The fifteenth-century Renaissance and the beginnings of European exploration, conquest, and colonization are part of the same narrativeĀone in which culture, science, religion, politics, and power are inextricably intertwined. Innovations in science and technology made long-distance travel and exploration possible. The desire of rulers for wealth and power financed conquest, and the desire of the Roman Catholic church for converts provided religious motivation for the subjection of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Upon reaching Central Mexico, Spanish explorers found themselves confronted with the Nahua people, commonly known as Aztecs, of whom the largest tribe was the Mexica. Stuart B. Schwartz's Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico contains opposing versions of the defeat and destruction of the flourishing sixteenth-century civilization of the Nahua.
By presenting both indigenous and European sources in each chapter, Schwartz......
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