Writing prompt week 4
Are Conrad and Demarest (authors of Religion and Empire, the book for weeks 4-6) engaging with the Black Legend? Are they responding to it directly or indirectly? Does their book's argument support or refute the Black Legend? Does it have nothing to do with the Black Legend?
I believe the first part of Conrad & Demarest’s work Religion and Empire work does not pertain to the subject of the Black Legend in any way. The book mainly focuses on the mechanics, and influences that allowed the disliked, backward Mexica people inhabiting the region to come to fill a gap and eventually exert terrible influence over vast areas around them. From humble beginnings, after the demise of the Toltec power, the Mexica are described as using religious and cultural influences to acquire greater control over neighboring city states and groups. Most important to securing influence was a proper bloodline of renown Toltec origin. By securing a leader of such ancestry through marriage, The Mexica asserted themselves as a naturally dominant group in the region. This important step combined with their ferocity in local conflicts, and manipulation of local historical records to glorify and legitimize their dynasty allowed the Mexica to steadily rise and extend their political influences further and further around them.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of the Black Legend (a testament of Spain’s brutality and poor handling of the conquest of the Americas due to inherent shortcomings such as their Catholic faith) is left entirely unmentioned in this work thus far. If anything the tone of Conrad & Demarest suggests the opposite. Rather than any mention of an unforeseeable foreign influence causing the fall of a great stable civilization, The work suggests that the Aztec Empire was heading toward an inevitable collapse of its own making due to internal rivalries, social inequalities, cultural practices, and foreign hostile feelings. The arrival of the Spanish would only be catalyst amongst a much larger native upheaval and struggle for power.
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ReplyDeleteIn Religion and Empire, Conrad and Demarest do in fact engage with the Black Legend but, in an indirect manner. Except this “legend” is not about the cruelty of the Spanish, instead their description is about the wars in search of tribute and people is about the expansion of the Mexica. The endless need to expand the borders of the empire in order to increase tribute and gather more victims for sacrifice is reflective of the Spanish need to expand their borders in the newly conquered American territories in order to gather more wealth, land, and Indigenous peoples to work that land. The structures that the Mexica had established in the century before the arrival of the Spanish in North America did not disappear with the collapse of their empire, but, were incorporated into the methods the Spanish used in governing the newly acquired territory. The comparison of between the Spanish and the MExica and their want to expand for territorial and financial reasons is not the main way Conrad and Demarest invoke the Black Legend when writing about the expansion of the Mexica. The way that the Mexica could be incorporated into the Black Legend is in comparing their verocious appetite for tribute and sacrificial sources to the Spaniard’s cruel treatment of their captors. Not only did the nobility propagate a need to expand the Mexica borders in order to gain more tribute, but the need to start wars only to capture warriors just to later sacrifice them to the gods can be seen as being just as cruel as the Spanish were. By establishing their cruelty and barbarism the Mexica are seen as inferior as the Spanish in the Black Legend.
DeleteIn the first two chapters of their book Religion and Empire, Conrad and Demarest do not deal with the Black Legend directly. The Black Legend is about the Spanish cruelty towards the Native Americans they conquered; while Conrad and Demarest focus their attention on native cultures during the period prior to Spanish arrival. However, the authors indirectly deal with the Black Legend by showing that the Aztec Empire was on the verge of collapsing before the Spanish conquistadors arrived. They clearly show that “the Aztec Empire was being strangled by the very forces that had created it” (page 70). The needs for captives for their “bloodthirsty cult” (page 70) and for new resources, especially food, could no longer be satisfied by further conquest. To exacerbate matters their political, economic, and religious structures would not allow the changes necessary to consolidate the territories they had already conquered. These factors contributed more to the Aztec fall than the Spaniards ever did.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that the Black legend was not dealt with directly. I think that Conrad and Demarest did deal with the Black Legend indirectly, but in a different manner. The way the Aztecs were portrayed by Conrad and Demarest in the first section of the reading were those of cruel believers and who also turned out to be cannibals when they sacrificed themselves to the gods. In shining this light on the Aztecs, it allows for the Spaniards to not be seen as cruel to the rest of the people. It also gives the Spanish themselves room to think that they are not, indeed, doing things as bad as the Aztecs killing each other for reasons that were inexplicable to the Spanish. Therefore, Conrad and Demarest do indirectly engage with the Black Legend but they do not quite have a bias towards it.
DeleteConrad and Demarest’s, Religion and Empire, begins by indirectly disproving the 16th century propaganda of the Spanish Empire, the Black Legend. In the beginning of chapter 2, “The Aztec Imperial Expansion”, the authors gives an elaborate description of what is believed to be the origins of the pre-Columbian Empire’s usage of economic and social changes which formalized the political order—“the combining military, religious and political functions”(36)In contrast, Conrad and Demarest shows the reader how the empires established themselves. In Mesoamerica, the “obsession with legitimizing power through a prestigious heritage—the elite’s need to justify its rule through historical and mythical ties with the past” (17) And that blood runs deep for Mesoamerican societies, to the point where “the last remnant of the original Toltec state; the Culhua dynasties traded off sons and daughters of their noble Toltec blood in order to win over threatening neighbors.” (20) There is indication that there was a merit system that allowed for social mobility, which was essential for raising society’s moral, the opportunity to become a part of an elite council known as the Calpulli. (24)
ReplyDeleteHowever, within the triple alliance there were structural problems that became inevitable for their fall. Conrad and Demarest explains that the empire’s “repeated rebuffs and defeats such cycle could be easily be reversed. Defeats meant fewer captives. In turn this reduced nourishment for the gods led to both their anger and their weakening, reducing the divine support for future campaigns,” which ultimately, led to “the weakening of the sacred bond of the sacrificial cult led inevitably to defeat, to resentments among the people, and to bitterness between the Mexica and their gods.” (69) By the end of chapter 2, Conrad and Demarest become obvious in refuting the age old propaganda with, “As the Spaniards arrived, the Aztec Empire was being strangled by the very forces that had created it.” (70)
Conrad and Demarest don't deal with the Black Legend directly. They focus their attention on the origins of the Aztec and Inca Empires prior to Spanish arrival. During the Aztec Empire concepts and traditional religious rituals played an important role in the rise and fall of the empire. The new religions gave the Mexica decisive advantage over their competitors and they also facilitated the conquest of extensive territories in a remarkably short time. The sun needed to be fed with the blood of vigorous warriors otherwise it would be too weak to struggle against darkness forces. In an unpredictable atmosphere without knowing what might happen in the future where the universe could be destroyed at any time the threat of destruction never ended. It is for this reason that the demand for blood was inexorable. The engine of the Aztec religious ideology of expansionism was the same that caused his fall.
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