Download or read book Aztecs and Spaniards written by Albert Marrin and published by Atheneum Books. This book was released on 1986 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the history and culture of the Aztec Indians in the Valley of Mexico and discusses how the arrival of the conquistador Hernando Cortes brought about the fall of their mighty empire.
Download or read book Conquest written by Hugh Thomas and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 836 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on newly discovered sources and writing with brilliance, drama, and profound historical insight, Hugh Thomas presents an engrossing narrative of one of the most significant events of Western history. Ringing with the fury of two great empires locked in an epic battle, Conquest captures in extraordinary detail the Mexican and Spanish civilizations and offers unprecedented in-depth portraits of the legendary opponents, Montezuma and Cortés. Conquest is an essential work of history from one of our most gifted historians.
Download or read book Indian Conquistadors written by Laura Matthew and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conquest of the New World would hardly have been possible if the invading Spaniards had not allied themselves with the indigenous population. Indian Conquistadors examines the role of native peoples as active agents in the Conquest and the overwhelming importance of native allies in both conquest and colonial control.
Download or read book Aztecs and Conquistadores written by John Pohl and published by Osprey Publishing. This book was released on 2005-10-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Spanish conquest of Mexico was a remarkable military expedition that had a huge impact on the history of the world. Hernán Cortés led the expedition, the aim of which was the addition of Mexico to the Spanish Empire, and the extraction of Aztec riches. Following the appearance of portents, the Aztecs were expecting a catastrophe in 1519, and the Spanish invasion fulfilled this expectation. Although they fought fiercely to the end, the Aztec civilisation was doomed, and the face of Mexico would be changed for ever. This book examines the campaign, but also the lives, training and experience of the men on both sides: the Spanish conquerors and their opponents, the exotic Aztecs, who were fighting for their lives and their civilisation. Contains material peviously published in Essential Histories 60, Warrior 32 and Warrior 40.
Download or read book Fifth Sun written by Camilla Townsend and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifth Sun offers a comprehensive history of the Aztecs, spanning the period before conquest to a century after the conquest, based on rarely-used Nahuatl-language sources written by the indigenous people.
Download or read book Conquistador written by Buddy Levy and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2009-07-28 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this astonishing work of scholarship that reads like an edge-of-your-seat adventure thriller, acclaimed historian Buddy Levy records the last days of the Aztec empire and the two men at the center of an epic clash of cultures perhaps unequaled to this day. It was a moment unique in human history, the face-to-face meeting between two men from civilizations a world apart. In 1519, Hernán Cortés arrived on the shores of Mexico, determined not only to expand the Spanish empire but to convert the natives to Catholicism and carry off a fortune in gold. That he saw nothing paradoxical in carrying out his intentions by virtually annihilating a proud and accomplished native people is one of the most remarkable and tragic aspects of this unforgettable story. In Tenochtitlán Cortés met his Aztec counterpart, Montezuma: king, divinity, commander of the most powerful military machine in the Americas and ruler of a city whose splendor equaled anything in Europe. Yet in less than two years, Cortés defeated the entire Aztec nation in one of the most astounding battles ever waged. The story of a lost kingdom, a relentless conqueror, and a doomed warrior, Conquistador is history at its most riveting.
Download or read book The Codex Mexicanus written by Lori Boornazian Diel and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2018-12-12 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some sixty years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, a group of Nahua intellectuals in Mexico City set about compiling an extensive book of miscellanea, which was recorded in pictorial form with alphabetic texts in Nahuatl clarifying some imagery or adding new information altogether. This manuscript, known as the Codex Mexicanus, includes records pertaining to the Aztec and Christian calendars, European medical astrology, a genealogy of the Tenochca royal house, and an annals history of pre-conquest Tenochtitlan and early colonial Mexico City, among other topics. Though filled with intriguing information, the Mexicanus has long defied a comprehensive scholarly analysis, surely due to its disparate contents. In this pathfinding volume, Lori Boornazian Diel presents the first thorough study of the entire Codex Mexicanus that considers its varied contents in a holistic manner. She provides an authoritative reading of the Mexicanus’s contents and explains what its creation and use reveal about native reactions to and negotiations of colonial rule in Mexico City. Diel makes sense of the codex by revealing how its miscellaneous contents find counterparts in Spanish books called Reportorios de los tiempos. Based on the medieval almanac tradition, Reportorios contain vast assortments of information related to the issue of time, as does the Mexicanus. Diel masterfully demonstrates that, just as Reportorios were used as guides to living in early modern Spain, likewise the Codex Mexicanus provided its Nahua audience a guide to living in colonial New Spain.
