The Conquistadors- Was their success a stroke of luck?
This week in class we discussed different explorers who came over from Spain to conquer indigenous people of the "New World." For this reason, they are called "the conquistadors." In the video "Guns, Germs, and Steel", Jared Diamond makes the argument that the success of the Spaniards was not due to strength or numbers, but to luck. Do you agree?
What about Cortés and La Malinche? Do you think Cortés could have conquered the Aztecs without the chance of meeting her? Do you think La Malinche is a traitor or a heroine for helping Cortés?
posted by Charlotte Jacobs at
8:12 PM
18 Comments:
yes i do think because notice how they won the war even thaugh they had 178 and the inca's had 80,000 and so was the germs like if they hadent come over with all the deseises then 95%of the inca's had died.
-Erin Macdonald
EVIL!!!
By
Anonymous, at 8:05 AM
I think that La Malinche is a heroine, because she loved Cortez, and she didn't do it to discrace her culture. Even if she hadn't had a child with Cortez, someone else would have. And Cortez probably would have been slautered, and the Aztecs still would've died from diseases.
Grant Young
By
Anonymous, at 8:08 AM
I can definatley see both arguements. One one side, she did kind of open up mexico to be concured, but on the other, she helped to create the current Mexican race. I guess you could side either way, but I would probebly say she was a heroine if I had to chose (which i do)
-Daniel Eimer
By
Anonymous, at 8:13 AM
I think that La Malinche is a heroine, because her parents gave her up, and she just helped the Conquistadors because she loved Cortes and Juan Jaramillo. I also believe that having a child wasn't bad, because somebody would have mixed the cultures sometime, and it may have been worse. Also the people didn't die only because of her, the diseases would have killed them anyway, or the Conquistadors would have found different battle tacktics and killed them too. So she may have seemed to be a bad person at the beginning, but eventually I think that having a child, and helping the Conquistadors ended up being a good thing.
--Elizabeth M.
By
Anonymous, at 8:15 AM
I say that La Malinche was neither a heroine or a traitor. I don't think that she would have turned her back on the Aztecs without good reason. Maybe when she was sold to the Indians and the Tabascoans they were cruel to her. When she forgave her mother and her half-brother however, it showed that she had good moral fiber, not that she was a heroine.
Jacob Chereskin
P.S. Erin, you spelled "diseases" wrong! Ha-Ha!!!
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Anonymous, at 8:16 AM
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Anonymous, at 8:16 AM
I think that La Malinche is a both, so I can see both arguements. She is a hero because she helped blend both cultures together, instead of having the Aztecs be comepletely wiped out. But she was a harlot because she gave up on her culture. She had gotten sold from one place to another, and had given up when Cortez found her. If she was very patriotic, she might've contorted what Cortez said to her own people's benifit. She didn't, however.
If I had to pick, I would say hero, becuase she might've betrayed her culture but she saved many lifes. She did this by blending the two cultures and making the "Mexican" race, which saved the Aztecs from slavery or worse.
Charlie Rafkin
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Anonymous, at 8:28 AM
I think that she was both. I think this because, yes she did help Cortez overpower the Aztecs by translating, but she did it because she cared about him and just wanted to be heplful so you can't really blame her. She is also blamed for mixing the nations but if she had not, then at some point someone else would have.
Simone
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Anonymous, at 3:56 PM
I think that La Malinche was neither a heroine or traitor, because even though she helped the Spaniards on their mission, they weren't doing good, just conquering people. Without her though, it could have been worse if people misunderstood eachother. She is also not a traitor because she didn't help the Spaniards only because it would be a bad thing for her people. If I had to pick, I think she is more of a heroine, because she could have just been a Xicalanga Indian who fell in love with a Spaniard and helped the two cultures to understand eachother. She might not have known that Cortes was trying to conquer her people and even if she did, it would have been worse if people didn't understand eachother.
- Ary H.
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Anonymous, at 9:30 AM
I think she was both. She was a hero becuase she helped blend the two cultures together by translating from one culture to another, which saved a lot of lives. She is a harlot because she discraced her culture and kind of helped Mexico be conqured. That id why I think that La Malinche is both a heroine and a harlet.
