Notes: Contact and Conquest — The Meeting of Old and New Worlds

Overview

• Source: Excerpt from CONSTRUCTING THE AMERICAN PAST: VOLUME ONE, presenting a eyewitness/advocacy perspective on the Spanish conquest of the Caribbean and the Aztec empire, including a Florentine Codex Aztec account and contextual map discussion.
• Central tension: the collision of European imperial greed, religious/missionary justifications, and native resistance and devastation.
• Two broad sections in this transcript excerpt:
  • A visceral denunciation of Spanish actions in Hispaniola (the island that includes present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), detailing depopulation, enslavement, and forced labor, driven by gold-seeking ambitions.
  • An Aztec oral/colonial account of the Cortés invasion (as recorded in the Florentine Codex) describing Moctezuma’s encounter with Cortés, the extraction of wealth, and the massacre during the Uitzilopochtli/Toxcatl rituals.
• Contextual items interwoven with the main narrative:
  • A map discussion: Sebastian Munster’s 1542 Nova Tabula map and its representation (and misrepresentations) of the New World, including naming conventions for Temistitan and the Gulf of Mexico.
  • A set of critical questions and recommended readings that frame interpretation, ethics, and the long-term consequences of contact.

The Hispaniola account (extrinsic critique of Spanish conquest)

• Native life described in detail before/around the early contact:
  • Clothing and bedding: coarse woven cloth, warmth from winter garments, beds replaced by nets, hammocks on coarse rugs or mats.
  • Living arrangements: Hammocks as primary lodging in Hispaniola; more wealthier households use knotted nets in lieu of beds.
  • Natives portrayed as tractable and morally capable: described as apt to receive Catholic instruction and capable of civility and good manners, not deterred by travel obstructions; claim that they possess potential for eternal beatitude barring knowledge of God.
• Spaniards’ initial moral posture and the dramatic reversal:
  • The author claims Spaniards themselves admit the natives had all that would be needed for salvation, lacking only knowledge of the Deity.
  • The Spaniards’ forty-year crusade against the island is depicted as a massacre and “barbarously butcher’d” campaign against a previously peaceful population.
• Quantified devastation (key figures):
  • Three millions of persons lived in Hispaniola; by the account, only a remnant of a few hundred remains. 3{,}000{,}000 → now scarce 300,000 (approximate rendering from the text’s decline).
  • The island of Cuba is described as depopulated/deserted; extensive depopulation of other Caribbean areas such as Puerto Rico and Jamaica is noted.
  • The Lucayan Islands (the Bahamas and nearby) and the “Gigantic Isles” are described as laid waste and uninhabited.
  • Pre-contact population density dramatically reduced by violence, coercive labor in mines, and forced removal of people to work for Spaniards.
• Demographic/landscape scale claims:
  • The firm land area is described as depopulated, with ten kingdoms ruined or desolated, “above One Thousand Miles” of land affected by depopulation.
  • Forty years of tyranny led to an estimate of >12{,}000{,}000 (twelve million) deaths of men, women, and children; and a broader total death toll exceeding 50{,}000{,}000 (fifty million) when including broader suffering.
• Mechanisms and motives of destruction:
  • Two main courses used to extirpate the natives: (1) unjust, bloody, cruel war; (2) killing by “all of them to death” who resisted capture or enslavement.
  • Ultimate aim: Gold; the message underscores that wealth accumulation was the primary driver of the conquest, with religious zeal used to justify brutality.
• Social engineering of captive populations:
  • Young men and women were parceled out by the governors for labor and sexual exploitation; men sent to mines; women forced into field labor.
  • Living conditions and nutrition were deliberately harsh: women starved, fed only coarse herbage; nursing milk exhausted, leading to infant mortality; procreation blocked by separation of couples.
  • The “care” of the Indians’ souls involved forced religious instruction by those who “were committed to them” and who themselves were described as having vices.
• Ethical framing and just war critique:
  • The author asserts the Indians never waged a just war; Spaniards’ violence is framed as extralegal, disproportionate, and morally indefensible.
  • The author argues Indians had just cause to resist, while the Spaniards’ violence is framed as a moral failing and tyranny.
• End-state depiction:
  • The conquest is framed as a barbarous project enabled by greed and brutality, resulting in massive depopulation and cultural destruction across the Caribbean.

