Chemistry

There are numerous labels, descriptions, and terms that can characterize or narrate the interactions between the Iberians and Indigenes during Columbus's expedition in 1492 and after the expedition. Some of the terms that we have used in class are encounter, contact, discovery, and conquer. Many of the scholars that we have read and conversed about in class have used some of the same terms and various different ones. In this paper, the focus will be on what characterizes the relationship between the Spanish and the Indigenes people.

In Bartolome de Las Casa's "An Account of the, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies". Casa states that "since the marvelous discovery of the Indigenes, and those first years when the Spainards went out and to remain for some time, and then in the process thereafter down to these our own days have been extraordinary and so in wise to be believed that by any person who did not see them , that they seem to have concluded and laid silence" (De Las Casa Pg.1). In this statement Bartolome de Las Casa was saying that it was the Spaniards that had discovered the Indigenes people and that if the Indigenes people had been silent they would have never been discovered. I feel that you can not just discover a totally new group of people; I believe that what the Spaniards had when they first encountered the Indigenes people was an encounter and contact. The reason that the Spaniards thought they had discovered the Indigenes is because the Indigenes people were not as civilized as the Spaniards. Casa explains this by stating that " Among these terrible things are the slaughter and ruins of innocent people, the depopulation of villages, provinces, and kingdoms, in those Indies" (De Las Casa Pg.1).

In the article, De Las Casa continues to explain how the Spaniards had to teach the Indigenes people how to become civilized people and Christians. The first time that they Spaniards saw the Indigenes people was contact, and encounter, but it soon turned in to invasion, conquer, and defeat. The text goes on to converse about how the Indians saw how Pedro de Alvarado and the Spaniards requested so many cargas of gold, but the Supreme and higher Lords replied to them that they did not have it, Alvarado and the rest of the Spaniards burned them alive. The text goes on to say "And when the lords of all those provinces saw that their Supreme Lord, and the other higher Lords had all been burned, and for no reason, but that would not give them gold, they all fled their villages and into the wilderness, and they ordered all their people, that they go to the Spaniards and serve them as if they were their masters, but do not reveal were they had gone"(De Las Casa Pg.39). After this incident the Indigenes people realized that they were going against a force that may be to powerful for them to fight against

In the "Broken Spears", Miguel Leon-Portilla Discusses how in 1519 Cotes landed on the coast at Veracruz, and the Aztec capital surrendered to him by 1521, but Portilla says that this only presents on side of the story for the conquerors, so in that case Leon Portilla describes the Spaniards as conquerors. When the Spaniard first arrived, they was welcomed by the last of the Motecuhzomas, who believed that whit men must be Quetzalcoatl and other Gods returning at last from across the waters known as the Gulf of Mexico. Motecuhzomas had sent his messengers with gifts when the Spaniard thinking that they were Quetzalcoatl and other lost Gods. The Spaniards had beaten the messengers and sent them back to Moctecuhzomas, the Spaniards then marched their way through Tlaxcala, the Tlaxcaltecas were enemies of the Cholua. The Spaniards use this to there ability, they used the Tlaxcaltecas to bring in the Cholula, and the Broken Spears goes on to say that "Then the Sudden slaughter began: knife strokes, and sword strokes. The people of Cholula had not foreseen it, had not suspected it. They faced the Spaniards without weapons, without their swords or their shields. The cause of the slaughter was treachery. They died blindly, without knowing why, because of the lies of the Tlaxcaltecas" (Leon-Portilla Pg.40-41). The news of the defeat of Cholula had spread so fast throughout the land, so many people were astonished to hear such weird reports that to learn how the Cholultecas were defeated and slain in a short time, and their idols the Quetzalcoatl had not served or helped them in any way. Once this had spread through the entire land Moteuhzoma had became nervous, he dispatched various chiefs, and tried to give the Spaniards numerous gifts so that they will not cause any more harm, but once the Spaniards entered "The Royal House, they placed Motecuhzoma under guard and kept him there vigilance. They also place a guard over Itzcuauhtzin, but the other Lords was permitted to depart" (Leon-Portilla Pg. 66).

"In the morning, the Spaniards told Motecuhzoma what they need in the way of supplies: tortillas, fried chickens, hen's eggs, pure water, firewood and charcoal. Also: large clean cooking pots, water jars, pitchers, dishes, and other pottery" (Leon-Portilla Pg.66). After reading over the Broken Spears numerous times the words that come to mind when you think of what the Spaniards did to the Indians is encounter, invasion, and defeat. The reason that these terms were picked is because the Spaniard encountered the Indians when they first arrived on the coast, the invasion is when the beat and killed the messengers, and the defeat came when the Indians used the Tlaxcaltecas to set up the Cholultecas. That began them on a conquest to Mexico City, where they invaded the Royal House, and conquered Motecuhzoma and his kingdom.

The issues between the Spaniards and the Indians did not end after the conquest of the Aztecs or after 1492, many scholars in the past have researched and studied the interaction of the Iberians and the Indigenes people. Olivia Harris, who is an anthropologist at Goldsmiths College at the University of London, and Susan Kellogg, who is an associate professor at the university of Houston. These are just some of the present day scholars that have discussed the interactions between the Iberians and Indigenes people.

Olivia Harris has written an Article by the name "The Coming of the White People" Reflections on the Mythologization of History in Latin America, Harris speaks about a Aymara peaking people of the Andres among whom a native past is very much present. The words or terms that Olivia Harris uses to describe the Spaniards interaction with Indigenes people is contact, encounter, discovery and conquest. In the text Harris goes on to say that "The contact situation" or the "evils of conquest" by Spaniards also imposed beginning and a rupture,