"The Broken Spears" by Miguel Leon-Portilla.

Subject  > History Term Papers  > Central & Southamerican History

In the book, "The Broken Spears", Miguel Leon-Portilla provides the reader with a chronological account of the events that lead up to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in Mexico. Portilla takes the approach of discussing the entire war, battle by battle. On the contrary, Keen and Haynes, authors of "A History of Latin America", explain the four major aspects of the war that they feel ultimately led to the demise of the great Aztec Empire. They strongly believe that firearms, disease, differing world views, and internal division were the four main reasons that the Aztec empire was not successful in protecting its land and people. Although Keen and Haynes provide a very brief account of the events that ...

... his reluctance to fight that they themselves, killed him. The unwillingness of Motecuhzuma to encourage his people to fight, in my opinion, played just as significant a role as the other issues I explained earlier in this paper. In conclusion, the two viewpoints presented by, one the authors of "The History of Colonial Latin America, Keen and Haynes; and the viewpoint written by the Aztecs, and translated by Miguel Leon-Portillo in "The Broken Spears", are very similar. Other than the significance of Motecuhzuma and his unforgiving fear, the four main points seen, both in "The Broken Spears" and "The History of Colonial Latin America", are strikingly similar. Although the Keen and Haynes account is emphasized

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