The Aztec account of the Spanish conquest (Florentine Codex, Document 5)

• Source context:
  • The Florentine Codex (Book 12, Part 13) records Nahuatl reminiscences collected by Sahagún’s team, translating Aztec memory of the Cortés contact and the fall of Tenochtitlán.
  • An early view of the Western Hemisphere and the Aztec encounter with Cortés is presented in the accompanying map discussion (Munster’s map, 1542).
• Cortés’s arrival and Moctezuma’s reception:
  • Cortés arrives with 600 soldiers and indigenous allies; Moctezuma greets him with ceremonial honors: garlands, flowers, gold necklaces, and gifts that reflect a ritualized welcome.
  • Moctezuma identifies Cortés as the expected lord; Cortés responds with a similar acknowledgement; Moctezuma subsequently guides the Spaniards into the city’s palace complex.
  • The Spaniards are placed under guard; Moctezuma remains in close proximity but loses authority as the Spaniards move through the city with their own display of power.
• The plunder and display of wealth:
  • The Spaniards are led to the Teocalco storehouse; they remove and burn the gold and other precious items, including shields and “devils’ necklaces,” as well as green jade-like stones; the gold is formed into bars.
  • The Spaniards examine and lay claim to all wealth; even artifacts designed to hide wealth are uncovered and seized.
• Moctezuma’s role and the looting of sacred wealth:
  • Cortés asks questions about the Feast of Uitzilopochtli and Moctezuma summons his governors to reveal sacred devices and treasures, which the Spaniards plunder.
  • The event depicts a ceremonial world where wealth, ceremony, and ritual objects are central to political power and religious meaning.
• The Feast of Toxcatl and the massacre:
  • While Cortés is away, Spaniards (led by Alvarado) witness/assault a mass of Aztec dancers during the Feast of Toxcatl, which includes the amaranth dough image of the god Uitzilopochtli.
  • The Spaniards massacre the temple complex and the dancers with iron weapons, leaving wounds described with graphic detail: severed limbs, exposed entrails, gosh-drawn blood, and the slaughter of child-bearing mothers in the crowd.
  • The massacre narrative emphasizes the brutality of the Spaniards during ritual and temple events, and the Aztec resistance attempting to defend calpulli quarters and temple precincts.
• The aftermath and continued resistance:
  • The temple massacre triggers a broader Aztec response: a rearming of Mexicans with arrows, shields, and armor; fighting ensues with Spanish resistance and Aztec counterattacks.
  • The Aztecs are presented as formidable opponents; the narrative notes it took the Spaniards roughly two years to conquer the Aztecs, but disease and superior technologies ultimately prevailed.
• The imagery and language:
  • The account uses vivid, gruesome imagery to convey the brutality of the massacre (e.g., “blood of the brave warriors ran like water,” “intestines gushed out”).
  • The narrative positions Aztec resistance as valiant yet overwhelmed by foreign disease, steel, and firearms, a theme common to many Indigenous accounts of conquest.

Sebastian Munster map (1542) and context

• Map and naming:
  • Munster’s Nova Tabula (Novae Insulae XVII) is one of the earliest Western maps of the New World and reflects contemporary geography assumptions, including a Sea of Verrazano cutting North America and creating a narrow isthmus to Asia.
  • Mexico City/Tenochtitlan is named Temistitan in this map; connected incorrectly to the Gulf of Mexico due to cartographic limitations.
• Interpretive notes:
  • The map demonstrates how early European cartography mixed observation with myth and incomplete knowledge, shaping perceptions of distance and geography.
  • The accompanying narrative describes Cortés’s meetings with Moctezuma and the ceremonial exchanges of gifts and greetings, illustrating encounters that blend awe with imperial intent.
• Significance:
  • The map reflects a widely circulated European understanding of the Americas in the 16th century and is used to contextualize Las Casas’s critique and the Florentine Codex narrative.

Key figures, terms, and places (glossary-ish)

• Hammacks: native beds or sleeping arrangements made from nets; used in lieu of beds by the wealthier on Hispaniola.
• Calpulli: Aztec social/kinship units or neighborhood associations; places of residence and political organization within the city.
• Teocalco: a storehouse/central place in Aztec urban space where wealth and sacred items were kept.
• Uitzilopochtli: Aztec deity associated with war and the temple complex; featured in mass ritual imagery in the Florentine Codex account.
• Toxcatl: Aztec festival that included the ritual enamelling of a statue with amaranth dough and ritual killings; the Spanish massacre occurred during this festival according to the Florentine Codex.
• Florentine Codex: Fray Bernardino de Sahagún’s comprehensive ethnographic work on the things of New Spain, based on Aztec sources collected by Nahua informants.
• Sahagún’s Florentine Codex (Book 12, Part 13): the source for the detailed Aztec account of Cortés’s encounter and the fall of Tenochtitlán.
• Temistitan: Nahuatl rendering of Mexico City; appears in Munster’s map as the city linked to the Aztec heartland.
• Teocalco: see above; a place in Aztec geography where wealth/treasures were stored.

