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

Great book, amazing! This book is a must for anyone studying history, anthropology, mesoamerica, or even those who just want to depend their understanding of the American conquest.I think the main point of this book is to give us a unique perspective of the conquest through the voices of the Maya and Aztec people. This is a side of history we rarely hear about. It explains the entire conquests with excerpts of written accounts by the native people. It’s fascinating to learn how the Spanish acted and how the natives saw them.Like I said this is a must read, it even has a couple illustrations and there’s some poetry at the end.

Leon-Portilla's work is a must-read for all those interested in the Conquest of Mexico and those interested in Mexica culture. Certainly the accounts aren't perfect but, then again, they really can't be perfect. The writers tell of events many years in the past and the writers are telling their stories from totally different cultural points of view. The accounts of Mexicans ruined by the destruction of their city and empire will be--and are--entirely different from Tlaxcaltecan accounts. The Tlaxcalteca cooperated with Cortes, supplying him with thousands of fighting men. From their limited point of view, they used Cortes to destroy hated enemies. From our current point of view--and certainly from Cortes' point of view--Cortes used the Tlaxcalteca, and other Mexica-dominated peoples, to destroy Tenochtitlan and loot all of Mexico.Still the various accounts are in basic agreement as to events. Even more interesting, the native accounts are quite similar [not identical] to Bernal Diaz' personal account. We have no problem discerning the lying duplicity of Cortes; the religious confusion of the natives; the craven nature of Moctecuzoma; the almost incredible Spanish greed for gold; and the ultimate futile courage of the Mexica, once they recognized that their own priest-king, Moctecuzoma, had betrayed them. Too late. Then again it was probably always 'too late'. Even had Moctecuzoma recognized the danger of Spaniards early-on and destroyed them before they reached Mexico, it was too late. Had the Mexica forgone their traditional religious sacrifices following their overwhelming victory on the causeway during 'La Noche Triste', and killed every last Spaniard, it was tooooooo late.Assuming that the Aztecs finally grasped grim reality--annihilated Cortes' force, and co-opted and maybe copied their weapons--it was still much too late. The Spaniards would have soon arrived with even larger and more lethal armies. The Aztec nations were doomed. They were doomed years earlier when Christopher Columbus placed his boot on that first Carribbean island.The only unfortunate part of this book is the foreword by J. Jorge Klor de Alva. He seems to view 'La Conquista' as does any doctrinaire modern-day Leftist i.e. the conquest was an act of imperial colonialism now being corrected by Marxist revolutions in the various suffering countries. Castro, Guevara, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Rivera, Calle, La Raza Cosmica [Unida] and Barack Obama etc. etc. bear the torches of cultural 'freedom' and nativism. Nonsense. Marxism-Leninism is far more alien to native cultures than was the Roman Catholicism of the Conquistadores. As much as the various peoples may have disliked it, they understood military conquest and religious replacement. Not only is Marxism-Leninism more imperialistic than were the Sixteenth-Century europeans, but it is also officially atheistic. The native peoples--no matter where they lived--were, and still are, emphatically religious. Catholicism, although initially mandated, came to fill the souls of the native peoples. Marxian-Atheism--an even more dictatorial system--fills the native soul with.......nothing.

The "Conquistadores" didn't have the capacity to reflect on the events from 1498-1503 in an unbiased manner, even if it was brutal and traumatizing. The Aztecs had the same but equally opposed problem.By having BOTH sides of the historical encounter, I feel better informed.Broken Spears is an account of a loving, deeply religious society, invaded and slaughtered by Gods On Large Deer.The book is easy to read, has all the deities masterfully explained, and so on.I'm staying Catholic.

The broken spears of the title are an evocative image of the detritus left on the roads after the Aztecs succumbed to the long siege by the Spaniards and fled their island city in a rout. The book brings to light the defeated people's view of the invasion of their land and the destruction of their civilisation and society. The Spaniards, as expected, don't come out of this well. Eventually seen by the highly cultured Aztecs for what they were - not gods, but a bunch of bandits, grasping after gold and silver with all the excitement of monkeys and the greed of pigs. The Aztecs recognised the beauty of flowers and feathers and valued these equally with gold - the Spaniards stripped and melted the gold and silver and burnt the rest of the treasured and cherished objects.This was an extraordinary clash of cultures - the Spaniards shocked and horrified by the Aztec's religious traditions and bloody sacrifices (albeit the invaders didn't mind brutal torture when it came to eliciting information on treasure troves or punishing those who didn't cooperate) - the Aztecs shocked and horrified by the Spaniards lack of culture and decorum or respect for their traditions and norms. It could only end badly - and for the Aztecs it did.The most encouraging aspect of this book is that some of the Aztec culture survived - at least enough to bear some testimony in the decades following the fall of Tenochtitlan - and the author still finds some resonance of that culture in the traditions that have endured over the following centuries.Brilliant illustrations throughout and a well composed anthology of the Aztec view of the bloody collapse of their civilisation.

I recommend this book! It was refreshing to read the other side of the story that we don’t get to learn in school about the indigenous people of the Americas’ (Aztecs & other surrounding tribes) encounter with the Spanish

simply written yet a heartfelt attempt to portray the indigenous point of view of the fall of Tenochtitlan. One has to keep in mind this book was written in the 60's and a radical approach to approaching this subject.Was familiar with content by reading Hugh Thomas, "CONQUEST". This author by far is one of the finest authors pertaining to Latin American History.

Traveling through mexico city surroundings, oaxaca and chiapas, decided to know more about the aztecs. Book is centered on nahuatl account of spaniards invasion. Before reading this book, all I knew about the subject was what tour guides told me. Definitely worth it.

This book was a gift. It was received in great condition and earlier than stated. Thank you

Over the last year or so, I've been reading a fair bit about Spain's colonization of South America. The clash of civilizations is very interesting, but of course, is usually told from European point of view.I was delighted to find this gem of a book - containing translated from native language accounts of what happened.The book is very well organized, starting from rumours of just before the landing of the Spanish, the initial contact, all the way through to the end of the conquest and beyond.It's probably worth reading in conjunction with another book if you're not familiar with the conquest, to get a more narrative form of history. But it really is an incredible insight - I went through the book very quickly, as I was absolutely riveted.In summary, a superb read for anyone interested in the Spanish Conquest of the New World.

A poignant and clear account of the Conquest of Mexico by those who has no voices (the conquered). I read this first and then Aztec (Jennings) and both books give a very sad account on how a civilization was annihilated by another.

great history book. If you're unhappy with civilization, read this.