As the flight attendants prepared us for take off the exotic woman passenger turned and greeted me. A brief conversation was started and she asked what I was studying in school. I told her about my current Humanities project on La Malinche. I was just preparing to discuss what I had learned this far and her eyes lit up. The woman introduced herself to me as Donna Maria a distant relative of La Malinche. I could not believe it no need to search the internet for information I had a wealth of information sitting right next to me. Donna Maria agreed to help me with my project. Since this was such a short flight I knew that I must work fast.

The first thing that I asked her was to tell me about the childhood of La Malinche. This is what I was told, “Funny you should ask that not much is known about her childhood except that when she was young her father died and her mother remarried and bore a son with her new husband. It was then decided that her step brother would rule and that she would be secretly given to traders and proclaimed dead.”

My second question was: If La Malinche was given to traders how did she become associated with Cortes? I was told, “La Malinche became a slave of the Cacique (the military chief) of Tabasco it was during this time that she took full advantage of her situation and began learning the Mayan dialects used in the Yucatan while still understanding Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and most Non-Mayan Indians. Shortly there after Cortes’ ship landed in Tobasco and the Cacique presented Cortes with 19 young slave women, La Malinche being one of them.”

As the flight attendants traveled through the aisles collecting empty drink glasses and peanut wrappers I knew the flight was coming to an end. I thanked Donna Maria for the information that she had provided and reclined my seat to the full and up right position for the decent into San Diego. It was just as we were exiting the plane that she handed me a picture of a statue in Mexico of La Malinche, she said she had taken it a few years ago when she was there and wanted me to have it for my project.

Malinche/Doña Marina was not oppressed she went from being sold by her family to Indians from Xicalango, given to people of Tabasco, and then finally given to Cortes. Starting out with unfortunate circumstances La Malinche/Doña Marina was able to turn her life around and use her intelligence as a translator for Cortes and play a role in helping him conquer Mexico.

Quetzalcoatl

We've all heard the name before. "He's that Feathered Serpent of Ancient Mexico". However, that only answers the WHAT. Ask, WHO he was, and you might get an answer along the lines of an unintelligible stare; or the standard response, "Yeah. He was the guy who was suppose to return from the East to reclaim his power, but the Indians mistook Cortés for him instead". Though it might seem a simple enough question, a far more involved and complicated answer is necessary.

First of all, Quetzalcoatl was a god of such importance and power that nearly no aspect of everyday life seemed to go untouched by him. Secondly, as a historical figure, his actions would nor could not be contained by the History and thus eventually evolved into myth. And as a legend, he would signal the end of mortal kingship. An interesting phenomena that distinguished Quetzalcoatl is that despite the fact he is not the most powerful of gods within the Mesoamerican pantheon, or one of the eldest, he is nonetheless an integral part of the system. This was partially accomplished by his ability to integrate himself so securely to attributes of his fellow brethren, to such an extent that it is virtually impossible to tell if Quetzalcoatl was the true originator or vise versa. Hence, to establish a single definitive personality to a god is extremely difficult.

Lastly, it must be kept in mind that despite Quetzalcoatl being an Aztec name, the cultures preceding them had their name for him as well, and applying their own unique attributes to him. Consequently, Quetzalcoatl is related to many names and incarnations, and seems to play a prominent role in a pantheon of virtually all the other Mesoamerican deities. Quetzalcoatl himself goes by the names of Gukumatz, Nine Wind, and Kukulcan among others. These are the most common names found in the general Aztec and Mayan cultures, with Quetzalcoatl maintaining a host of avatars with whom he is intimately connected with or represented by. There are also certain gods that Quetzalcoatl is involved with most of the time as well, such as Xolotl, Tlaloc, Xipe, and Tezcatlipoca. These "upper level" gods are either contrary, complimentary, or both at the same time towards Quetzalcoatl, creating a sense of duality around these myths.

