Letters from Hernando Cortes to Charles V
In the “Two letters to Charles V: On the Conquest of the Aztecs” written by Hernando Cortes in 1521 to the King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Cortes describes the events that happened during his course in the New World, or as we call it today, the Americas. He also provides results from the conquest of the Aztec Empire of Mexico and he explains the reasoning behind the conditions of how it happened. In the second letter, Cortes includes a detailed description of “the great city of Tenochtitlan” comparing its size to cities in Spain such as Seville or Cordoba so that the king could have a better understanding of the territory. Surprisingly, the people that lived in this city were very advanced and similar to those of Spain as Cortes stated “[I]n the service and manners of its people, their fashion of living was almost the same as in Spain, with just as much harmony and order…”, showing that the Aztecs and other native Indians living at the time were not as savage and uncivilized as we usually think of them nowadays.
Despite the advanced civilization that the Aztecs had at the time, Cortes and the other Spaniards that accompanied him didn’t look at them as human beings. Cortes in his second letter says “[A]nd considering that these people were barbarous, so cut off from the knowledge of God and other civilized peoples, it is admirable to see what they have attained in every respect” giving to explain that they were considered barbarous creatures far away from the knowledge and understanding of ...