Katherine Garvey
By
Anonymous, at 10:00 AM
I think that she is both. Because she helped Cortez conquer the Aztecs. But also she wanted to be with Cortez, andif she hadn't there might be the current Mexican culter or a different one. She has probably been thraough a lot to. Her parents gave her up and she been ridiculed. She is more of a heroin because if she hadn't done what she did i waould probably have a different cultur.
Tony G
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Anonymous, at 12:45 PM
I think that she was a heroine cause she brought us Mexico and even though some people think of her as a harlet, if they had heard of mexico today and they didn't have the country, and they knew La Malinche had a chance to create it, they might have called her a harlet still because she didn't create it.
Andrew Xu
p.s. sorry if it didn't make much sense
By
Anonymous, at 3:25 PM
Well, in one way Dona Maria was a harlot but a Heroine. She is a Harlot because her people think that she willingly gave herself to Cortez. But you see that's the debate that is still going on today. But if she willingly gave herself to Cortez, the Mexican race wouldn't be here today. And also Dona Maria didn't know that Cortez was just using her to get through the Aztecs. Dona Maria is a heroine beacuse if she wasn't the transaltor and on one else knew how to speak Spanish, then the Aztecs would end up like the Incas'. Neither side would have understood each other and as a result, there would have been a war between them. Even if Dona Maria was the translator, the Aztecs still would have been taken over by Cortez and his men. So in both ways, Dona Maria is a Heroine and a Harlot.
- Salma Siddiqui
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Anonymous, at 3:31 PM
i think she is both because on one hand she betrayyed her people and on the other created a whole new race.
but it was wrong of her to betray them and i think she deffinatly deserves what people say about her. also i think she also deseves some praise for mixing the cultures because it definnatly would have happened eventually
-maor g.g.
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Anonymous, at 3:44 PM
I think that La Malinche is a heroine, there are many reasons why I think this. One reason is she had a big role in the conquest. She also recieved a form of tribute with 19 other Indian women. Another reason is she was given up by her parents when she was young. La Malinche also spoke the Coatzacoalcos language and the Tabasco language. She traslated the languages for Cortez, withought her they wouldn't know the languages of Mexico and New Spain.
-Ceci E.
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Anonymous, at 4:53 PM
I think that La Malinche is the opposite of a heroine because she was a traitor to her people
I had to do this really fast,
THe Chosen One
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Anonymous, at 7:01 AM
I think that the Spainards conquered the Incas through luck. They just happened to live in a continent that exposed them to disease, supported agricultural growth, and developed more weapons because of advanced technology. You can see that it would have been hard for the Incas to have won the battle between them and the conquistadors. The only advantage they had was numbers. It required little skill or cunning on the Spainards part to triumph over the Incas.
Nicholas P.
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Anonymous, at 4:23 PM
"The Conquistadors- Was their success a stroke of luck?"
In reality, not a question of stroke of luck.
The Conquistadors were undefeatable as warriors. Historically, they cleared all the trespassers Semitic Arabs from the Christian white European Spain. The Spanish Crown saw fit to dispatch these experienced Conquistadors warriors to the New World in 1492 by necessity. The Conquistadors duties were as warriors in the service of the Spanish crown.
The Conquistadors once setting their feet in the New World faced savage wild Corbrizo Indios, red raced who practiced cannibalism and made their own holocaust of sorts with all the thousands of sacrificial (taking the ticking hearts out living victims) to appease their Sun God.
Not a stroke of luck, but by clear decisive skills in the art of war made the Conquistadors the master of their destiny in the New World. Nowhere in the annuals of historical warfare has so little of group of Spanish men defeated a civilization such a large number of savage Indios. The Conquistadors conquered more land in such a short span of time that historian still today are baffled by the Conquistadors extraordinary feats of survival and victory. They even founded and settled in our oldest American continuance city, Saint Augustin, Florida. The entire Southwest was subject to the control and settlements by the Conquistadors.
Anthony F Gonzalez
Conquistadors1492@yahoo.com
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Anonymous, at 6:57 PM
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