Was the Spanish Conquest necessary?

The Mesoamerican groups were like a child's new toy that all kids wanted to have. And that child was Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, when in 1517 he was the first to make an expedition to these lands, where he obviously arrived impressed. Amazed. Because for them it was a totally different world than the one they knew. After this, everyone wanted to go, because it was the perfect excuse to escape from what was then a hell, Europe. Where not only a demon ruled it. The Black Death, the Inquisition and the Crown were not pious demons, so the idea of going to colonize another territory in the name of the crown was the perfect excuse to escape. Their homeland would see them as heroes and not the cowards they really were, so if the opportunity arose to sneak in or organize their own expeditions they didn't think twice. That was just the beginning of what would be the beginning of a hurricane. A fierce, ambitious and cursed hurricane. The colonization.

Foto de Dave Photoz en Unsplash

The Spanish not only brought with them totally new and impressive weapons and animals to Mesoamerica, they also brought war, disease and lies. Not all the Spaniards who came to colonize were conquistadors, most were cowards and prisoners of their own destiny and homeland. Some were like the stuffing in a new stuffed animal that only served to be bought. At the end of the day they were just pawns in a game of chess.

Before Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba had the first contact with the Mesoamerican peoples, in 1511 Vasco Nunez de Balboa and his crew were shipwrecked in South America and brutally murdered by the Caribs of that place, leaving only two survivors, one of whom would become very important in the history of the respective entity. Gonzalo Guerrero and Jeronimo de Aguilar were very fortunate to be the only two who came out alive from the cannibal banquet of the Caribs, although they ended up being prisoners of the Caribs. Jeronimo de Aguilar only wanted to escape and that is what he did. Unlike him, Gonzalo Guerrero fell in love not only with his future wife, but also with the culture. He was willing to leave all his roots for love. What made his love story stand out even more was that this woman was the daughter of the cacique, so in the end he not only became her husband, the father of her children and her new culture, but he also became the father of Meztizaje. However, this story is not one of those tales that have happy endings. Gonzalo Guerrero died fighting against his past, he died proud of what he had become and along with him, also died the hope of a Mexico without conquest. That was only the beginning because after that, on February 18, 1519, what would be our end would begin.

Life is like a competition, there is always someone who stands out, a winner, and in this story, Hernán Cortés was the god of conquests. In the end, they managed to conquer us, but not without a fight, since the Mexican people did not give in so easily. Much of Mexico was conquered by him, from the Yucatan peninsula to the Great Tenochtitlan, where he used a fierce tactic of deception and treachery in 1519. It was so dirty. The Spanish armada made the Aztecs believe that Hernan Cortes was Quetzacoatl, their most worshipped and principal deity, and used them to plunder them and extinguish the Aztec empire; which he could not have accomplished without the help of some of the Aztecs' enemies. Something very similar to what Francisco Pizarro did in 1531 when he arrived in Peru, where the Inca empire was located, which was ruled by Atahualpa; with the famous gold rush. Unlike the Aztecs, the Incas preferred to lose all their gold and wealth rather than spill Inca blood, so he offered them a deal. Gold to guarantee their safety. However, Pizarro had not only gone for riches. He, like all conquistadors, was sick with power. It was like a power flu. Since they had no power in their homelands, when they came to these new lands, they were the ones who controlled everything. That's why for these conquerors, Mesoamerica was one of those chocolates that once you ate it, you couldn't stop eating it. It was addictive and they became addicted to it.

However, for Cortes, just as there were victories, there were also defeats. The one we will always remember, we with joy and pride and they with fury and disappointment, was the famous "Noche Triste" ("Sad Night"), when in 1520 on the night of June 30 and the early morning of July 1, Hernán Cortés wept under the Ahuehuete tree after suffering the defeat of his life at the hands of the Aztecs. But of course, one swallow does not make a summer (Don Quixote I 13) and after that Hernán Cortés recovered with more strength than ever and on August 13, 1521 the Spaniards finally captured Cuaúhtemoc, the last Mexica emperor, ending the episode of the conquest of Mexico Tenochtitlan, when Mexico City fell to the Spanish conquistadors after two years of several attempts.

Now, let's ask ourselves the trigger question: Was the conquest necessary? Would anything have changed if we had not been conquered? The answer is now irrelevant. There is no such thing; but let's think about it: do things happen for a reason, or was it fate? I don't think so. But what I do believe is that if none of that had happened, Mexico, us, would not be where we are. If we had not been colonized, we would not have become independent years later and we would not have established important laws, which are still in force and active today. We would not have had a history worth telling. In short, Mexico would not be Mexico without the conquest because it was part of our history. If it were not for this important event, we would not have demonstrated how strong, brave and tenacious we are as Mexicans and Latin Americans. Without the conquest we would not be what we are today.

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The above essay was written as an assignment for my history class when I was in 9th grade (2018) so it probably doesn't have a good enough argument or a well-supported opinion. I remember that I had invest a lot of thought into this paper and I loved it. It was with this paper that I realized that I love writing. In fact my teacher didn't believe that I had written it, she even called me to the coordinator's office to ask me if I had really done it by myself because she couldn't believe that I had written it as I used to be too talkative in class and teachers always had to asked me to keep silence. As well, because I am a very distracted person and I used to play with my classmates to the point that sometimes I was taken out of the classroom because of it. So for my tecaher, my reputation didn't match my academic performance. Besides that, I want to expose that I have always been a good student in academic terms, always participating. My problem is that I easily get distracted and I'm playful. Returning to the article, I think this is a very interesting topic and if anyone has a strong opinion about it or a completely different one from mine, I would appreciate it if you could let me know so I can broaden my view. You can leave it in the comments. Thanks for your time and attention. I hope you enjoyed!