The Injustice That Surrounds The Americas Essay — страница 2

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people the surviving could not fight as strong as they had hoped and the last where killed off and the city set on fire and destroyed. As time passed there were many attempts to rekindle the fire that breathed so powerfully within the heart of the Aztec people, but to no avail. The time of this once powerful nation had passed and was now owned by this gang of looting and rioting people from across the Great Sea. Their reign in a world so beautiful and tranquil had ended and would never again exist. The Aztec people knew that these conquistadors would destroy it and end a time of moderate peace and innocence. To this day the small remaining groups of Aztec people have never forgotten this awful tragedy and are determined to remember their ancestors and the strong kingdom that

their people once developed. It is told, it is recounted here how the ancients the people of Aztlan, the Mexicans came to [build] the great city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan . Never shall it be lost, never shall it be forgotten, that which they came to do, that which they recorded in their ink and in their paintings. Their fame, their renown, their remembrance will be kept in the ages to come . We shall always keep it, we who are their children, grandchildren their descendants, of their colour and their blood. And they shall tell it, they shall recount it, they who are not yet living, they who are not yet born: the children of the Mexicans. -Tezozomoc, Cronica Mexicayotl The Inca His Catholic Majesty must know that we found these countries in such a condition that there were no

thieves, no vicious men, no idlers We have transformed these natives, who had so much wisdom and committed so few crimes There was no evil thing, but today there is no good. -Mancio Sierra (a conqueror of Peru), 1589 After the conquering of almost the entire northern section of what is now South America, the conquistadors could not subdue their desire for gold. They had heard stories about a large city paved with gold and silver. They heard about the great city of the Incas. What the conquistadors did not know was that the city they had heard of was really an empire that was 3,000 miles long and several hundred miles wide, stretching from southern Columbia to central Chile, from the pacific ocean to the Amazon forest. A Spanish man by the name of Pizarro, was the first to see the

grand city that they had heard of, and was the one to bring the city of the Incas to a crumbling end. Pizarro left two of his soldiers in the city for two months while he went back to the colonized parts of South America and convinced 200 men that they would be given riches beyond their wildest dreams. When he returned, much like Cortes, he had brought more than a simple army of 200, Pizarro had brought smallpox. The Inca, at this time, were much older than the other parts of Mesoamerica, in fact this area has temples which dated back to 2000B.C. The city, which they had thought was the entire Inca Empire, was really only the small city of Huanuco, which had a small population of 15,000. The entire Empire possibly had more than twenty million, but with the invasion of smallpox

the Empire was cut to one quarter of the original number. The Inca had many qualities of the strong and well-developed nations of today. They had a type of welfare that was given to those who were poor or disabled and a bartering system that eliminated a monetary unit. The Inca where generally a peaceful people who allowed any city to join their great nation and those who wanted to leave could also do so, but would lose all ties with the Inca including food trading. The Inca were also such a large nation that they where never really challenged by any of the other major empires of that time. After the smallpox had conquered most of the empire, including their Emperor, Wayna Qhapaq and toppled the leadership, the Inca entered into a civil war to find a new ruler between Qhapaq s

two sons. Qhapaq s two sons were named Atawallpa and Cusco and they became overrun with greed and started a civil war that led to the end of the Inca Nation. At this point Pizarro did nothing but let the two brothers battle until Atawallpa finally won and returned home to where Pizarro was staying. Atawallpa, seeing that the army of soldiers that Pizarro had brought was so small that he did not even attempt to fight. He merely laughed and let many of his soldiers go home. Pizarro realized the mistake that Atawallpa had made and amassed his army in a deserted part of the town and atop a large staircase. As Atawallpa s troops walked up the stairs in celebration of their recent victory, carrying nothing but a ceremonial daggers about the size of a pocketknife, Pizarro ordered his