The Confrontation between Cortes and Montezuma.
In the book Discovering the American Past, Wheeler does an extraordinary job detailing the events that took place some 20,000-40,000 years ago. As a student you encounter the impressions the Native Americans had of Cortes (both in letters and pictures), and vise versa. As you read on you will find out how the Europeans and Indians first met, what they thought of each other through letters and pictures, and finally how they ended up. .
After Christopher Columbus met the first Indians, Europeans became fascinated with the New World and its inhabitants. As Europeans were publishing their accounts with Indians, many artistic depictions were being circulated even though many never knew what an Indian looked like. Indians had their impressions of Europeans first through stories and song because they didn't have a central form of writing at the time. This later helped the generations to come with how to deal with the whites. .
The Native Americans were far more technically advanced than the Europeans were. The Natives began practicing agriculture, and when the Europeans arrived, the Natives were raising small crops already. Contact with other Indians led to trading in which Indians were more familiar with before the Europeans marched on through. They also built great cities, and made their own jewelry of gold and silver, made their own style of writing, were well developed in mathematics, and even made a calendar that predicted solar eclipses, which was more accurate than any other calendar in Europe. .
This all started when Cortes and his army sailed to the Western Hemisphere where the Native Americans called their home they thought that Cortes was the sun god. They showered him with gifts, and yet there was something wrong. Montezuma, the Aztec leader, felt something he never felt before, and that was scary to him. .
It seems that when Cortes is describing the Native Americans in his letter to King Charles I of Spain he almost sounds disgusted, like they are scum of the earth.
