Shams Alhakeem Paper#1 HIST-125 02/27/14 Mexico Today was the place of many advanced civilizations such as,

the Mayan and Alawlmik and Aztec cultures. In addition, it was invaded and taken over by Spain in 1521. Aztec has been conquered initially by Hernan Cortes, and entered the country in 1517 from the port formerly known as the "Puerto de la Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz". There are many reasons that they went to Mexico such as, spreading the religion and looking for gold. Moreover, the purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast three documents that were written by three writers in that period of time and to explain what happened there. Another purpose is, to present the more believable document with evidences. The three documents are the second letter to King Charles V of Spain by Herman Cortez (1519), True History of conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz, and Excerpt from the broken spears by unknown author or authors. There are some similarities such as, the context of the documents and they wrote about the same conquest. However, the three documents are different in dates, authors, tone and how each author described what he or she saw. The document that is more believable is True History of conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz because it was more descriptive and it has objectivity in tone. There are a lot of similarities between the three accounts. In the first place, the three accounts are similar in context of their writing, the three accounts were talking

about the conquest of the Aztec empire. Also, they were describing the same period of time which is the conquest of Aztec empire by the Spanish between 1517 and 1521. On the contrary, there are a lot of differences between the three accounts. The first difference is the date each article was written. The writer for the first document is, Diaz Bernal who was born in the Spanish town of Medina del Campo in the year of Columbus' epochal voyage, 1492, he wrote his document for the general public and for his own memories (Diaz, 1). In addition, in 1519 he joined the historic expedition of the conquistador Hernando Corts (1485-1547) CE, and he wrote his document thirty years after the conquest. The writer for the second document is, Herman Cortez who is the leader of the army that conquered Mexico, and wrote his account in 1519 for his king and to inform him about his winning over the Aztec empire (Cortez, 1). The Broken Spears is a document with unknown author/ authors, and is a collection of Aztec and other Indian records from the sixteenth century was written 20-30 years after the conquest (The Broken Spears, 1). So, it is very different time that each account of the writer wrote his documents. Even the time was a problem for reliability for Diazs account but it still more believable than the others because other reasons. Another difference is the tone. Diazs tone was objective. For example when he said in his account The Great Montezuma had sent these great Caciques in advance to receive us, and when they came before Corts they bade us welcome in their language, and as a sign of peace, they touched their hands against the ground, and kissed the ground with the hand. (Diaz, p.2), he showed that he was writing without bias. In contrast, Cortezs tone was ironic, because he first started with how he killed and tortured the people and then he said that they became friends and ate with each other (Cortez, p.2). In
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