Reflection 13

This is definitely a very appropriate time to be reading “Conquest of America” and visiting the National Museum of the American Indian. Thanksgiving always gives me very mixed feelings, because although I do have a lot in my life to be thankful for, I cannot help but remember the origins of the holiday and be more than a little outraged at the injustices perpetrated against the Native Americans.

The debate in class made me consider other points of view, however. I was in the group that was in charge of defending Cortes against charges of crimes against humanity. This was a very difficult debate to have, because it is nearly impossible to take the morals and societal norms of contemporary times and transfer them onto events that took place 500 years ago. Things were simply different half of a millennium ago. Yet, it is personally hard to NOT blame Cortes, if only because he realistically could have chosen to not orchestrate the deaths of many Aztec people. Although the times were different, he caused the fall of the Aztec empire. He knew he was doing so. This cannot be forgiven.

I truly do keep on going back and forth on the issue. It is very hard for me to reconcile was Cortes did with what we believe, as a society, to be just. Yet, it is just as hard for me to not recognize that Cortes lived in an age that had very little notion of diplomacy, and an even smaller notion of the idea of difference.