Download or read book Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest written by Matthew Restall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-10-28 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is an intriguing exploration of the ways in which the history of the Spanish Conquest has been misread and passed down to become popular knowledge of these events. The book offers a fresh account of the activities of the best-known conquistadors and explorers, including Columbus, Cortés, and Pizarro. Using a wide array of sources, historian Matthew Restall highlights seven key myths, uncovering the source of the inaccuracies and exploding the fallacies and misconceptions behind each myth. This vividly written and authoritative book shows, for instance, that native Americans did not take the conquistadors for gods and that small numbers of vastly outnumbered Spaniards did not bring down great empires with stunning rapidity. We discover that Columbus was correctly seen in his lifetime--and for decades after--as a briefly fortunate but unexceptional participant in efforts involving many southern Europeans. It was only much later that Columbus was portrayed as a great man who fought against the ignorance of his age to discover the new world. Another popular misconception--that the Conquistadors worked alone--is shattered by the revelation that vast numbers of black and native allies joined them in a conflict that pitted native Americans against each other. This and other factors, not the supposed superiority of the Spaniards, made conquests possible. The Conquest, Restall shows, was more complex--and more fascinating--than conventional histories have portrayed it. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest offers a richer and more nuanced account of a key event in the history of the Americas.
Download or read book The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan the Life of Mexico City written by Barbara E. Mundy and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In 1325, the Aztecs founded their capital city Tenochtitlan, which grew to be one of the world's largest cities before it was violently destroyed in 1521 by conquistadors from Spain and their indigenous allies. Re-christened and reoccupied by the Spanish conquerors as Mexico City, it became the pivot of global trade linking Europe and Asia in the 17th century, and one of the modern world's most populous metropolitan areas. However, the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan and its people did not entirely disappear when the Spanish conquistadors destroyed it. By reorienting Mexico City-Tenochtitlan as a colonial capital and indigenous city, Mundy demonstrates its continuity across time. Using maps, manuscripts, and artworks, she draws out two themes: the struggle for power by indigenous city rulers and the management and manipulation of local ecology, especially water, that was necessary to maintain the city's sacred character. What emerges is the story of a city-within-a city that continues to this day"--
Download or read book Conquistadores written by Fernando Cervantes and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping, authoritative history of 16th-century Spain and its legendary conquistadors, whose ambitious and morally contradictory campaigns propelled a small European kingdom to become one of the formidable empires in the world “The depth of research in this book is astonishing, but even more impressive is the analytical skill Cervantes applies. . . . [He] conveys complex arguments in delightfully simple language, and most importantly knows how to tell a good story.” —The Times (London) Over the few short decades that followed Christopher Columbus's first landing in the Caribbean in 1492, Spain conquered the two most powerful civilizations of the Americas: the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, and the other explorers and soldiers that took part in these expeditions dedicated their lives to seeking political and religious glory, helping to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. But centuries later, these conquistadors have become the stuff of nightmares. In their own time, they were glorified as heroic adventurers, spreading Christian culture and helping to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. Today, they stand condemned for their cruelty and exploitation as men who decimated ancient civilizations and carried out horrific atrocities in their pursuit of gold and glory. In Conquistadores, acclaimed Mexican historian Fernando Cervantes—himself a descendent of one of the conquistadors—cuts through the layers of myth and fiction to help us better understand the context that gave rise to the conquistadors' actions. Drawing upon previously untapped primary sources that include diaries, letters, chronicles, and polemical treatises, Cervantes immerses us in the late-medieval, imperialist, religious world of 16th-century Spain, a world as unfamiliar to us as the Indigenous peoples of the New World were to the conquistadors themselves. His thought-provoking, illuminating account reframes the story of the Spanish conquest of the New World and the half-century that irrevocably altered the course of history.
Download or read book Aztecs written by Inga Clendinnen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-15 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recreates the culture of the city of Tenochtitlan in its last unthreatened years before it fell to the Spaniards.
Download or read book Moctezuma s Children written by Donald E. Chipman and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though the Aztec Empire fell to Spain in 1521, three principal heirs of the last emperor, Moctezuma II, survived the conquest and were later acknowledged by the Spanish victors as reyes naturales (natural kings or monarchs) who possessed certain inalienable rights as Indian royalty. For their part, the descendants of Moctezuma II used Spanish law and customs to maintain and enhance their status throughout the colonial period, achieving titles of knighthood and nobility in Mexico and Spain. So respected were they that a Moctezuma descendant by marriage became Viceroy of New Spain (colonial Mexico's highest governmental office) in 1696. This authoritative history follows the fortunes of the principal heirs of Moctezuma II across nearly two centuries. Drawing on extensive research in both Mexican and Spanish archives, Donald E. Chipman shows how daughters Isabel and Mariana and son Pedro and their offspring used lawsuits, strategic marriages, and political maneuvers and alliances to gain pensions, rights of entailment, admission to military orders, and titles of nobility from the Spanish government. Chipman also discusses how the Moctezuma family history illuminates several larger issues in colonial Latin American history, including women's status and opportunities and trans-Atlantic relations between Spain and its New World colonies.
