The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1959

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-14

Chapters 15-16

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Themes

Conflicting Worldviews of the Europeans and Indigenous Peoples

At first glance, there are striking similarities between the Aztec and Spanish civilizations in the 16th century. Both were imperial powers at the top of their power. In the 200 years prior to their conquest, the Aztecs dominated their Indigenous neighbors, extending “their rule from the Gulf coast to the Pacific and as far south as Guatemala” (xxxii). Meanwhile, Spain had “was now the greatest power in Europe” (xxxiii). Both civilizations were culturally fixated on warfare and keen on further expansion. But ultimately, Miguel León-Portilla argues, these similarities were superficial. As he writes in his Introduction to Broken Spears, the encounter between the Aztecs and the Spanish was “the meeting of two radically dissimilar cultures, two radically different modes of interpreting existence” (xxxiii). Ultimately, these differences resulted in the victory of Europeans over Natives.

When the Aztecs and Spanish first met each other on the shores of Veracruz in 1519, they approached the encounter from very different frames of reference. For Hernán Cortés and his conquistadors, Mexico was a high-risk, high-reward venture. Cortés had already spent almost a decade in the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Hispaniola. There, he learned how to administrate a colony—and how to extract profit from one. Against the express wishes of the Governor of New Spain, Diego Velazquez de Cuellar, Cortés used a revoked charter to colonize the interior of Mexico. Thus, Cortés and his men entered the fray with the advantages of foreknowledge and intent. Cortés had detailed knowledge of his enemy from his local allies, especially Dona Maria (also called La Malinche), a woman who served as his interpreter. Intending to do in Mexico as they had done in Hispaniola and Cuba—conquer and convert, while obtaining vast riches along the way—the Spanish saw the Aztecs with a certain degree of distrust and wariness. They established themselves quickly and dug into the surrounding area—as one Nahua author describes, they “had come to make war” (63).

But according to Indigenous narratives in Broken Spears, for the Aztecs, this was not a run-of-the-mill encounter with another cultural group. Aztec intentions towards the Europeans were explicitly not militaristic, as the arrival of the Spanish was a religious event. It was, in a very real sense, an existential moment, as omens suggested Cortés might be a god. This belief fundamentally colored Motecuhzoma’s foreign policy decisions. Believing Cortés to be a divine being that could only be fought with magic, Motecuhzoma sent ineffectual magicians instead of warriors to harry the Spanish. When they failed miserably, the king considered himself to be out of options. The only recourse, Motecuhzoma decided, was to offer the Spanish gifts—gifts that only inflamed the greed of the conquistadors.

This vast difference in how both parties approached their initial interactions is, for León-Portilla, the primary factor in the Spanish victory over the Aztecs. While the Spanish certainly had superior weapons, armor, and military tactics, the conquest could have gone the other way. The Aztecs proved this on the Night of Sorrows, when they almost succeed in annihilating the Spanish forces. But whether for arcane religious reasons or out of fear, Motecuhzoma chose propitiation over aggression. In giving the Spaniards what they wanted, he hoped to secure their favor. In reality, he secured the downfall of his civilization.

Visions of the Vanquished

In breaking free from colonizer accounts of the conquest of Mexico, Miguel León-Portilla draws Indigenous Mexicans out from the shadows of history to tell their side of the story, in their own words, as the Spanish title for Broken Spears, “visions of the vanquished,” makes clear. León-Portilla describes the primary documents he sources—not only from the Aztecs, but also from their rival city-states of Tezcoco, Tlaxcala, and more—as visions that make clear the sheer scale of Indigenous loss in Central America. The Spanish conquerors not only decimated the populations of the peoples of Mexico: they refused to give an inch in understanding or accommodating their culture. Systemic eradication of Native Peoples and cultural practices work in tandem in Broken Spears to weave a sympathetic portrait of the conquered.

Virulent diseases and a new, more lethal form of warfare devastated Indigenous populations. First, European maladies like smallpox ravaged native communities, which lacked immunity (the Aztecs suffer from one such outbreak in Chapter 11). Second, the Spanish fought to kill on a mass scale. This kind of combat was foreign to the Aztecs, who did not conduct “total war” as the Spanish did. As León-Portilla notes in his Introduction, “On several occasions the Aztecs probably could have wiped out the Spaniards to the last man […] but the ceremonial elements in their attitude toward war prevented them from taking full advantage of their opportunities” (xliii). Here León-Portilla references the “flower wars” the Aztecs often waged against their neighbors, skirmishes more focused on training young troops and the live capture of sacrificial victims than on utter destruction of the enemy. There is some evidence, in fact, that Aztecs refrained from conquering their weaker neighbors simply to maintain “a nearby source of victims for the human sacrifices” (xli). This is not to imply that the Aztecs were incapable warriors; sources universally emphasize their ferociousness in battle, a reputation Cortés was aware of before landing in Mexico. Rather, these cultural norms with allowed the superior military technology of the Spaniards to kill Indigenous Peoples on a massive scale.

In addition to demolishing Native population numbers, the Spanish ripped Aztec culture out by the roots. The steady victories of the Spanish convinced many Indigenous that their gods had forsaken them. Thus, Native Mexicans suffered not only the physical shock of losing loved ones to war and disease, but the cultural shock of losing faith in their kings, religious leaders, and gods. In the years following the surrender of Tenochtitlan, Native Mexicans found themselves trapped in an unfamiliar system that the rule makers altered at will. The primary source material in Chapter 16 allows the Indians to voice their frustration: “We […] suffer daily so many needs […] every day we are more consumed and finished” (153).

But the tragic results of the conquest—the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the demise of their unique society—should not imply that the Nahua were passive victims. In a narrative detailing systemic attempts to destroy Nahua culture in the distant past (and recent present), León-Portilla is relentlessly optimistic about the future. As he writes in the last section of Broken Spears, “The Nahuas, formerly vanquished and for centuries oppressed, are indeed growing in numbers and, above all, have become fully conscious of the right they have to preserve their language and culture” (171). The modern Nahua, he argues, have transformed their “visions of the vanquished” into a proud future.