The Many Letters of Cortes……

Hernan Cortes’ Letters from Mexico is a compilation of five letters sent to the king of Spain, Charles V during the conquest of Mexico.  My first impressions of the book were not good ones.  When we were reading Dias there was more of a tone of truth in how it was told.  But in Cortes’ letters it is evident of how politics played a part in the conquest.  Page after page is filled with entries about who did what wrong and how Cortes was trying to correct the problem for the greater glory of the king.  With this tone it’s hard to accept it as a good primary document, who knows what was omitted to show Cortes in a good light.

While the legitimacy of the factual evidence is a little fuzzy in my mind the letters are a good marker for the time.  We have talked a lot about the “myths of the conquest” and this book has it in spades.  As you are reading it you can truly see how the Spanish regarded themselves to not only the natives but other Spaniards as well.  And in the end can you really blame Cortes he may be arrogant but every other conquistador searching for fortune was as well.  If you wanted to make a fortune in the new world then you had to make sure the king thought you were the best man for the job.  And that meant pointing fingers at every possible person.  So I may not like it, but that is how it was.  It was ingrained into the conquistadors to act this way forming their own form of social norms.

There was one part of the book that I did really like, the notes.  The notes for this translation were great.  They were informative and filled in gaps were you desperately needed an explanation.  When reading these time period letters it is often hard to either follow the writer’s train of thought or understand fully what is going on based on their brief explanations.  The notes provided for Cortes’ letters would more fully explain the circumstances which occurred and the history surrounding the assumptions made by the Cortes.