The Conquest of New Spain
“The
Conquest of New Spain” is a first-hand account of the Spanish discovery of Mexico
and subsequent conquest, written by one of the soldiers in Cortes expedition,
Bernal Diaz.
For those unfamiliar
with that particular event, these were a number of expeditions that set out
from recently settled Cuba in the period 1517-21 to discover new land with
potential riches to be found. Two expeditions, both joined by Diaz as a regular
soldier, discovered Yucatan and the land behind it (Tabasco), land settled by
Indians of a higher culture than what they had found on the Caribbean Islands
and, not least, rumors of a mighty empire rich in gold.
This
triggered a third and much larger expedition to find this mysterious Mexico and
Cortes was send out with a few hundred soldiers to see what could be found. As
it happened Cortes found the Mexicans (the Aztecs) and first befriended them.
Later when things turned sour he barely escaped Mexico City, but with a reinforced
army he went back and conquered Mexico.
The
uniqueness of this particular account is that it was not written by some dusty
historian or colored by political or religious agendas, but presented in vivid
details by one on the guys on the ground. Bernal Diaz view is of course his own
and he was a Spaniard of the 16th century with all that entails, but
barring that the account is surprisingly objective and the portraits of his
officers and opponents has all the positives and negatives of real life characters.
It is as if Diaz has concluded that the events themselves were heroic enough as
they were, there were no reason to dress up or exaggerate anything, not even a
white wash to make anybody look good. The result is a very readable, very
realistic and incredibly informative story and one that I just flew through.
This is exciting reading.
Let us
first get a few misunderstandings out of the way. The few Spaniards (400 man
strong initially) did not beat the crap out of the huge Mexican army because
they all came with firearms and just gunned them down. This is still early 16th
century and firearms a few, expensive and unreliable. There was a detachment of
musketeers along, but the majority was fighting with swords, lances and
crossbows. Arms not terribly different from those the Mexicans had. The Indians
were much more impressed with the horses the Spaniards brought, but eventually
the Mexicans learned how to counter them and they were of limited value in the
actual conquest. Instead Cortes was an excellent diplomat and when he learned
about the internal divisions among the Indian city states he cleverly exploited
that and gained a lot of local allies among the Indians, not unlike the Romans
in their time. During most of the battles the numerical majority of his forces
consisted of allied units. Secondly the Mexicans relied heavily on signs and advice
from their gods, which resulted in random and of counterproductive actions including
a prophecy that some white bearded men from the sea would come to conquer their
lands.
A
post-colonial view on the Spanish conquest would easily view the whole affair
as an imperialistic landgrab and plunder of an innocent indigenous people. This
is not entirely wrong. They did want land and convert souls and particularly
find gold. Diaz makes no excuses there. But in their view the Mexicans where an
evil empire that had suppressed and enslaved the entire region and used their
slaves as human sacrifices to their gods and munched on their flesh. In their
eyes they were liberating the country from these vermin. I certainly find it
difficult to entirely discredit the Spanish for unseating the Mexicans, although
their missionary zeal does not look particularly good, nor was it very helpful for
their operation. Interestingly, it is their accompanying priests and friars that
keep Cortes in check and makes him tone down the religious zeal.