Download or read book When Montezuma Met Cort s written by Matthew Restall and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dramatic rethinking of the encounter between Montezuma and Hernando Cortés that completely overturns what we know about the Spanish conquest of the Americas On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction—the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas—has long been the symbol of Cortés’s bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere. But is this really what happened? In a departure from traditional tellings, When Montezuma Met Cortés uses “the Meeting”—as Restall dubs their first encounter—as the entry point into a comprehensive reevaluation of both Cortés and Montezuma. Drawing on rare primary sources and overlooked accounts by conquistadors and Aztecs alike, Restall explores Cortés’s and Montezuma’s posthumous reputations, their achievements and failures, and the worlds in which they lived—leading, step by step, to a dramatic inversion of the old story. As Restall takes us through this sweeping, revisionist account of a pivotal moment in modern civilization, he calls into question our view of the history of the Americas, and, indeed, of history itself.
Download or read book Mexico and the Spanish Conquest written by Ross Hassig and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-08-04 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What role did indigenous peoples play in the Spanish conquest of Mexico? Ross Hassig explores this question in Mexico and the Spanish Conquest by incorporating primary accounts from the Indians of Mexico and revisiting the events of the conquest against the backdrop of the Aztec empire, the culture and politics of Mesoamerica, and the military dynamics of both sides. He analyzes the weapons, tactics, and strategies employed by both the Indians and the Spaniards, and concludes that the conquest was less a Spanish victory than it was a victory of Indians over other Indians, which the Spaniards were able to exploit to their own advantage. In this second edition of his classic work, Hassig incorporates new research in the same concise manner that made the original edition so popular and provides further explanations of the actions and motivations of Cortés, Moteuczoma, and other key figures. He also explores their impact on larger events and examines in greater detail Spanish military tactics and strategies.
Download or read book Cort s and the Aztec Conquest written by Irwin R. Blacker and published by New Word City. This book was released on 2015-10-21 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In three years, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, leading a few hundred Spanish soldiers, overcame a centuries-old empire that could put tens of thousands of warriors on the field. Even after his god-like reputation had been shattered, and his horses and cannons were no longer regarded as supernatural, his ruthless daring took him on to victory. Yet in the end, his prize was not the gold that he had sought, but the destruction of the entire Aztec civilization.
Download or read book Aztecs Moors and Christians written by Max Harris and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In villages and towns across Spain and its former New World colonies, local performers stage mock battles between Spanish Christians and Moors or Aztecs that range from brief sword dances to massive street theatre lasting several days. The festival tradition officially celebrates the triumph of Spanish Catholicism over its enemies, yet this does not explain its persistence for more than five hundred years nor its widespread diffusion. In this insightful book, Max Harris seeks to understand Mexicans' "puzzling and enduring passion" for festivals of moros y cristianos. He begins by tracing the performances' roots in medieval Spain and showing how they came to be superimposed on the mock battles that had been a part of pre-contact Aztec calendar rituals. Then using James Scott's distinction between "public" and "hidden transcripts," he reveals how, in the hands of folk and indigenous performers, these spectacles of conquest became prophecies of the eventual reconquest of Mexico by the defeated Aztec peoples. Even today, as lively descriptions of current festivals make plain, they remain a remarkably sophisticated vehicle for the communal expression of dissent.
Download or read book Bernardino de Sahagun written by Miguel Leon-Portilla and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-09-13 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He was sent from Spain on a religious crusade to Mexico to “detect the sickness of idolatry,” but Bernardino de Sahagún (c. 1499-1590) instead became the first anthropologist of the New World. The Franciscan monk developed a deep appreciation for Aztec culture and the Nahuatl language. In this biography, Miguel León-Portilla presents the life story of a fascinating man who came to Mexico intent on changing the traditions and cultures he encountered but instead ended up working to preserve them, even at the cost of persecution. Sahagún was responsible for documenting numerous ancient texts and other native testimonies. He persevered in his efforts to study the native Aztecs until he had developed his own research methodology, becoming a pioneer of anthropology. Sahagún formed a school of Nahua scribes and labored with them for more than sixty years to transcribe the pre-conquest language and culture of the Nahuas. His rich legacy, our most comprehensive account of the Aztecs, is contained in his Primeros Memoriales (1561) and Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España (1577). Near the end of his life at age 91, Sahagún became so protective of the Aztecs that when he died, his former Indian students and many others felt deeply affected. Translated into English by Mauricio J. Mixco, León-Portilla’s absorbing account presents Sahagún as a complex individual–a man of his times yet a pioneer in many ways.
