Food for Thought

Week 4: Tuesday, February 10

Everyone must answer the following question from the textbook:

1) What factors made the Spanish conquest of South and Central America possible?

Remember Keegan's reconstruction of Agincourt? He created this reconstruction using a variety of eyewitness accounts. Now, you will have the opportunity to reconstruct the fighting between Spaniards and Aztecs by looking at Diaz's account.

Even though you will only be responsible for leading discussion on a specific portion of Diaz, I would like you to read the entire text. Diaz's excerpt covers five different fights between the Spanish and the Tlaxcalans or the Aztecs. I will divide the class into five groups, each one responsible for leading the class discussion on one of these five specific fights (see below). As you look at Diaz's description of your assigned fight, I would like you to find the answers to the following questions in the text.

• What preparations did both sides make before the fight? What instructions did the Spanish receive before the fight?
• What weapons did both sides use?
• What tactics did both sides seem to employ?
• What formations did both sides fight in?
• Did one side or the other learn anything from the fight?
• How many people appear to have fought on each side?
• What was the ground or battlefield like?
• What exactly was the fighting like? In other words, if you had to picture it in your mind, what would it look like?

Don't worry if you can't find the answer to all of these questions—Diaz's descriptions don't always convey the relevant information. Just do your best.

For the quiz, I would like you to write down the answers to these questions (as they relate to your specific fight) in a concise list.

Group 1 (Section A: Bonaventure to Donovan; Section B: Allwarden to DiConza)
Look at Diaz's account of the initial encounter with the Tlaxcalans or Otomis (this starts on page 105).

Group 2 (Section A: Florence to Hinchen; Section B: Dingell to Hartford)
Look at Diaz's description of the second encounter with the Tlaxcalans (this starts on page 107).

Group 3 (Section A: Hohl to Kavalek; Section B: Jarominksi to Leiser)
Look at Diaz's description of the Spaniards' first attempt to escape the Aztecs and break out of Tenochtitlan (site of present-day Mexico City). This section starts on page 167.

Group 4 (Section A: Kerr to Mansfield; Section B: Maloney to O'Leary)
Look at Diaz's account of the Spaniards' second attempt to break out of Tenochtitlan. This section starts on page 168.

Group 5 (Section A: McDonald to Snell; Section B: Salazar to Ziino)
Look at Diaz's description of the Spaniards' final attempt to break out of Tenochtitlan. This section starts on page 173.

Notes

To help you understand the readings better, I have included the following notes below:

• The Tlaxcalans were enemies of the Aztecs. When Cortes first moved inland, he fought the Tlaxcalans several times. After Cortes beat them several times, they became his allies and participated in his war against the Aztecs.
• Diego Valazques, the Spanish governor of Cuba, had sent Cortes to the Mexican coast to contact the peoples of Central America and establish trade with them. When Valazques eventually found out that Cortes had embarked upon the conquest of Mexico, the governor sent Panfilo de Narvaez with some soldiers to rein in the insubordinate Cortes. By this point, Cortes had established himself in Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire, and placed Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, more or less under house arrest. With a portion of his men, Cortes left the city, defeated Narvaez, and eventually managed to get Narvaez's soldiers to join him. When Cortes returned to Tenochtitlan, the people of the city had begun to grow hostile. The Spanish had Montezuma, but before long, they found themselves trapped in the city. Repeated attempts to leave the city ended in failure. With food, water, and ammunition running low, the Spanish made one last attempt to escape. In what became known as the "Noche triste" ("sad night"), Montezuma was killed as the Spaniards fought their way out of the city, losing several hundred casualties (Diaz describes this night in the fifth section of the reading).
• Mexico City sat on a lake, criss-crossed by canals, much like Venice.