Episode 6 - Sidebar: A Review of the Sources
When it comes to history, you’re only as good as your sources. A personal frustration of mine is when people have a twisted understanding of one historical epoch or another, and It’s usually because they’re “informed” only by a very narrow set of sources of dubious origin that are almost always filtered through the lens of a particular political or ideological agenda. In this day and age of internet information vomit splashing on us from all angles, this phenomenon has only gotten worse.
While accessing as broad a spectrum of sources as possible is important to achieving a thorough understanding of any period or historical episode, however, not all sources are created equal.
So-called “primary sources,” for example, can be riddled with problems. While they offer critical eye-witness or near-eye-witness accounts, they’re still just one perspective, and even when they’re genuinely attempting to be objective and thorough they’re almost always driven by personal biases and prone to weaknesses of their own ego. In a speech to Parliament after World War II, Winston Churchill famously quipped that he expected history would be kind to him because, he said, “I propose to write that history myself.” He went on to write a 5 volume history of the second world war for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.
As we get deeper into this very controversial story, I think it’s important for you to know where I’m getting my information from, and I want you have access to that information as well.
As is the case with most of history, the primary sources at our disposal for The Conquest, though vivid and copious, are as hopelessly biased and even contradictory as you might expect. It has to be said, however, that historians have done a fairly good job over the centuries of sifting through all of these flaws to construct a narrative that’s not only thorough but plausible. There are some key, controversial events and figures for which very important details remain disputed – either the sources don’t agree or what we know through archeology and historical precedent make certain versions unlikely – and each version of those events or interpretations of those characters has tremendous consequences, as we’ll see.
The big glaring gap in the historical record – the elephant that’s NOT in the room – remains the lack of a substantial Aztec side of the story. History is written by the victors, of course, and we explain in this episode how and why the Spanish were more intent on erasing Aztec history than subsequent colonial overlords were.
Over the last 75 years, however, anthropologists, scholars and linguists have uncovered and made public disparate elements of archeology, oral histories, and recently discovered written records from the immediate post-conquest period that have finally given a voice, however faint, to the Aztecs of this period. A full-throated account on behalf to the Mexica and their allies it is not, nor is it a line-by-line rebuttal of the established narrative, but it is at least a window into the Aztec mind during this apocalypse.
Below are links to the sources that we rely on to tell this epic story.
The True History of the Conquest of New Spain
-By Bernal Diaz del Castillo
Of all the primary sources, this first-person account by one of Cortés’ lieutenants has told the test of time. While much of it is flawed and many of its details falsified over the years, it remains the foundational narrative of Conquest that informs all future works on the subject.
The Broken Spears
-by Miguel Leon-Portillo
This remarkable cultural achievement takes oral histories recored in the Aztecs own language shortly after the conquest and constructs a narrative of sorts that finally gives the people of this lost civilization a voice in our modern conversation.
The Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs
-By Camilla Townsend
First published only in 2019, Townsend builds on the foundation of Broken Spears and incorporates new archeological evidence to construct what is the closest thing we have to a true Aztec account of the conquest. It also paints an intriguing portrait of life in the Aztec world before the arrival of the Spanish, in many cases in their own words.
Letters from Mexico
-By Hernan Cortés
Though almost pure propaganda written to bolster his claim to power in Mexico, the conquistador’s letters provide amazing detail of the people and places he encountered and give us tremendous insight into the real politic that unfolds not only with Moctezuma, but with rival factions in his army acting on behalf of his nemesis Diego Velazquez, the governor of Cuba.
When Montezuma Met Cortés
-By Matthew Restall
This brilliant new history centers on the monumental first meeting between Hernan Cortés and the Aztec Emperor on one of the outer islands of the Mexica Capital Restall also offers some stunning new theories backed by a mountain of evidence that paint Moctezuma not as a victim of a more powerful rival, but as an omnipotent and powerful leader in complete control of the situation who ultimately fell prey to his own hubris.