Upon meeting the Aztec ruler Montezuma II and discovering the capital, Tenochtitlán, Cortés and his men were in awe. He was supported on the arms of both, and as we approached, I alighted and advanced alone to salute him; but the two attendant lords stopped me to prevent my touching him, and they and he both performed the ceremony of kissing the ground; after which he directed his brother who accompanied him to remain with me; the, latter accordingly took me by the arm, while Moctezuma, with his other attendant, walked a short distance in front of me, and after he had spoken to me, all the other nobles also came up to address me, and then went away in two processions with great regularity, one after the other, and in this manner returned to the city. Cortés captured, imprisoned, killed, and desecrated Montezuma’s remains. The city is connected to the rest of the land by several causeways.]. The two leaders, Cortés and Montezuma, knew absolutely nothing about each other’s language, civilization, or cultural nuances. He Drawing on rare primary sources and overlooked accounts by conquistadors and Aztecs alike, Restall supplies a … Your email address will not be published. After a short space of time, when my people were all bestowed in their quarters, he returned with many and various jewels of gold and silver, feather work, and five or six thousand pieces of cotton cloth, very rich and of varied texture and finish. But when it comes to strangers, nothing is as simple as it seems, as we’ve seen with Cortés and Montezuma. Your email address will not be published. Montezuma’s native language, Nahuatl, was a reverential mode of speech. He made the emperor his prisoner, taking control of the city and forcing Montezuma into the role of a puppet king. Three decades after Columbus, the Spaniards finally reached the long-imagined realms of gold. Therefore be assured that we will obey you, and acknowledge you, for our sovereign in place of the great lord whom, you mention, and that there shall be no default or deception on our part. In a departure from traditional tellings, When Montezuma Met Cortés uses “the Meeting”—as Restall dubs their first encounter—as the entry point into a comprehensive reevaluation of both Cortés and Montezuma. The third leg of the stool organizing narratives of the conquest of Mexico is the brutality of Aztec rule … But when Hernán Cortés sailed from Spain to Mexico in 1519, he began an entirely new kind of encounter in human history. In recognition of the quincentenary of the Spanish invasion of the Aztec Empire, Matthew Restall draws from his recent book, When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History , to propose that it is time to upend the … Aware of this, Montezuma had already sent him a number of gifts to show his wealth and power. When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History, by Matthew Restall, Ecco, New York, 2018, $35 Historian Restall of Pennsylvania State University has delivered an exhaustively researched, forcefully argued and … In a departure from traditional tellings, When Montezuma Met Cortés uses “the Meeting”—as Restall dubs their first encounter—as the entry point into a comprehensive reevaluation of both Cortés and Montezuma. Moctezuma bade him welcome and our Cortés replied through Doña Marina, who he always had at his side, wishing him very good health. The meeting of Cortés and Montezuma shows why they often result in failed interactions with strangers. Des milliers de livres avec la livraison chez vous en 1 jour ou en magasin avec -5% de réduction . On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. We’ll cover how Cortés and Montezuma met, and look at how this meeting between two people of completely different backgrounds, mindsets, and assumptions is indicative of misreadings of strangers that are common today. In this way l was for six days amply provided with all that was necessary, and visited by many of the nobility. This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "Talking to Strangers" by Malcolm Gladwell. First meeting of Hernán Cortés and Aztec leader Montezuma II. During his march to the Aztec capital, Cortés gathers valuable allies among enemies of Montezuma 8 August 1519: Beginning of the march to Tenochtitlan Having skirmished their way along the coast, and met with Montezuma’s emissaries, Cortés and the conquistadors set out for Tenochtitlan from their settlement of Vera Cruz. The result? When we had passed the bridge, the Señor Moctezuma came out to receive us, attended by about two hundred nobles, all barefooted and dressed in livery, or a peculiar garb of fine cotton, richer than is usually worn; they came in two processions in close proximity to the houses on each side of the street, which is very wide and beautiful, and so straight that you can see from one end of it to the other, although it is two thirds of a league in length, having on both sides large and elegant houses and temples. Thereupon, Cortés took Moctezuma by the hand and led him by it. On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. They had never seen a city as grand or a culture as drastically different from their own. And the Spaniards looked at him, each examining him closely. Drawing on rare Drawing on rare La Malinche, language translator for Hernán Cortés. I answered him in respect to all that he had said, expressing my acknowledgments, and adding whatever the occasion seemed to demand, especially endeavoring to confirm him in the belief that your Majesty was the sovereign they had looked for; and after this he took his leave, and having gone, we were liberally supplied with fowls, bread, fruits, and other things required for the use of our quarters. After having presented these to me, he sat down on another piece of carpet they had placed for him near me, and being seated he discoursed as follows: "It is now a long time since, by means of written records, we learned from our ancestors that neither myself nor any of those who inhabit this region were descended from its original inhabitants, but from strangers who emigrated hither from a very distant land; and we have also learned that a prince, whose vassals they all were, conducted our people into these parts, and then returned to his native land. 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