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5.2.5 The History of the Conquest of New Spain

Bernal Diaz de Castillo was a soldier with Cortez’s conquest of the Aztec empire. He wanted to write a first-hand account of this expedition for a popular audience. He wrote this account almost 30 years after the events, while he was a landowner in what is today Guatemala.

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Diaz de Castillo, Bernal
1632
Book
San Francisco Public Library

Diaz de Castillo, Bernal. The History of the Conquest of New Spain, edited by David Carrasco (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008), 173 – 74.
Bernal Diaz de Castillo was a soldier who formed part of Hernan Cortez’s mission to conquer the Aztecs, in what is today Mexico. Here he describes the market at the capital city. What types of things are sold at the market? Why does he describe what he saw at the market in such detail? His audience for this book are Europeans; why might they be interested in this description? How does this description provide evidence that helps you answer the question, What were Europeans’ motivations in exploring?
Bernal Diaz de Castillo was a soldier with Cortez’s conquest of the Aztec empire. He wanted to write a first-hand account of this expedition for a popular audience. He wrote this account almost 30 years after the events, while he was a landowner in what is today Guatemala. The detailed and concrete descriptions in this source can help students develop evidence to answer the question, Why did Europeans explore?

When we arrived at the great market place, called Tlaltelolco, we were astonished at the number of people and the quantity of merchandise that it contained, and at the good order and control that was maintained, for we had never seen such a thing before. The chieftains who accompanied us acted as guides. Each kind of merchandise was kept by itself and had its fixed place marked out. Let us begin with the dealers in gold, silver, and precious stones, feathers, mantles, and embroidered goods. Then there were other wares consisting of Indian slaves both men and women; and I say that they bring as many of them to that great market for sale as the Portuguese bring negroes from Guinea; and they brought them along tied to long poles, with collars round their necks so that they could not escape, and others they left free. Next there were other traders who sold great pieces of cloth and cotton, and articles of twisted thread, and there were cacahuateros who sold cacao. In this way one could see every sort of merchandise that is to be found in the whole of New Spain, placed in arrangement in the same manner as they do in my own country, which is Medina del Campo, where they hold the fairs, where each line of booths has its particular kind of merchandise, and so it is in this great market. There were those who sold cloths of henequen and ropes and the cotaras with which they are shod, which are made from the same plant, and sweet cooked roots, and other tubers which they get from this plant, all were kept in one part of the market in the place assigned to them. In another part there were skins of tigers and lions, of otters and jackals, deer and other animals and badgers and mountain cats, some tanned and others untanned, and other classes of merchandise.