University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Dissertations and Theses @ UNI Student Work 2015 Rethinking the Conquest : an exploration of the similarities between pre-contact Spanish and Mexica society, culture, and royalty Samantha Billing University of Northern Iowa Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy Copyright ©2015 Samantha Billing Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd Part of the Latin American History Commons Recommended Citation Billing, Samantha, "Rethinking the Conquest : an exploration of the similarities between pre-contact Spanish and Mexica society, culture, and royalty" (2015). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 155. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/155 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses @ UNI by an authorized administrator of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Copyright by SAMANTHA BILLING 2015 All Rights Reserved RETHINKING THE CONQUEST: AN EXPLORATION OF THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN PRE‐CONTACT SPANISH AND MEXICA SOCIETY, CULTURE, AND ROYALTY An Abstract of a Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Samantha Billing University of Northern Iowa May 2015 ABSTRACT The Spanish Conquest has been historically marked by the year 1521 and is popularly thought of as an absolute and complete process of indigenous subjugation in the New World. Alongside this idea comes the widespread narrative that describes a barbaric, uncivilized group of indigenous people being conquered and subjugated by a more sophisticated and superior group of Europeans. There is also a common misconception that the Conquest resulted in a dominance of European culture and a loss of the indigenous heritage that had prevailed in the New World up until that point. This manuscript explores the period known as the Conquest in a new way. I argue that by limiting the scope of the Spanish‐indigenous interaction in the sixteenth‐century to a single event, the actual historical narrative of this period is lost. The Spaniards did indeed win a war in 1521, but this event did not signify a conquest or an extinction of indigenous culture. Instead, this date marks the end of a two‐year war between the Spaniards and the people commonly known as the Aztecs. This group of indigenous people, the Mexica of central Mexico, had dominated the central valley of Mesoamerica for only a few centuries, but had built up an imposing empire centered around the capital city of Tenochtitlan. Their culture was not only impressive by New World standards, but it was remarkably similar to the society and culture found in Early Modern Spain. The focus of this manuscript is the concept of royal culture, but I also explore broader topics of society such as religion, warrior ethos, and imperial control. By looking at similarities between these two cultures, it is easy to see why they were able to come together in such a unique way during the Colonial Period. The society that emerged in New Spain after 1521 was not wholly European, nor was it wholly indigenous; it was a conglomeration of indigenous and Spanish elements that took the best concepts from both societies and combined them into an entirely novel culture, which can still be seen in Mexico today. RETHINKING THE CONQUEST: AN EXPLORATION OF THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN PRE‐CONTACT SPANISH AND MEXICA SOCIETY, CULTURE, AND ROYALTY A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Samantha Billing University of Northern Iowa May 2015 ii This Study by: Samantha Billing Entitled: Rethinking the Conquest: An Exploration of the Similarities Between Pre‐ Contact Spanish and Mexica Society, Culture, and Royalty has been approved as meeting the thesis requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts ___________ _____________________________________________________ Date Dr. Fernando Calderón, Chair, Thesis Committee ___________ _____________________________________________________ Date Dr. Barbara Cutter, Thesis Committee Member ___________ _____________________________________________________ Date Dr. Emily Machen, Thesis Committee Member ___________ _____________________________________________________ Date Dr. April Chatham‐Carpenter, Interim Dean, Graduate College iii TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO EARLY SPANISH AND MEXICA SOCIETIES .............. 19 CHAPTER 2: INDIGENOUS SOURCE DESCRIPTIONS OF PRE‐CONQUEST MEXICA ROYALTY .................................................................................................................................................... 56 CHAPTER 3: DESCRIPTIONS OF MEXICA SOCIETY BY SPANISH CHRONICLERS ........ 87 CHAPTER 4: POST‐CONQUEST MESOAMERICA: THE BLENDING OF SPANISH AND MEXICA SOCIETIES AND THE SURVIVAL OF INDIGENOUS CULTURE .......................... 126 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 158 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................................... 169 1 INTRODUCTION In 1519 a group of Spanish conquistadors reached the coast of Mexico and encountered a group of Native Americans called the Mexica who had built a great imperial civilization known to us as the Aztec Empire. They dominated the majority of the land that makes up present day Mexico from their capital city Tenochtitlan, which is estimated to have had a population of over 200,000 residents. When the capital city fell in 1521, it was not only the largest city in the New World, but it was one of the most populous cities on earth. Yet, despite a comparable population size to European cities and the amazement Spanish conquistadors (conquerors) experienced when they first entered Tenochtitlan, contemporary accounts quickly began to focus on the differences between the Mexica and the Europeans. Differences such as language and culture, including the practice of human sacrifice and polytheism, overshadowed the similarities. However, the Mexica practiced medicine, had roads, weapons, irrigation systems, palaces and other architectural works of astonishing size. They had developed a calendar, systems of writing and tax collection, and had a marketplace in the capital city which attracted 60,000 people daily according to some sources. Many of these innovations rivaled or were even more advanced than their European counterparts. In addition, the Mexica had 2 a very stratified social hierarchy, hereditary nobility and royal courts which will be the focus of this study.1 I would like to introduce a comparative approach to explore the similarities between the Mexica and Europeans with regards to palace and court life, royalty and social hierarchy. Previous generations of scholars have concentrated on Spanish primary sources when writing about this period of time. They translated these sources and made them widely available to academics across the globe, however their focus was one‐sided.2 The next wave of scholars began to look at indigenous sources, especially the now infamous codices, but the European perspective dominated and the indigenous people were still depicted as backwards, barbarous and inferior.3 A more novel approach by scholars is the focus on indigenous sources on a larger scale, sources that may seem mundane but that provide invaluable insights into the lives of the Mexica before and after the conquest. This new view 1 Marco A. Almazán, “The Aztec States‐Society: Roots of Civil Society and Social Capital,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 565 (September 1999): 165.; Lane F. Fargher, Verenice Y. Heredia Espionoza, and Richard E. Blanton, “Alternative Pathways to Power in Late Postclassic Highland Mesoamerica,” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 30 (2011): 307.; Charles Gibson, “The Aztec Aristocracy in Colonial Mexico,” Comparative Studies in Colonial Mexico 2, 2 (January 1960): 169‐171.; Christian Isendahl and Michael E. Smith, “Sustainable Agrarian Urbanism: The Low‐Density Cities of the Mayas and Aztecs,” Cities 31 (2013): 138.; Tarmo Kulmar, “About the Comparison of the State Authority and Social Organization by Incas and Aztecs,” Folklore 45 (June 2010): 142, 144.; Matthew Restall, Lisa Sousa, and Kevin Terraciano, eds., Mesoamerican Voices: Native Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Oaxaca, Yucatan, and Guatemala (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 4, 126.; Matthew Restall and Kris Lane, Latin America in Colonial Times (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 12‐13.; J. Rounds. “The Role of the Tecuhtli in Ancient Aztec Society,” Ethnohistory 24, 4 (Fall 1977): 352, 354.; Stuart B. Schwartz, Ed., Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000), 6.; Michael E. Smith and Frances F. Berdan, “Archaeology and the Aztec Empire,” World Archaeology 23, 3 (February 1992): 354. 2 William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico with a Preliminary View of the Ancient Mexican Civilization and the Life of the Conqueror Hernando Cortes (New York: The Hovendon Co.: 1842). 3 Maurice Collis, Cortés and Montezuma (London: Faber & Faber, 1955). 3 stresses