With regard to the interactions between the Spaniards and Natives, the Spaniards have already had experiences meeting and introducing their civilizational qualities(forced conversion, teaching language, cultural practices, etc) to entirely foreign groups of people, and therefore to some extent had the ability to use this experience in dictating their chain of actions and responses in this particular situation with the Natives.
On the other hand, Montezuma and his people were hit with a culture shock of sorts when the Spaniards initiated contact. Another element to the whole interaction was that the Spaniards harbored a significant amount of ulterior motive that they knew through practice how to navigate and manipulate Natives through. Conversely, the Natives had no significant other motive than their survival and preservation. The argument could be made that the Natives, cautious of the Spaniards, wanted to advance their own interests in expelling or defending against the onslaught of Cortes and his crew, however the intent of the Natives was still very surface level, causing them to pay no mind to the possibility or reason for the Spaniards to manipulate their perception.
These arguments about the various constructivist backgrounds of each party show a clear advantage on the part of the Spaniards just simply due to situational experience and pre-existing knowledge allowing them to take a greater command of the "first contact".
You raise a lot of great points and I completely agree how the Spaniards were able to dictate these signs due to their previous experience in conquest of other territories and greater experience as the conquerer. However, a question does raise how would this situation be different if the Indians had more time to develop and were provided more experience in these areas. Additionally, although the Spaniards were ultimately successful, they were still in an environment never seen before, without any definitive direction in what to do. I feel that for both the Indians and Spaniards, they were entering into this meeting with not much prior knowledge on the other party, and that may contribute to the idea of both sides building on their experience to combat a group never acknowledged or understood before.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your first question, I think the Natives would have been more successful in combating the Spaniards if given more time and experience. As for your second comment, I agree that the Spaniards were entering an environment/interaction with no REAL precedent, but my point is that this is the very thing that allowed the Spanish to have an advantage over the Natives, while also leading to so much misunderstanding. Even though the Spaniards had never faced this specific culture or people before, they acted as if the situation wasn't actually a new one that they should be open-minded about; in fact, the Spaniards treated the Natives poorly and incorrectly without even bothering to learn about or truly become acquainted with them.
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