2. • We seek to distance ourselves from the
history of the contact and conquest because
of the tragedy it contains.- Samuel Wilson
3. Introduction, "The Lost World of
Bernal Diaz"
• The accounts of Diaz, Cortez and the other Spaniards of
what they saw and did in the Americas were without a
doubt impacted and formed with and by the concepts
and language of their own culture.
• The concepts of a particular culture, their expression,
and the relationship between those words and reality,
can give genuine insight into historical phenomenon
such as the Spanish conquest- and understanding of
how it has been understood over centuries.
• The proper respect is given to the memories that
define history, the myths that are brought about as a
result and the truth that exists.
4. Chapter 1. "A Handful of
Adventurers: The Myth of Exceptional
Men".
• The discovery of America, or of the Americas, is
the most astonishing encounter of our history.
• The human impulse is to personalize the past,
making complex processes intelligible and
accessible by reducing them to emblem like
characters and narrative of actions.
• This impulse gives the chance to shape the story
and its protagonists.
• Using Columbus, Cortes, and Pissarro as
characters that epitomize or explain the entire
conquest is an example of this impulse.
5. Chapter 3. "Invisible Warriors: The
Myth of the White Conquistador".
• The natives played a large role in the successes
and failures of conquest.
• Often outnumbering all other groups natives had
their own motives for manipulating opportunity
presented by the presence of the outsiders.
• History has been given a one sided version of a
great time in which natives had much to do with
outcomes of circumstances and that the face of
history has been painted with bias by those with
opportunity to write.
6. Epilogue, "Cuauhtemoc's Betrayal”
• All the elements of native cultural success
during conquest are influenced greatly by the
native lords.
• Their use of political and military alliances
with Spaniards to further local interests;
collaboration of the elite; the success of native
municipal communities in colonial times.
• We are only prisoners to the personal and
diverse written accounts that have survived.