Mathematical and numerical references (LaTeX rendering)

• Population claims for Hispaniola and surrounding areas:
  • 3{,}000{,}000 (Three Millions of Persons) historically populated Hispaniola before depopulation.
  • 500{,}000 (Five Hundred Thousand) is the figure cited for the pre-conquest male population in some contexts.
  • 12{,}000{,}000 (Twelve Millions) is the scale of deaths over the Forty-year tyranny in some renditions: total men, women, and children.
  • 50{,}000{,}000 (Fifty Millions) claimed as a broader total of deaths in the narrative.
  • 1{,}000 (One Thousand) miles referenced as a measure of length of the depopulated land.
• Time frames:
  • 40 years: the duration of the Spaniards’ initial presence and campaigns in the Caribbean.
• Wealth and material references:
  • Gold and wealth are described in terms of separate bars formed from gold items looted from the Aztec storehouses; “green stone” (likely jade) and other precious items described as surviving the looting.

Key passages and imagery (selected quotes paraphrased; with original phrases preserved where notable)

• “not as Beasts, which I cordially wished they would, but as the most abject dung and filth of the Earth” – depiction of Spaniards’ contemptuous treatment of Indigenous peoples.
• “The Indians had ever a just cause of raising War against the Spaniards” and “the Spaniards never waged a just War against them” – ethical framing of conflict and legitimacy of resistance.
• “blood of the brave warriors ran like water” and descriptions of the massacre in the temple precincts – graphic portrayal of violence.
• The exchange scene in Moctezuma’s palace: ceremonial gifts, Moctezuma’s double gaze, and the Spaniards’ encroachment into the Aztec capital.

Connections to broader themes and prior learning

• Religion and conquest:
  • The portrayal of Catholic missionizing as a rationale for conquest, contrasted with the moral ambiguity and brutality described.
  • The tension between “humility and patience” of the Indigenous peoples and the “ambition and avarice” of European conquerors.
• Imperial economics and state-building:
  • The central claim that gold and wealth drove expansion, with forced labor in mines and plunder of sacred wealth as mechanisms of extraction.
• Ethnography and historiography:
  • Florentine Codex as a crucial source for Indigenous perspectives on conquest and ritual life, juxtaposed with European map-making and narrative voices.
• Geography and perception:
  • Munster map’s inaccuracies reflect early modern cartography’s limits and the way geographical knowledge shapes historical memory and policy.

Critical questions and analysis prompts

• Q1: How do celebrations of “Discovery Day” (1892) and “Columbus Day” (1992) differ, and what do those differences reveal about historical memory and national storytelling?
• Q2: Compare Columbus’s and Las Casas’s environmental and human observations of the New World; how do their vantage points explain similarities and differences in description?
• Q3: To what extent did religion shape Spanish exploration and colonization, and how might contemporary geography concepts influence these actions?
• Q4: How did the Spanish conquest transform political, economic, social, agricultural, and dietary patterns in the two continents involved?
• Q5: Using all three sources, retell the Columbus story as if you were living in the Caribbean at the time of arrival.
• Q6: Classify individuals (Columbus, Las Casas, Motecuhzoma) as hero, villain, victim, or product of their era; justify each assessment.

Additional readings and context

• Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea (biography of Columbus).
• Dunn & Kelley, The Diario of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage to America, 1492-93.
• Las Casas: Narratio and related works (Las Casas, Bartolomé de Las Casas, 1971 introduction).
• Alfred W. Crosby Jr., The Columbian Exchange.
• Quincentennial volumes (AHA): Imagining the Other (Axtell, 1991); Before 1492 (Phillips, 1992); North America and the Beginnings of European Colonization (Kupperman, 1992).
• Alvin M. Josephy Jr., 500 Nations; Charles C. Mann, 1491.

Endnotes and map captions (context for historiography)

• Endnotes reference contemporary sources (e.g., New York Times, 1892; 1909 charters; Hakluyt Society translations).
• The Munster map caption notes the dating and the interpretation of early modern cartographic output.

Summary takeaways

• The transcript juxtaposes a polemical critique of Spanish colonial brutality in the Caribbean with an Aztec primary source describing Cortés’s invasion and the fall of Tenochtitlán.
• It emphasizes the moral complexity of conquest: greed and religion were mobilized to justify violence and exploitation, while Indigenous perspectives reveal both the resilience and tragedy of cultures facing European incursion.
• The included questions and readings frame a broader inquiry into the ethical, political, and ecological consequences of contact, as well as how historical memory shapes contemporary views of exploration and colonization.