Broken Spears: Aztec Account of the Spanish Conquest

Introduction

Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of America, edited by Miguel León-Portilla (Beacon Press, 1992), tells the Aztec peoples' account of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Throughout history, the conquest has been told from the viewpoint of the conquistadors — the Spanish victors. Broken Spears was the first book to tell the story of the conquest from the Aztecs' perspective. It was originally published in Spanish in 1959 and first appeared in English in 1962.

The book begins a few years before the conquest by recounting the Aztecs' perceived omens of what was to come, and the remainder gives a chronological account of the conquest itself. The primary impetus of the book is not historical data-gathering but, rather, the storytelling and human emotion behind the Spanish conquest.

Historical Background of the Conquest

Hernando Cortés's army arrived in Mexico in the early sixteenth century and defeated the Mexicans in relatively short order. Cortés had originally been sent to Mexico by the Cuban governor to search for gold, but when he was ordered to withdraw and return to Havana, he gathered eleven ships and six hundred troops and made his way to Mexico instead.

Previous Spanish expeditions had been sent to Mexico as early as 1517, but Cortés was a powerful, persuasive leader who was able to rally his troops. The indigenous peoples also proved very susceptible to the Spaniards' superior weapons, as well as to new European diseases such as smallpox, chickenpox, and measles. Of crucial importance was the Aztec leader Moctezuma's indecisiveness about Cortés's motives and his confusion as to whether Cortés's arrival was a spiritual event or a spiritual sign — a major strategic mistake. Finally, the Mexican Indians were internally divided, and there was widespread resentment of Aztec domination. As a result, the Tlaxcaltecs and other Aztec enemies became the Spaniards' allies.

Cortés arrived in the Yucatán Peninsula in 1519 and marched toward Tenochtitlan. In September of that year, his army battled the Tlaxcaltecs; defeated, the Tlaxcaltecs became Spanish allies. After a massacre at Cholula in October 1519, Cortés and his troops arrived in Tenochtitlan, and the following month Moctezuma was taken prisoner.

In May of 1520, Cortés left Tenochtitlan to confront Pánfilo de Narváez; during his absence, a massacre occurred at the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan, and the Aztecs were able to force the Spaniards back to their quarters. Cortés returned in June, having defeated Narváez, but that same month Moctezuma died. The Spaniards were then forced to flee Tenochtitlan under attack, and in July 1520 the Battle of Otumba took place.

By April 1521, numerous Spanish reinforcements had arrived to support Cortés, and Indian towns began to side with the Spaniards. Finally, in August 1521, Cuauhtémoc was captured and the Aztecs surrendered. The once great Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, lay in ruins, and its once powerful leader, Moctezuma, was dead.

The Spanish defeat of the Aztecs was of great historical significance. First, the greatest indigenous civilization in Mesoamerican history had been decimated. Second, the Spanish victory gave rise to a new people — born of the mingling of Aztecs and Spaniards — that resulted in today's mestizo Mexican nation.

The importance of Broken Spears is that it finally introduced the conquered peoples' viewpoint of the Spanish conquest. Many commentators and readers have applauded the book precisely for this reason. The subject can become very emotional because of the racial and cultural implications. Some have argued that "conquest" is too mild a term, and that "holocaust" or "mass murder" more accurately describes what occurred when the Spanish Europeans invaded Mexico — given that the Aztecs were the most powerful tribe in Mexico at that time.

They no longer had nor could find any arrows, javelins or stones with which to attack us, and our allies fighting with us were armed with swords and bucklers, and slaughtered so many of them on land and in the water that more than forty thousand were killed or taken that day. So loud was the wailing of the women and children that there was not one man among us whose heart did not bleed at the sound. — Cortés

Domination Engendered through Assimilation

The Aztecs called themselves the Mexica. They were originally nomads who came to the Valley of Mexico in 1276. Although they were initially subjugated under the Toltecs, they were formidable mercenaries and eventually began to build their great city, Tenochtitlan — a gigantic, highly efficient metropolis, remarkable for its system of canals and waterways.

While many commentators portray the Aztecs as indigenous victims of violent European colonialism, it is equally important to recognize that, because of their power and advancement, the Aztecs had become an incredibly dominant ruling tribe among the Indian populations of Mexico — and they were not peaceful rulers. They were known as violent overlords, and they engaged in large-scale human sacrifice of conquered peoples.

Indeed, it could be argued that Broken Spears carries an indigenous, pro-victim bias, as it was published to give voice to the perspective of the conquered. However, a more revealing approach is to examine the Aztec account not simply from the perspective of the author — who is merely the instrument through which the story is told — but rather to scrutinize and critique both perspectives, the Spanish and the Aztec, side by side.

While many critics scathingly accuse Cortés of being yet another colonial conqueror who decimated an indigenous culture with no regard for its native people or traditions, such an account overlooks an important fact: one of the primary reasons Cortés was able to defeat the Aztecs was that he first learned how to become one of them. In short, he learned to assimilate into their culture.

When Cortés first arrived in Mexico, he freed a Spaniard held in captivity by the Indians — Jerónimo de Aguilar. Aguilar had been shipwrecked off Cozumel eight years before Cortés's arrival and had been enslaved by the Indians. As a slave, he learned the Mayan language of his captors. Aguilar became crucial to Cortés's strategy, as Cortés was now able to communicate in the language of the Indians.

After leaving Cozumel, Cortés and his ships sailed up the east coast of Mexico, fighting and defeating thousands of Indians along the way. At Tabasco, he quickly defeated the local Indians, and when they made peace offerings, they presented food, gifts, and women. These Indians, known as the Caciques, did not speak the Mayan language that Aguilar knew. However, among the women presented as gifts was one named Doña Marina, who understood Mayan and could translate Cortés's words. Doña Marina was an Aztec princess who had suffered the misfortune of becoming a slave to the Tabascan Indians; this was how she had come to know not only Nahuatl (the Aztec language) but also the Tabascan and Mayan languages.

Marina and Aguilar proved to be Cortés's ultimate weapons, because through them he was able to communicate with all of the Indian tribes he encountered, including those in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. But beyond this linguistic assimilation, Cortés integrated himself into Indian culture in other crucial ways.