Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Amir - Week 3, Primary Source
Since last week, I've decided that I'd rather work with Bernal Diaz than with Las Casas. I'm more intrigued by the descriptions of Aztec sacrifice than anything else. I also found the letters of Hernan Cortez from Mexico that may be useful. They constitute a second account of the conquest of New Spain. I'd like to analyze how Aztec civilization was approached from the Spanish Catholic lens of these two conquistadors. I'm also interested in their own views on the possibility of redemption, which is what had attracted me to Las Casas. Although the Catholic faith would support clemency and compassion towards the Aztecs, history shows us that this view did not prevail. Perhaps I'll try to find a religious source from Mexico (rather than Las Casas's Hispaniola) that could illustrate this theme a bit more.
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I think that you should also add context to prevailing religious attitudes in Spain at the time. Maybe you could find some primary sources written in Spain in response to the discovery of the Aztec society? How did Spanish society view the Aztecs? I'd assume, regardless of any Catholic clemency, that most societies practicing human sacrifice were viewed as savages.
ReplyDeleteAs I said last week, I think human sacrifice is an appalling and thus very interesting theme. Did it exist as the antithesis to Catholic "compassion"? Did it vindicate the horrific acts enacted by the Spanish conquerers in their eyes?
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if this case would apply, but it would be interesting to see how pagden's idea of attachment played out in their accounts. Did they try to form attachments to understand the rituals? If they were not how did this play in their descriptions compared to their descriptions of rituals they were able to find a relation with?
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You may already have read this in the accounts, but I'd be interested to know how Diaz and other Spaniards immediately reacted to witnessing human sacrifice. How did they justify their participation/bystanding? Was human sacrifice itself used to justify mistreatment of Native Americans at the time?
ReplyDeleteThis seems like it might get too big if you have both two Catholic conquistadores and a Mexican religious source - maybe you could focus on just the two conquistadores and their views on sacrifice/redemption/other specific religious practices of the Aztecs.
ReplyDeleteHi Amir, I think you and I are interested in a similar question about the New World (though I might change, we'll see...): how to reconcile the religiosity of the colonizers (including their ideas about compassion and salvation) with the exploitation they engaged in? This is a hard one for me, too. I love the idea of comparing two conquistadors, especially if you can find talk of religion in their writings (which I expect you will since my experience is that nearly everyone during this time mentioned God a lot!). That seems like a potentially revealing path to go on. The question I would have along the way is what degree of sincerity is involved in their religious protestations? I like to think there is sincerity (though I usually get the impression that most people are skeptical/cynical when it comes to this). But what kind of sincerity would it be if they continued to engage in exploitation? How did the conquistadors understand God's relation to them and did they believe their glory - or what they could do with it - raised them in the eyes of God? Or were they merely after earthly fame?
ReplyDeleteI have heard in the past that the Spanish conspired with the neighbors of the Aztecs to overthrow the Aztec empire. Now a couple questions stem from this: first, did the neighbors practice human sacrifice as well? was this a regional phenomenon or closely linked to the Aztecs? if it was a wider cultural practice, did the Spanish display the same "disgust" or did they restrain their behavior for other interests....?
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