One night as the Spaniard armies were close enough to the city to see the human sacrifices that the Aztecs were making with the captured Spaniards and their allies an interesting parallel pops up.
The Spaniards are saying this: "thank God they are not carrying me off to be sacrificed...we were not far away from them, yet we could render them no help, and could only pray to God to guard us from such a death.
On the other hand the Aztecs were circling about them declaring this, "Look, that is the way in which you will all have to die, for our gods have promised it to us many times" (Victors and Vanquised pp 207).
This chapter reminded me of this song from "Pocahontas", both sides see the other as savages, people who must be killed and defeated. The captain for the Virginia Company says that since the Indians are not like them it means they must be evil. I think that a lot of the bad feelings between the Aztecs and the Spaniards is a lack of understanding between the two cultures.
"In addition to this, when the Christians were exhausted from the war, God saw fit to send the Indians smallpox, and there was a great pestilence in the city because there were so many people there, especially women, and they had nothing more to eat" (Victors and Vanquished pp 198).
Both sides have their religion which is supporting them and sustaining them throughout the conflict. It is interesting that religion would be something to spur people on to battle, yet we see it time after time throughout history. We all feel like we know what is best for one another and that no one else is right.
A super important life lesson that we all need to learn is to try and see from another perspective, take a look through their eyes as this song says. There is a quote that says, "Before you get mad at someone walk a mile in their shoes" and I think it is a good thing to do. We are all quick to judge, it is human nature to make a first impression of someone. However, it is then our choice whether we let that cloud our judgement or if we try and really get to know the real them.
Obviously with the Spaniards and the Aztecs there were a lot of factors coming into play such as religion, conquest, gold and power. It is sad to see what happened to an entire civilization because of these things. It was basically destroyed
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