The Black Legend corresponds to the idea that the Spaniards
treated the Natives with brutality and hostility. It depicted an image of the
Spaniards as cold-hearted individuals who had no compassion for the Natives and
their land. Thus far, Conrad and Demarest do not directly suggest that the
Natives had been victims of the Spaniards yet they focus on their cultural
background, superiority and inferiority of their own. In fact, Conrad and Demarest portray the
Native’s civilization with strong cultural development, ideas and progression.
It comes to show that the Native’s shouldn’t be completely portrayed as weak
victims because they have also developed a strong civilization of their own. While progression arising Conrad and Demarest
suggested that the fall of the Native’s civilizations were through one another
and the society they had created for themselves. The natives are shown to be “accidental
victims” because they have caused a lot of their own downfalls. Mass human
sacrifices can also be noted as a way that the authors have refuted the Black Legend,
which also shows the power of Native leaders and their cults. Thus far, it is
fair to say the Natives weren’t as weak or as victimized many legends may
portray them to be.
The main purpose of the Black Legend was to make the Spaniards look evil and cruel. Taking into account the first two chapters of Conrad and Demarest, it seems that they are indirectly responding to the Black Legend. The main focus on the first two chapters is on the creation of the Mexica: their social structure and religion. When regarding the Black Legend to the Mexica, Conrad and Demarest go into detail of how their “empire” worked. They were not as naïve as they seemed. The Mexica had a state “ideology” which human sacrifice and pleasing the Gods. I agree with Chanel, Conrad and Demarest display as the Mexica Empire as strong and highly structured further discussing how and why they did what they did. The Mexica Empire through the Triple Alliance was how the empire was able to be successful. Nonetheless, by the time Moctezuma was into power the empire was on its downfall because he wanted to restructure and consolidate the state. The problem was that the Mexica Empire was not able to function with the new goals of Moctezuma and that is why the Mexica Empire started its downfall. The population growth (which was a success) conflicted with maintaining the Gods happy through human sacrifice. The Mexica Empire was too big to for its own good and not flexible for the new transformation that Moctezuma wanted. By the time the Spaniards entered the Mexica Empire, the Empire was on a downfall. It seems that goes against the idea that the Spaniards came and conquered the great Aztec Empire. It was just that the Spainards came a right timing.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the main focus does seem to be on the “Aztecs” civilization development. There also seems to be a view that the natives were already having problems in their society. Not only were they losing confidence in their power, because of the Tlaxcalan failure, but also were losing power in their kind of regime (68). However when looking back near the end for example at page 69, where it states that any attempt to fix these problems were cut short because of Cortes and his men seem to make the conquistadors seem a little harsh. It is like they stopped a grand civilization from “rising” by interrupting their attempts to save their empire, never allowing the world to see if they would have fixed themselves, instead they “were swept away by the Spanish holocaust” (69). This might be leading on to something, or I could be reading too much into it, as on page 70 it stated that the “Aztecs” ended up creating their own demise. As they weakened their “enemies grew stronger” (70). This could though, also be seen as if the Spaniards are kicking the Aztecs while they are already down. Either way I don’t think that the authors, don’t believe in the black legend.
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