Battle of Blades, War of Words

The question of whether or not signs defeated the Indians is an interesting one. (I know that the question asks about the Aztecs, but I have not yet read that far, and will be taking license here to extrapolate to the overarching theme of Natives versus invaders). Clearly, words and symbols did not decimate the population of the Native Americans; rather, that came from Spanish steel, firearms, and pathogens (although the Natives did impart syphilis onto the Europeans for the first time, so I suppose the feeling was mutual). It doesn't stop there: the Europeans consistently used superior tactics as well. By playing Indian tribes off one another, and by veritably addicting them to European weapons, the Europeans were able to divide and conquer as competing tribes squabbled over the scarce hunting lands left, their yield exhausted by over-hunting for the purpose of procuring skins for the weapons trade. The Europeans played the game better, and had extra dice to start with; the defeat of the Indians would have been impossible had it not been for divide-and-conquer tactics (given their numerical advantage), but through better military acumen the horses and arquebuses carried the day.

However, what gave Europeans the go-ahead to destroy these people - these people who's physical strength and system of government they actually admired, who many believed to be actually lost tribes of Israel that needed to be rescued? That is a murkier question. Here, usage of words played a tremendous role in legitimizing what was brutal at best and genocide at worst. Some of this I mentioned in class: Indians did not live in "houses" or "towns", they lived in "swamps" and "wigwams" - putting the natives on a sub-European level; from the very first meeting, Europeans described native women as eager concubines. However, there's even more - Elana spoke in class about the insecurity of the Spanish empire. Well, considering that race before the late 17th century was considered quite fluid, and seeing as many thought that the "savage" Indians had once been noble Christians before being transformed by the wilderness, it is easy to imagine how unnerved settlers in the Americas felt! The prevailing sentiment was that, sooner or later, the colonists would become "Indianized" - a terrifying fate. Therefore, inflammatory language became the norm: calling all Indians "naked" and calling Indian land "naked" as well, to distinguish from the clothed English and their developed land (demeaning to the Indians); consistently referring to killing Indians as a "spritual duty", especially during times of war, to emphasis the native inferiority to Christians; MOST INTERESTINGLY (to me, at least) was the colonist's claims that they were fighting a defensive, HOLY war against Satan's forces, which, according to the definition of Pope Innocent IV, meant they could fight the Indians under no laws of war! They could treat Indians as unclean savages with impunity! Simply by having the ongoing conflict called a "holy" war as opposed to an ordinary one. If we want to jump back to pure symbols and to the Spanish: in the 1600s, Spanish friars would destroy Pueblo religious symbols and replace them with Christian ones, and would teach all Indians Castillian (or try to); this wanton destruction of Pueblo culture stunted Pueblo nationalism. And on I could go.

However, the original prompt asked about the annihilation of the Aztecs. Cortez, when he was plundering for gold, was not thinking of insecurities of race. He was not thinking about teaching the Aztecs prayers. He was thinking of destroying them. So in the individual case of Cortez's invasion - a one-shot deal - it was weapons and warhorses which defeated the Aztecs. In a broader historical context, however, it was dissemination of dehumanizing language and sentiments towards the Native Americans which mobilized a population to rise against them as one.