sparknotes brave new world video summary

Of the ruler of the Aztecs, Díaz tells us: But he likely kept notes because the details he provides are quite vivid. Díaz writes that Cortés (whom Díaz admired) and his men did what they had to do.ĭíaz was in his 20s when he went on the expedition and wrote the book five decades later, when he was in his 70s. Previous works by Spanish writers had been critical of the conquistadors’ brutality. Montezuma was killed on June 29, 1520, apparently by his own people who were angered and ashamed of the humiliation that their nation had been put through.ĭíaz was writing a few decades after the fighting began with the aim to correct what had been written about the expedition before him.

The Aztecs had no experience of modern battle.Īs a result, although they were brave - Díaz says so - they could not stop the small band of Spanish soldiers from slowly but surely making their way to Mexico City (then called Tenochtitlan) after an expedition that went on over more than 600 km and took nine months.Īt the end of it, they forced their way into the palace and held the king hostage for months while enjoying his hospitality. On top, Cortés and his men knew military drill and how to keep formation. They also had over a dozen horses, unknown in the new world and introduced to America by Cortés in 1519. The Spaniards carried guns, cannon, crossbows and swords made of steel. The Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, a man in his 30s, was able to prevail purely because of technology: the Aztecs fought with arrows, darts, slings and daggers made of obsidian, a kind of stone.

He participated in most or all of the over 100 battles and skirmishes that took the Spanish force, numbering only a few hundred, to the capital and led to their ultimate victory over the king of the Aztecs, Montezuma. (Stay up to date on new book releases, reviews, and more with The Hindu On Books newsletter. The writer was one of the mercenaries himself - a man named Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492–1584), who writes in the first person. But nobody else in the book - the Aztecs and the mercenaries butchering them - knows the outcome because it is written in chronological fashion, like a travel diary. You know how it ends: the Spanish conquistadors (conquerors) defeat the Aztecs and colonise Mexico.

The True History of the Conquest of New Spain is one of the most disturbing books you will ever read.

Sparknotes brave new world video summary