Aztecs

Aztecs were a wandering Native American tribe who came to Mexico during the 13th century. There they built a great civilization including cities, pyramids, and temples. In 1519 Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico and defeated the Aztecs. Aztec comes from the word Azteca, which is derived from Aztlán ("White Land"). Aztlán is believed to have been the northwestern region of today's Mexico. Aztlán is the land where, according to Aztec tradition, their tribe originated. According to Aztec legend at the beginning of the 12th century until the 13th century, the Aztec peoples migrated south to the Valley of Mexico in search of a place to settle. By the 1400's and into the early 1500's, the Aztecs had established one of the most advanced civilizations in the Americas. Some of their cities at that time were as large as any in Europe. Aztec peoples practiced a religion that affected every part of their lives. To honor their gods, they constructed towering temples, huge sculptures, and held ceremonies that included bloody human sacrifices. The Aztec empire was destroyed by the Spaniards, who conquered it in 1521. But the Aztecs have made a lasting mark on Mexican culture. The term, Aztec, is a startlingly imprecise term to describe the culture that dominated the Valley of Mexico in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Properly speaking, all the Nahua-speaking peoples in the Valley of Mexico were Aztecs, while the culture that dominated the area was a tribe of the Mexica (pronounced "me-shee-ka") called the Tenochca ("te-noch-ka"). At the time of the European conquest, they called themselves either "Tenochca" or "Toltec," which was the name assumed by the bearers of the Classic Mesoamerican culture. The earliest we know about the Mexica is that they migrated from the north into the Valley of Mexico as early as the twelfth century AD, well after the close of the Classic Period in Mesoamerica. They were a subject and abject people, forced to live on the worst lands in the valley. They adopted the cultural patterns (called Mixteca-Pueblo) that originated in the culture of Teotihuacán, so the urban culture they built in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is essentially a continuation of Teotihuacán culture.

Society

The Aztec's society was made up of the emperor, the chief advisor, nobles and princes, and slaves, basically comprised of everyone else. The province was broken up into tribes and village communities whose main focus was agriculture, trade and warriors hip. The leader of the Aztecs was the emperor. The emperors chief adviser was a man who had the strange title of Cihuacoatl or Snake Woman. Below the rulers were the great nobles, the Tlatani, who governed the provinces. The lowest group in Aztec society were the slaves. Each community had a central marketplace, where merchant directors managed trade. Their duties included assign locations for vendors and fixing prices on goods. These directors also had the authority to give a death sentence to anyone caught stealing or selling stolen goods. Cacao (chocolate) beans, feathers, and pieces of tin were among the items used as currency. The goods sold in the marketplace included food, baskets, ceramics, jewelry and metal
goods. Trade between communities were transported by merchant officials. The trade routes spanned across most of Mexico.

Most farming was done within the lake bed. A plot approximately 100 feet in length by 8 feet in width would be fenced in. This area would then be filled with mud and decaying plants. Another plot would be narrowly spaced next to it, leaving enough room for canoes to pass through.

Boys were trained to be warriors and the girls to look after the house. Maize, from which flour was made, amaranth, a grain grown for its health-giving properties, and beans were the staple diet, and most peasant families living in simple huts would keep rabbits, turkeys and dogs in their garden to be fattened up for special feasts. They also ate a variety of fruits, vegetables and fish. Special treats may have included boiled grasshoppers, cactus worms, locusts and insect eggs.

The City of the Gods

Xipe Totec - God of spring and new life and the god of suffering

Aztec Calendar -

Aztec Art

Music and Dance

N'ahuatl

The Aztec Game of Tlatchtli from Mexico

Montezuma and the Fall of the Aztecs

 The Aztecs/Mexicas were the native American people who dominated northern México at the time of the Spanish conquest led by Hernan CORTES in the early 16th century. According to their own legends, they originated from a place called Aztlan, somewhere in north or northwest Mexico. At that time the Aztecs (who referred to themselves as the Mexica or Tenochca) were a small, nomadic, Nahuatl-speaking aggregation of tribal peoples living on the margins of civilized Mesoamerica. Sometime in the 12th century they embarked on a period of wandering and in the 13th century settled in the central basin of México. Continually dislodged by the small city-states that fought one another in shifting alliances, the Aztecs finally found refuge on small islands in Lake Texcoco where, in 1325, they founded the town of TENOCHTITLAN (modern-day Mexico City). The term Aztec, originally associated with the migrant Mexica, is today a collective term, applied to all the peoples linked by trade, custom, religion, and language to these founders.  Cortés, learning that the Aztec empire of Montezuma was honeycombed with dissension, assumed the role of deliverer and rallied the coastal Totonacs to his standard; he also began negotiations with Montezuma. Scuttling his ships to prevent the return of any Velázquez sympathizers to Cuba, he began his famous march to Tenochtitlán (modern Mexico City), capital of the Aztec empire. He defeated the Tlaxcalan warriors and then formed an alliance with the so-called republic of Tlaxcala; practically destroyed Cholula; and arrived at Tenochtitlán in November, 1519. There the superstitious Montezuma received the Spanish as descendants of the god Quetzalcoatl. Cortés seized his opportunity, took Montezuma hostage, and attempted to govern through him.

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