Was the Conquest of Mexico Justified?

Was the conquest of Mexico justified? Was it the work of men carrying out God's will on Earth? Or was simpler than that? Was it just greed and jealousy, as old as Cain and Abel? This question can be debated to no end by people on opposite ends of the spectrum. The Spaniards were quick to justify their actions as fair, proper, and necessary. However, a more modern, western mind can certainly look at the events and judge them to be unjust, perhaps even evil Ð'- a likening to the violence and prejudice shown to the American Indians by the United States government centuries later. This essay will discuss various points of view regarding to violence in Sixteenth Century Mexico and attempt to answer the question of whether or not it was justified.

The first point to take under consideration is why the Spaniards were there in Mexico in the first place. Diego Velasquez, the wealthy governor of Cuba, placed Hernan Cortes in charge of an expedition to Mexico. Velasquez charged Cortes with the authority to represent the Spanish crown and trade with the indigenous people he would encounter (DÐ"­az). Obviously, Cortes had other plans. Whether he had concocted his scheme for the settlement of the lands he would explore when he accepted the position from Velasquez or if it was something he developed over time is unclear and irrelevant. The fact is that he was not given the power or authority to wage any type of war against the native people. The fact that Cortes did is a direct reflection on him, and any judgment rendered on the ensuing events must be a judgment on Cortes himself. When taking into account that the original purpose of the expedition was in no way violent, one must draw the conclusion that the many deaths that resulted from battles between the Spanish soldiers and the native warriors was largely the fault of Cortes. The blood of those men is on his hands because of his greed and his ego. It was Cortes who made the decision to begin settling the area (which was also rooted in greed since he wanted to establish mines), and it was Cortes who began attempting to convert the people he encountered to Christianity. Even when Velasquez' attempted to stop the progression of Cortes' expedition, he pushed on Ð'- claiming many lives as he went, both Spanish and Indian.

The other side of this argument, the side that Bernal DÐ"­az presents in his book, The Conquest of New Spain, is that the reforms the Spaniards brought were necessary and proper and the violence was an unfortunate side effect. Throughout DÐ"­az' account he describes various things that "shocked and disgusted" him and his companions Ð'- namely the Indian sacrifices that they witnessed (DÐ"­az). When Cortes employed the help of Jeronimo de Aguilar and DoÐ"±a Marina to communicate with Caciques, one thing he brought up repeatedly was that he represented his King and God. Shortly thereafter he always demanded that they destroy their religious altars and idols and cease the practice of human sacrifices.

The pertinent question thus becomes: Is the spread of Christianity and elimination of human sacrifices worth the devastation of a civilization? To hear DÐ"­az tell it, it absolutely was worth the cost. He tells a story about a group of good-hearted, God-fearing men who had to fight off hordes of savages as they tried to explore and trade. Having read The War of Conquest, though, I can't bring myself to buy into DÐ"­az' tale too much. The natives thought that Cortes was Quetzalcoatl, who it was prophesized would return to rule. They treated Cortes and his men as gods, and they greeted them with gifts. Both DÐ"­az and SahagÐ"Ñ"n agree on this in their respective books. "Everything was done for their comfort," wrote SahagÐ"Ñ"n. Some of DÐ"­az' accounts of battles make the Spaniards out to be victims. He wrote about several instances when all they wanted was water and food, and they were attacked by bands of Indians. If the Indians thought the Spaniards to be gods, though, why would they have attacked? It doesn't seem at all logical for the indigenous people attack their gods without provocation. I believe it to be much more likely that they had reason to attack. Subtle differences in the different accounts can account for this. Details like DÐ"­az' claim that they were given women and SahagÐ"Ñ"n's claim that the Spaniards took their women and other examples of this sort could have certainly would have affected the Caciques' decisions to attack. Consider, for instance, the account of Hispaniola when the Spaniards "behaved with such temerity and shamelessness that the most powerful rulerÐ'...had to see his own wife raped by a Christian officer" (Las Casas).

Not all of the Indians were completely innocent, however. An example of this would be when the Tlaxcallans convinced the Spaniards to attack and slaughter the people of Cholula. Even by SahagÐ"Ñ"n's account, the Tlaxcallans were enemies of the Cholulan people and had been for a long time, and they "inflamed the Spaniards against them," saying "They are very evil, these enemies of ours." Cortes' men then marched on Cholula and brought with them Tlaxcallan and Cempoallan allies and what followed was:

Ð'...a butchery of stabbing, beating, killing of the unsuspecting Cholulans armed with no bows and arrows, protected by no shields, unable to contend against the Spaniards. So with no warning they were treacherously, deceitfully slain. The Tlaxcallans had induced the Spaniards to do this. (SahagÐ"Ñ"n)

Another example of aggression on the