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AZTEC / SPAIN REVIEW Both the Spanish and the Aztec worldviews were based on expansion through conquest . (303-304)
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AZTEC / SPAIN REVIEW • Both the Spanish and the Aztec worldviews were based on expansion through conquest. (303-304) • The Aztec took payments from those they conquered in the form of tributes (goods, labour and military), taxes, captives for human sacrifice, and profits from trade throughout their empire. • The Spanish exploited their colonies for gold and other valuables, converted indigenous inhabitants to Christianity, gained wealth for themselves (conquistadors) and Spain, forced the indigenous people to provide labour to benefit the conquistadors, and set up themselves as the top of the political, economic, and social hierarchy.
Religion • In Spain, Catholicism was not simply a social system. It was very much about power and politics. Violence and religious intolerance were demonstrated through: • Reconquista: Muslims and Jews were violently expelled from Spain. • Spanish Inquisition: Judgment and violence against those who were accused of not strictly following the Roman Catholic faith. • Forced conversion of indigenous peoples and destruction of other religious monuments or practices.
The violent Aztec practice of human sacrifice shocked and appalled the Spanish. • Moctezuma’s belief that Cortez could be the god Quetzalcoatl returning to claim his thrown of the empire led to the fatal error of inviting the Spanish into Tenochtitlan. Religion
Military Differences • The conquistadors had firearms (guns, cannon), superior steel armour and horses. • The Spanish fought to kill and many were hardened to battle during the Reconquista. • Spanish ethnocentrism was a major part of the Spanish worldview. • The Aztec fought with more rudimentary weapons. • The Aztec did not fight to kill; instead the goal was to take prisoners. • Aztec ethnocentrism was a major part of the Aztec worldview.
Tenochtitlan (tay-noach-tee-TLAHN) • The city of the Aztecs, Tenochtitlan, had up to 150 000 residents with a population of over one million in the surrounding area. By 1500, it was larger than any city in Europe. • The Spanish were awed by the large population, beauty, architecture, and wealth of Tenochtitlan.
Cortes disobeyed Valasquez, the governor of Cuba, to sail to Mexico, where he had heard an ancient and wealthy civilization existed. • Cortes burned his ships to force his men to go with him and explore the interior with the intent of conquest. • Cortez made alliances with groups that had been previously conquered by the Aztecs. • After being invited into Tenochtitlan, Cortes took Moctezuma hostage—leaving the Aztec in disarray and confusion. Violence and conquest followed.
The two largest kingdoms of Spain were joined with the marriage of Ferdinand V of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. Spanish conquistadors played a major part in the Reconquista—a battle to claim all land in the Iberian Peninsula for the Catholic Church and to drive out the Muslim Moors. Ferdinand and Isabella sought to enrich Spain by establishing and exploiting colonies. Explorers like Columbus and Conquistadors like Cortes fulfilled this role. Their main economic motive was to obtain gold and silver from the colonies.
