Chris Rodriguez: Mexico History & Diversity Part 2
1. 2. Spanish
Conquest and
Cultural mestizaje
1519
Hernan Cortes,
6 African slaves,
and hundreds of
Spanish soldiers
Land in Mexico
What did they want?
3. Meeting between
(right) Cortés,
(middle) Doña
Marina,
and
(left) leading
Tlaxcalans
Tens of thousands
Tlaxcalan allies
march with Spanish
against mutual enemy
- Aztecs
10. Aztec poem, Broken Spears, 1523
Broken spears lie in the roads; We have chewed dry twigs
We have torn our hair in our grief and salt grasses:
The houses are roofless now, and their walls We have filled our mouths
Are red with blood. with dust and bits of adobe.
We have eaten lizards, rats
Worms are swarming in the streets and and worms
plazas, When we had meat, we ate it
And the walks are spattered with gore almost raw.
The water has turned red, as if it were dyed
And when we drink it,
It has the taste of brine
We have pounded our hands in despair
Against the adobe walls,
For our inheritance, our city, is lost and
dead
The shields of our warriors were its defense.
But they could not save it.
11. Dias de los Muertos
(Days of the Dead)
Above, Oaxaca, Mexico
Left, Los Angeles alter
20. 1532 Virgin Mary appeared
to newly converted native,
Juan Diego
at Guadalupe.
Right,
1911 Guadalupe Posada
woodcut to celebrating
anniversary of her
apparition.
In this Spanish depiction of the landing of Hernán Cortés in Mexico in 1519, the ships and arms of the Spanish are a commanding presence, especially in comparison to the nakedness of the Indians and the kneeling stance of their leader. A Spanish artist painted this miniature, which measures only 6⅛ inches by 4¼ inches. It probably accompanied an account of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. On the back of the picture is a small map of the west coast of Europe and Africa and the east coast of Central America. Europeans relied on such images, and especially on maps, to help them make sense of all the new information flooding into Europe from faraway places. Many Spaniards viewed Cortés’s conquests as a sign of divine favor toward Catholicism in a time of religious division. Some even believed that Cortés was born the same day, or at least the same year, as Martin Luther, the German monk who had initiated the Protestant Reformation just two years before Cortés’s landing (in fact, Luther was born two years before Cortés). (Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.)
Welcomed at first until Spanish uncovered Aztec plot. From the Coyoacan Codex (also known as the Manuscrito del Aperreamiento). Original in the BibliothequeNationale de Paris.Columbus met local native dogs in the Indies, but was unimpressed by them; equally, having discovered a gentle and docile society willing to bend to Spanish rule, he felt little need to return with attacking dogs of the kind regularly bred and used for warfare in Europe at the time.The shrewd Archdeacon of Seville, Juan Rodgriguez de Fonseca - the king’s personal chaplain, in charge of the supplies for the explorer’s fleet - felt otherwise, however, and made sure that on Columbus’s second journey, in September 1493, his force was equipped with men, arms, and a pack of 20 purebred mastiffs and greyhounds... We have no accurate record of how many such beasts Hernán Cortés took with him when, on February 10th 1519 he sailed out of Havana en route to Veracruz, Mexico, but there is no doubt whatever that they played a key role in subduing the Indian population, during the conquest and for many years afterwardshttp://www.mexicolore.co.uk/index.php?one=azt&two=aaa&id=343&typ=reg[Bartolomé de] Las Casas [a Spanish friar sympathetic to the Indians] wrote that it was not unusual for one Spaniard to say to another: "Lend me a quarter of a Villaine (an Indian) to give my Dogs some meat, until I kill one next."’ The term ‘dogging’ was one used frequently by the Spanish to refer to one of their many barbaric methods of inflicting ‘justice’ on the native population. A Maya priest imprisoned by the Spanish used a more graphic expression, witnessing mastiffs ‘destroying the faces’ of his people.It’s worth noting that attacking dogs had, centuries before, been employed in the armies of the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans - not only as messengers, sentinels and trackers but as actual combatants against their enemies. Learn more at Wikipedia (link below).(Info from Dogs of the Conquest by J G and J J Varner, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1983 and Image of the New World by Gordon Brotherston, Thames & Hudson, London, 1979. Main photo by Ian Mursell - detail of a screen mural by Roberto Cueva del Río, 1976, of the Spanish Conquest. Other images scanned from the above two books).
September 1519 Cholula massacre, 10,000 killed
What factors explain conquest of the Aztecs?
Image of a Mesoamerican infected with smallpox; illustrated panel from the Florentine Codex, a compendium of information on Aztec people and history by Bernardino de Sahagún, a 16th-century Spanish Franciscan missionary80% of 54Million Amerindians died within lifetime.1500s Native Americans devastated by Eurasian-born diseases; Killed up to 90% in some areas.
- CantaresMexicanos, circa 1523,
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festientins of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730237/ Including Afro-mestizos
What did the Spanish do after the conquest? Attempted ethnocideUnleashed Creative and destructive forces.First Mexican/Spaniard mestizajeMexica/Christian mestizajeInternal Meican RivalriesTlaxcalanas versus Mexica/AztecsInternal Spanish Rivalries Las Casas versus Sepulveda
Remember Church in Toledo, Spain?
1550s: thousands native Mexicans pilgrimage; Purity,Motherhood,Protection,Nourishment,Salvation,National identityEl Proceso #1333 (May 22, 2002).-Stafford Poole’s Our Lady of Guadalupe. Finds no evidence of apparition nor strong indigenous devotion until after 1556. Also quesiotns early indigenous associations between Tonantzin and the Virgin. Nevertheless, devotion to the Virgin and the memory of Juan Diego and the apparition is real in the hisrtorical memory of Mexicans. Elite Peninsulares favored devotion to the virgin to coopt and have common ground with creoles. -Pope to canonize Juan Diego.-Pope visited Mexico 5 times.beatificación de los mártires de CajonosLe hacenunalimpiaCuatromujeresindígenashicieron un ritual de ''limpia'' con hierbaseincienso al Papa Juan Pablo II y los cardenalespresentes.LA Reforma, August 1, 2002 < http://www.reforma.com/galeria_de_fotos/012030/default.asp?NoPagina=4&cob=>A painting of Juan Diego, the first indigenous saint in the Americas, was carried to the altar after the canonization ceremony by Pope John Paul at the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City on Wednesday.(New York Times, August 1, 2002)Pope John Paul blessing the bones of one of the two indigenous martyrs he beatified at a Mass in the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico yesterday, "I go, but my heart remains with you," the pope told Mexicans.NYT August 2, 2002
Popocatépetl with Cholula in foregroundChristian church built atop Aztec pyramid
