Talk:Hernán Cortés

From Academic Kids

Cortez had to defeat the men of Narvaez in pitched battle before they joined with him for the siege of Tenochtitlan. They did not simply come over to his side.

Done. Someone ought to create a page for Narvaez, the great loser conquistador, no offense to any descendants. :-) YankeeInCA 23:45, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This page really needs to be sectioned somehow into readable chunks. It currently reads like a big narrative with no stops. I'm not sure just how to do this best. It also focuses on history, and it might help to talk about some of the long-term effects Cortés's actions had on the culture and history of the New World. Derrick Coetzee 21:31, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The first mestizo was son of Gonzalo Guerrero and a mayan woman.

As I said before, the first mestizo was NOT son of Cortez, somebody please correct this mistake.

I know that everybody in Mexico hates Cortés, but this is an encyclopedia

I have corrected some highly-colored anti-spanish affirmations, which are absolutely folkloric perceptions and myths. The article, is still not neutral. For instance:

“Spanish crossbows, broadswords, battle axes, horses, war dogs and firearms quickly won the battle” The battle axes, the broadswords and the firearms, among other things, had not legs or arms, so they can not make a formation and fight back by itselves, unless some miracle occurs. The only weapons that can fight by itselves are the temporized bombs, ant they are a modern invent. Oh, and they still needing some human being to program them. The Spaniards had not temporized plastic explosives, but they had efective, well-trained and valiant soldiers. Furthermore, the Cortés had not wardogs in the New World. This seems a battle description taken from The Lord of the Rings, in which the troll Cortés attacks the good Hobbits and the Aztecs.

“La Malinche relayed a rumor that the locals planned to murder the Spaniards in their sleep” This was not a “rumour” but a true danger for the Spaniards. That was logic, the Aztecs were being invaded and they wanted to kill the invaders. And “La Malinche” is a despective nick used by the Hispanic folklore to name “Marina”, who was the lover of Cortés.

“set fire to the city and killed an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 of the inhabitants” This is absolutely delirious, the number of victims is megaoversized. We found again a folkloric tale, rather than a Historic fact.

“Terror was one of his many powerful tools, though much of his military genius can be ascribed to La Malinche, who had her own motives for revenge.” Marina was only the translator and lover of Cortés, and she can be regarder probably as a traitor, not as a military genious. Cortés, despite the Hispanic folkloric hate towards him, was actually a military genious. He even purposed the invasion of China with a combinated force of Aztec and Spanish soldiers. If the Catholic Kings had given Cortés a military position in Europe, the History of the World could had been very different.

“Surely it was the most magnificent city in the world. How could God allow heathens such splendor?” Again a laughable folkloric perception. It was a great city that impressed the Spaniards, but it was not the “most magnificent city in the World". In fact, Cortés said that it was great, “almost as great as Seville”

Well, as I said, the article still highly folkloric.

I would recommend to read the article about the Black Legend. We could learn a couple of things about this.

You are entirely right, but I'm afraid you just need to accept the dynamics of such topics. Entries like "Cortes" are not worked on by disinterested scholars, but by interested advocates. The same dynamics apply on many of the topics I watch, eg. Alexander the Great, where ethnic feelings runs high, and topics in ancient religion (eg., Delphic Oracle), where scholars of ancient religion with, say, language competence, are overruled by proponents of the "mother goddess." There's a vicious cycle of course, as competent people throw up their hands and leave such entries even more securely in grips of "useful" myth. Lectiodifficilior 01:40, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

One of the most wide spread folkloric tales in Latin America is that about "la Malinche"

First, to talk about “La Malinche”, refering to Doña Marina, is improper. "Malinche" (or "Malintzin") was the name given by Moctezuma to Cortés. "Malinche" was Cortés himself. The name given by the Aztecs to Doña Marina was "Malinalli", the genitive form of "Malintzin" (meaning "Malintzin's").

Second, when Cortés met her, she was the slave of some leading person bound to the Aztec empire. Why should she be considered a traitor? she just fought to recover her freedom. Nothing more and nothing less.

style?

When the Spaniards saw the island city of Tenochtitlán for the first time, from the ring of volcanoes around the Valley of Mexico, they asked each other if they were dreaming. Surely it was the most magnificent city in the world. How could God allow heathens such splendor? The expedition arrived in the Mexica-Aztec capital on November 8, 1519. Moctezuma welcomed Cortés to Tenochtitlán on the Great Causeway into the "Venice of the West", probably the largest city on earth, and many people mark this moment – when two high civilizations met after 40,000 years of isolation – as the true discovery of the New World. The two halves of the planet had found one another.

looks unencyclopedic? (clem 17:37, 8 May 2005 (UTC))