Blog Entry - Week 3 - Jan 26

The content of the class is starting to come together for me.  While the readings are being understood better and the discussion of the class interesting, I am getting a good foundation as to what formed Hispanic Culture and Civilization.

The first handout – Living in Tenochtitlan was about a family moving to Tenochtitlan.  The boy excitedly talked about what they are going to do when they get there.   The last sentence was incomplete as it had them arriving and we had to finish the sentence.  At last it was moving day, and we entered Tenochtitlan……it appeared to be everything we had hoped for - new adventure and opportunity.    My response was a result they were nomads and looking for a place to call home.  When people move you are hoping for the better to make things better for you and your family.  You can see this today when people move to a different city for a new job or just a change of scenery.  You can also see it in the case when the British and Spaniards came to the Americas.

We also played out an Aztec Codex.  The Codex was a series of pictures that told a story.  We had speakers that played the roles of the characters.  This particular codex was the story of Cortes’ conquest of the Aztecs.  His journey to Tenochtitlan,  and the downfall of Moctezuma and the Aztecs.  It was an interesting way to learn the story as it gave us the story in different perspectives.  The end of the story gave us the perspective of Bernal Diaz – a Spanish soldier, Bartolome de las Casas – a Catholic friar, and an Aztec woman.

We also discussed the different methods of colonization by the British and Spaniards.  The biggest difference to me was the relationship that the British colonists had with the natives was that of displacement.  When they came they brought their families with the intent to settle in communities. There was no need for them so they pushed the natives out.   The relationship the Spaniards had was that they had a responsibility to civilize with an intermixing of cultures.  The came as a group of monks and they used the Aztec women to procreate.   The Catholic Church married the men and women of different races. 

This started to make me think.  Could this thinking of the British be the root of racism we have today in the United States?  To this day we have laws and treaties to protect the rights of American Indians.  I do not see that within Mexico…I could be wrong.  The Spaniards treated the Indians as human beings, there was no separation of race and they became one people.