HIS 1110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Jus Gentium, Siete Partidas, Encomienda
4 Jan 2019
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Cortes used snipers, but this wasn"t used or accepted by fighters in tenochtitlan. For cortes, the body count on the other side mattered in who won. If his army had killed more, they won in his mind. For the mexica, the primary focus was injury and not killing. Siege was a primary strategy of the europeans, it made more economic sense and did not require direct engagement. For the aztecs, preventing your opponent from accessing food or water was unthinkable. Sources on tenochtitlan came from a variety of sources that shaped the story in one direction. Spanish noblemen"s and conquistadors" accounts (earliest from 1540s, most from the 1560s) By the end of the century, a few indigenous men wrote histories. Colonial law protected their actions from judgement by international law. Colonial powers could then treat the colonized populations differently. There were no written laws before colonizers came in, they were developed after and not codified.
