Compare the way the Aztecs dealt with Cortes to the way the Powhatans dealt with the English - Essay Example

Comparison of the way the Aztecs dealt with Cortes to the way the Powhatans dealt with the English The paper discusses the similarities between the way the Aztecs dealt with Cortes and the way the Powhatans dealt with the English. Both fights had the Indians as enemies. Cortes started to march inland heading to the capital city of the Aztec Empire, the city of Tenochtitlan. They were more than 14 cannons, 500 military personnel, and 16 horses, as well as a huge number of Aztec’s Indian enemies who gathered along the way.

In the same way, there was a very tense relationship between the Indian confederacy and the English colonists creating enmity between the two entities. In both cases, there was an uprising as a retaliation to the enemy’s act, but after incorporating the enemy in the society. For example, Carrasco and Sessions (229) assert that Cortes was welcomed by the Motecuhzoma. The Aztec ruler offered the Spaniards with high-class accommodations, touring them around the gardens, city, marketplace, and zoo something which the people did not want.

A rebellion rose up when Cortes’ second-in-command in the Aztec capital murdered a group of unarmed warriors and priests at the Main Temple of Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs, under the leadership of Cuitlahuac led a massive attack in the night of June 1520 driving the Spaniards out of the town. Kupperman (174) argues that the Powhatanss incorporated the English settlers as clients so as to learn their economic and political arrangements. This made the English think they had submitted to King James which was not so.

In both conquests, there were numerous casualties. White notes that during the Aztec’s resistance, “over 2,000 Tlaxcalan soldiers and 500 Spaniards were killed in the battle” (467). The Powhatans riddled the colonists with arrows, killing 347 settlers. Divine intervention was also used to fight off the enemy. The soothsayers informed Aztec emperor Montezuma II as well as the people of calamities to come. The Powhatans hatched the plan to attack the English settlers based on their religion.

In both native groups, the captives were tortured and humiliated. The Aztecs ate the flesh of the enemies they had captured in the battle (Carrasco and Sessions 231). The Aztecs carried out campaigns to capture the enemy warriors for sacrifice and humiliation as much for killing on the battlefield. The Powhatans performed rituals on the captured enemies and killed them (Axtell 67). Captain John Smith, in December 1607, was almost executed by the king after being captured. Immobilizing the enemy.

The Aztecs counterattacked and seized the cannons which were used by the Cortes and dumped them into the lake. The Aztec warrior fought hard and took the colonists weapons. The Aztec empire used conquests, wealth, a series of alliances, forced payments of the sacrificial captives, and intimidations fight the enemies such as the Cortes. The Powhatans traded in guns in order to be better equipped than the English. Natural causes like diseases had an immediate and profound effect on the military units.

The European diseases affected the health and stability of the Aztecs, Cortes, Powhatans, and English. This led to a reduction in human population. The Powhatans, for instance, were affected by measles and smallpox (Hazen-Hammond 87).Before the arrival of the English-speaking colonialists, the native people had a rich culture. Both the Aztecs and Powhatans fought the enemies to preserve their cultural identity. Powhatans viewed land as communal property and they could not sell it and the English view of individual land was not applicable to them.

They also had distinct languages which they fought to protect. In this regard, Prochazka et al. extensively explored “Powhatans as the only writers who utilized the first-person narrative. Powhatanism undoubtedly emphasized on the individual self” (35). They both used hierarchical systems to fight with the enemies. Both the Aztecs and Powhatans were headed by a king who issued instructions and passed to the subordinates. There are other ways which each of the native groups could have used, including conserving the moral, military, and financial assets, using the counter-attack strategy, disguise aggression, and appearing to the opponent as an underdog.

Works CitedAxtell, James. The Rise and Fall of the Powhatan Empire: Indians in Seventeenth-century Virginia. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg, 1995. Print.Carrasco, Davíd and ‎Scott Sessions. Daily Life of the Aztecs. New York: ABC-CLIO, 2011. Print.Hazen-Hammond, Susan. Timelines of Native American History. Through the Centuries with Mother Earth and Father Sky. New York: Perigee Books, 1997. Print. Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America. Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2000. Print.Prochazka, Martin, Wallace, Clare, Ulmanova, Hana, Roraback, Erik, Vesela, Pavla, and Robbins, David.

Lectures on American Literature. New York: Karolinum Press, 2011. Print.White, John Manchip. "Cortes and the Downfall of the Aztec Empire: A Study in a Conflict of Cultures." The Hispanic American Historical Review (1972): 467-468.