It’s interesting how Europeans claim to be god-fearing yet at the very first opportunity they will place themselves on the very pedestal they swore to never breach. I suppose it’s all derived from their superiority complex. In the previous quarter, Professor Lazo mentioned that the Spaniards were coined as Latins – more specifically Latinos and Latinas – because they were considered to be germane descendants of the Romans who were venerated for their military strength and might. In the same breath, Spaniards were expected to live up to the prestige of the Romans. So you can see why it’s imperative for Spaniards to rewrite a narrative that puts them in the position of conquerors, of Gods, of divine creatures. The conquered? Mexicans, reckoned as servants to the Spaniards’ ordained fate. But of course there is no such thing as your truth or my truth. There is only the truth, and here it is: the grapple for lordship between the invading Spaniards and disease-ridden Incans can be best described as a precursor to Manifest Destiny.
Similar to Said’s analyses of Orientalism, many Orientals did not realize they were being portrayed in such an unflattering light just as Moctezuma did not realize he had become a colonial figurehead to the Spanish audience as “inert with anxiety, terrorized by omens predicting his downfall, and ingratiating to the Spaniards” (114). The reason being was that such propaganda was not meant to be consumed by the natives but by the Spanish conquistadors and their citizens within its all-encompassing empire as their truth to cushion the barbarism exerted on the natives. But the truth is, Restall defensively protects the integrity of the Mexicans as effectively bolstering their circumstances by forming economic and political ties with the Spanish following the invasion – these alliances, albeit shifted the power dynamic between the local lords and his constituents, were a better compromise than no power at all. Moreover, “Mayans placed the Spanish invasion, and the violence and epidemics it brought, within the larger context of history’s cycles of calamity and recovery, relegating the Conquest to a mere blip in their long-term local experience” (122).
Through these lens, readers receive a glimpse of the natives’ resilience which thus cancels the hackneyed expectations of natives as either noble or savage, docile or cannibalistic, but rather natives, too, manifested a balance of both humane and primordial instincts equivalent to that of their European counterparts: “In colonial encounters, native peoples were not innately prone to esoteric thinking, but were as likely as Europeans to make choices based on ‘the pragmatics of common sense'” (120). Hence, this clearly dispels any preconceived notions of natives as mistaking the Spaniards as gods; such interpretations were often caused by language barriers, aka lost in translation: in the Annals of the Cakchiquels, the Mayan phrase “the lords took them for gods” could easily be translated in its original context as “the lords looked at them as though they were gods” (115). Further, Iliarone da Bergamo, an Italian friar, clarifies the process of canonization as posthumous; therefore, the assumption that the Incas worshipped the Spaniards was more or less a propagandist tactic to hype up their status and blow smoke up their audience’s asses back home.
Another account asserts that the natives were no more than mesmerized by the golden mane of hair and blanched features of the Spaniards that endears them to the sun god, Inti. However, it is important to note the distinction of “like a god” versus “is a god” whereupon the natives never compared the Spaniards to the latter. On the contrary, it is the Spanish who hold an over-secure presumption of their presence. Sadly, they will never note the fact that the honeymoon phase vaporizes just as fast as realization dawns: “I thought they were kindly beings sent from Tecsi Viracocha, that is to say, by God; but it seems to me all has turned out the very opposite from what I believed: for let me tell you, brothers, from proofs they have given me since their arrival in our country, they are the sons not of Viracocha, but of the Devil” – as accounted by Titu Cusi himself (117). This assertion holds a general consensus amongst the natives for the Spaniards were merely regarded as guests who turned into brazen invaders.
Even though the Spaniards declared the Incans to have unconditionally yielded power to them in 1532, skirmishes and full-on battles reckon that Incans weren’t officially subjugated under Spanish hegemony until 1571 following the fall of the Vilcabamba fort and the death of Titu Yusi Yupanqui, the last bloodline of the Sapa Inca. And taking a closer look at the Spanish soldiers, their auxiliary weapons – from canons to horses – were inept to the mountainous range of the Andes; so as far as we’re concerned with fighting, that’s all fair game between the Incas and Spaniards. Hence, this begs the question, if the Incas weren’t necessarily defeated by brute force, what was the cause?
Timing coupled with poor immunity to the fortuitous arrival of small pox, influenza, and measles were the salient components that decimated the Inca population and commenced their downfall.
Works Cited
O’Toole, Rachel. Humanities Core Lecture. ALP 1300, Irvine, CA. 08 Jan. 2019.
Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. Oxford University Press USA, 2004.
the reason behind the crumbling of a civilization 