European Expansion
Bernal Diaz del Castillo accompanied
Captain Hernan Cortez in his march on
Tenichitilan (Mexico City) in 1519,
resulting in the surrender of this Aztec
capital in 1521. Castillo contends
that he will give us the honest account of
what happened and not to give a
bias opinion of what happened. We read three
different sections from his
book. The first is his trip to the Caribbean, the
second is his encounter in
Cholula, and the third is the aftermath of the fall
of Tenochtitlan. In
theses sections we are trying to find the underlying themes,
what the role of
the conquerors was, and finally, what events does Castillo seem
to refute.
Since Castillo tried to give a pure account so it is hard to say that
there
are hidden controversies. The only hidden text that I could find was that
of
misconception intentionally given by the Indians of peace. They
only
presented the troop with peace so they could get the troop to follow
them into
an ambush. The trend seems to follow in the next section, were they
the troop is
greeted very hospitably by the men of importance from Cholula.
While in the care
of the Cholula they were striped of almost all food and
resources. Cortes tried
repeatedly to negotiate with the Caciques who had
turned against them. Cortes
told them that he was needed to talk to Montezuma
who was the leader. The whole
point of these journeys was to spread
Christianity. Throughout the different
times Cortes would say that God would
prevent any harm that would come to the
men. This was a tactic to give
confidence to the men who doubted him. If God was
on their side than no one
could defeat them. At the end of the last section the
men were mad at Cortes
because they thought that he was keeping all the money
for himself. Castillo
seemed to have respect for Cortes, for he was a great
warrior leader, and he
never gave a bad opinion or comment toward Cortes. I
thought that Castillo
gave a good account. In comparison to the letter written
by Columbus,
Castillo’s story seemed to have less, or at least less obvious,
hidden
agendas. Castillo letter was not trying to persuade anyone to give him
more
money or supplies but he was trying to write a story from past years and
tell
the truth the best he could.