Were the Aztecs conquered by signs? One may deem this a narrow-minded claim, but no - the Aztecs were conquered by the technological advantage of the Spanish. The Aztecs were technologically advanced for a Central and South American native civilization, but they had no beasts-of-burden, no knowledge of blackpowder musketry, modern military strategy, or understandings of modern logistics. Academically, the Aztecs were inferior to modern intellectual understanding. How were they expected to hold-up under the pressure of European colonial expansion? The statistical advantage of victory was drastically skewed in favor of the Spanish Conquistadors.
Cognitive processes and mental projections have very little influence in the short term on material advantage. Yes, of course, the traditional method of concept abstraction, that is the Aztec method of applying logic into social construction, assisted the Aztecs very little in retaliation to Spanish colonialism. This is due to the fact that over several centuries the Spanish method of concept abstraction had landed them far beyond the Aztecs technologically, at least in regards to military strategy, metallurgy, logistics, and seafaring. Nothing can mask this blatant fact.
Cognitive processes and mental projections have very little influence in the short term on material advantage. Yes, of course, the traditional method of concept abstraction, that is the Aztec method of applying logic into social construction, assisted the Aztecs very little in retaliation to Spanish colonialism. This is due to the fact that over several centuries the Spanish method of concept abstraction had landed them far beyond the Aztecs technologically, at least in regards to military strategy, metallurgy, logistics, and seafaring. Nothing can mask this blatant fact.
While you're certainly correct about the overwhelming advantage an individual Conquistador has over an individual Aztec warrior, that alone cannot fully account for what happened. The Aztec Empire was enormous and had hundreds of thousands of warriors. The Spanish force that razed Tenochtitlan was no more than 1,000 men against an estimated 300,000 Aztec Warriors. Do you maintain that those 1,000 men fighting an entrenched enemy that outnumbers them 300:1 in their own capital city, won entirely because of military might?
ReplyDelete