Victors And Vanquished Analysis

The downfall of the Aztec Empire in the 1500s was brought about by a very bloody and ruthless conquest orchestrated by Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés. Central America was devastated by the aggression of the European invaders who were ransacking every town for their valuables and subjugating the populace. Much of what is known about the events that unfolded comes from primary sources written by the Spanish participants or the stories written by the native Nahua people a generation or two after the whole affair, whose sources mainly consist of oral tellings of the circumstance from their ancestors. In Victors and Vanquished, Stuart Schwartz attempts to juxtapose these sometimes contradictory sources and explore the situation from …show more content…
Massive amounts of native people swelled Cortes’s ranks in defiance of the Mexica tributary system. Up to 100,000 Tlaxcalans joined with Cortes when he marched on Tenochtitlan. Schwartz states that “such figures emphasizes the fact that in many ways the conquest of Tenochtitlan and the fall of the Mexica Empire was as much a struggle among indigenous peoples as it was a clash of the Old and New Worlds” (Schwartz 15). When the Spanish arrived, “the peoples of the Mexica did not form a single political entity, and these political and ethnic divisions contributed to the success” (Schwartz 23) of the military expedition. In order for the Spanish to take advantage of these divisions, they had to rely on past experience when dealing with native peoples. From this experience, the Spanish understood “the importance of translators and language itself in the process of encounter and conquest” (Schwartz 40). With a solid base for translation established through Aguillar and Malinche, the Spanish began “to differentiate between the various ethnicities and political loyalties of the indigenous people” (Schwartz 42). The ethnography they learned from the exchange of gifts between Cortes and other indigenous leaders also established a great knowledge of potential wealth as well as a divide and …show more content…
Despite this attempt, it reads almost as homage to the Spanish and their great conquest. Although a voice is given to the Mexica and other Nahua people, it displays them as lesser to the Spanish by underplaying their accomplishments. This is especially evident in the sections regarding the interactions between Moctezuma and Cortes. Moctezuma is portrayed as a weak minded puppet under the spell of Cortes. Perhaps a deeper look at this relationship would show successful cohabitation and not necessarily a foolish leader in Moctezuma. Schwartz does however do an excellent job of highlighting the Spanish maneuvers and ability to take advantage of situations in the area. The choice to focus on the political climate of central Mexico as a leading factor to the success of the Spanish is demonstrated with massive amounts of convincing evidence. The shortcomings of the book are also mentioned by the Author in the introduction but states that the lack of evidence in existence is a major problem when studying the time period. The author states that sources from the time period demonstrate both class and gender bias due to the nature of the authors and societal expectations. While there are flaws in the book, the central argument is clear and supported effectively. The Spanish conquered Mexico because of the culture they were born into, technological