<p>Hi this is an essay i wrote for school…can you guys please take a look and comment on it? what do you think about it overall? I want to know what people think because for some reason the ta disagrees with me and I think it makes perfect sense…thanks!</p>
<pre><code> A conflict between two groups of people who hold different values as well as different minds is a typical situation where one side believes they are superior or more accurate than the other. A look at accounts written from the past indicates that Spaniards and Aztecs were highly inaccurate with certain degrees of accuracy in describing the historical event of conquest of New Spain.
The Spaniards, a group of people granted permission to trade and explore by their king (Diaz, 45), just defeated the allies of the Aztecs by the time they arrived in Mexico (Diaz, 46). Although their first meeting with the Aztecs started off as harmless and understanding of the different belief they shared, Spaniards wanted much more than mere goods of pieces of gold the king of Aztecs, Montezuma, provided. The account told from Spaniards’ point of view seems accurate until it reaches to the point of reasons “to capture Montezuma and defeat the Aztecs before they capture us” notion. While the discussion held between Montezuma and Cortes talking about their spiritual beliefs may seem accurate, the thoughts solders and Cortes shared to question any possible sudden attack were more imagined than factual, thinking “some of the soldiers remarked that Montezuma’s mistress who brought the food seemed to be growing insolent and did not serve as politely as they had at first” (Diaz, 54), especially when such opinions were formed after the soldiers planned to eventually attack and seize the Aztecs.
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<p>Aztecs, a group of people who believed in “god primed for death and sacrifice” (Diaz, 46), were very open to those whom Montezuma believed to “come down from the sky” (Broken Spears, 56) and greeted the Spaniards with pieces of gold as a gift. While it may be true that Montezuma, their king at the time, provided good service and kindness to the Spaniards, the descriptive account later told by postconquest generation of Aztec Nahuatl speakers” (Broken Spears, 55) is only a biased account telling what their ancestors have gone through and is not accurate when determining the accuracy of the event of conquest of new Spain. The book starts off as objective, in describing the dialogues exchanged between Montezuma and Cortes; however, it later only views the subjective account of what happened when Spaniards took over Tenochtitlan. For example, “they were all overcome by the terror, as if their hearts had fainted” is very opinionated when the author illustrates the situation as if he is reliving that exact moment and gives his impression of how Aztecs felt when the Spaniards attacked their city. Moreover, when Spaniards attacked the Aztecs, not only are the descriptions over exaggerated, but assuming there were no survivors at all when Spaniards “ran everywhere and searched everywhere…invading every room, hunting, and killing” (Broken Spears, 61), this account clearly does not express a degree of accuracy more than that of a person who experienced such event himself.
The representation of the Spaniards and Aztecs can only be different because their cultures are different. While Spaniards were people who aimed to trade and explore with the intention of fulfilling excessive needs of gaining precious treasures, Aztecs were very simple minded—living the same life style by collecting treasures, performing sacrificial rituals, and serving their king. While the Spaniards were explorers who sought to find more treasures and better life by collecting everything they considered beneficial and valuable, Aztecs were inhabitants who lived like nothing out of the ordinary would happen tomorrow and were satisfied in their mundane customs of repetitive life.
Similarity the two accounts shared were the representation they gave in describing both Spaniards and Aztecs as people whose personalities were filled with curiosity. When Cortes and Montezuma first met, they were very open and were anxious to learn about other cultures as well as inviting to attract other’s attention by giving gifts in their own ways. They both described the initiation of interacting with other’s cultures well; while Diaz described his own experience of encountering the first meet with the Aztecs and hearing both sides of discussion of the gods Spaniards and Aztecs worshipped, the book, Broken Spears, re-created a narration between Montezuma and Cortes upon greeting. The differences arise when the two accounts start to discuss the beginning, middle and end of the story. Diaz shares his account of what the Spaniards thought and felt about taking over the Aztecs before any unexpected attack. He also writes that, “We spent a good hour discussing whether or not to take Montezuma prisoner and how it should be done” (Diaz, 54), to let the readers know that the Spaniards initially did not have a plan to take over the Aztecs and later created a plan for execution should Cortes decide to give an order to take over the city. On the other hand, Broken Spears, focuses more on telling the story after the attack. The book describes how the residents felt when they first came across the attack, how the servants felt when the Spaniards took most of their treasures and ordered to bring food and water constantly, and how the Aztecs felt overall when they were ordered to perform the Fiesta.
The accounts of Diaz and Broken Spears both display a high degree of accuracy as well as inaccuracy. They describe history of conquest of New Spain in their own words, providing reflections of the authors’ opinions. To obtain an accurate version of this historical event, one needs to compare the same event under same time frame—for this case, a comparison between the account of Diaz during the attack and the account that describes the happenings during the attack would give an impression of a more accurate idea of what really occurred in this event of “Conquest of New Spain.”</p>