Andrew S.

Terrell - HIST 6393: Atlantic America to 1750 1 September 2010

Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Hassig, Ross. Mexico and the Spanish Conquest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006.

The two monographs under review within cover facets of the Spanish Conquest of Latin

America in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Matthew Restall’s Seven Myths of the Spanish

Conquest, chose to take a successive approach to seven popular myths as the title suggested.

While such a monograph certainly has its place in modern scholarship, one is left without

specifics of the conquest itself, and therefore unable to make independent deductions. Restall’s

monograph was better suited for those already fluent in specifics and ongoing scholarly debate of

the Spanish Conquest of America. Enter Ross Hassig’s Mexico and the Spanish Conquest, a

monograph which from the beginning chose to be a retelling of what Hassig determined was

most likely correct information drawn from a pool of first and secondhand accounts as well as

successive scholarship centuries later. Hassig chose to use a narrative approach to history to

allow his readers to make their own interpretations of the events. These were the fundamental

differences between the two recent publications. Though neither are necessarily more practical

than the other, different audiences will appreciate one or the other inevitably. This reader

contends the debunking attempts of Restall, however, are insufficiently defended when compared

with Hassig’s more thorough depiction of this period in history.

The first major discrepancy between the two monographs is that of the conquistadors and

their men. Were they soldiers, or were they as Restall contends merely fortune seekers

inexperienced with combat and most certainly not soldiers? Hassig used great details in

successive chapters covering the early encounters of the Spanish and Mesoamerican natives. In

these retellings, the reader is convinced the Spanish had superior fire power in gun powder,

suitable armor that kept wounds to the limbs, and stronger steel blades that kept their edge

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longer. However, Hassig is also quick to point out many early military defeats of Spanish forces,

especially along the Yucatan under Córdoba’s lead. Restall went to great lengths to expose a

myth that the men accompanying many Spanish escapades were not fighting men, but Hassig’s

accounts show 200:1 odds against the Spanish. The overwhelming numbers against the Spanish

forces were cited as key components to victories against the aggressive Spanish invaders, and

yet, many Spanish survived these fights because of the technologies mentioned earlier. One

finds it very difficult to believe the first Spaniards to explore on land the coasts of Mexico were

mere treasure hunters as depicted by Restall. It seems much more likely that they were trained to

work as a functional military unit akin to the European armies of the day. Another issue was the

sheer cost for armor at the time; if the men who marched with Córtes and his contemporaries

were not trained soldiers how would they have been able to carry the added weight and known

military formations? There are too many open ended issues with naming the men who landed on

early Mexico untrained combatants.

Unlike the variations between who the Spaniards were, stories of Córtes and his first

impressions of the Aztecs are much closer in synthesis. Restall notes frequently that riches were

actively sought everywhere, but once they landed in Mesoamerica, the Spaniards accepted that

riches were to be found in vegetation rather than trace amounts of gold and silver as predicted

earlier. Hassig, however, retells an early encounter were gold items were traded with Córtes in

his first fortification on the beaches of central Mexico. Hassig goes so far as to suggest that this

sealed the fate of the Aztec Empire; the Spanish were at the end of the day greedy treasure

hunters as Restall concurred.

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Another similarity between the two monographs was the alliances’ importance for

Córtes’s missions. Restall, however gave tribute to West Africans and Native Americans

whereas Hassig described the majority of Córtes’s forces to be Natives from allied tribes after the

battles with the Tlaxcallan. However, up to those battles, Hassig sufficiently proves that the

Spanish army presence in Mexico was made up of three hundred soldiers and a few nobles from

allied tribes, and then several porters. There is ample evidence of African porters, however,

Hassig’s retelling suggests many of the Island Natives and Africans brought ashore with Córtes

died out before his forces met the Tlaxcallan armies. This does not diminish the importance of

African and Island Natives with Córtes, but the specifics given by Hassig reveal how little their

roles were in the eventual conquest of the Aztec Empire.

At the macro level, the two monographs differentiate significantly. As stated, each author

had their prerogatives in publication, but the effectiveness of the finished products are very

disparate. Readers of differing expertise and knowledge in the subjects will walk away from

each book with contrasting feelings and reactions. For example, Restall’s Seven Myths was

intended to depict the inaccuracies in several popular “mythistories” of the Spanish Conquest.

As such, critical readers will likely double back as pretentious statements are made and over

exaggerated to a point of inessential balderdash very unbecoming of the majority of his

otherwise well-written, well-researched and very welcome challenges to preconceived notions of

the Spanish Conquest. On the other hand, Hassig took a more careful approach to the topic by

working as a narrative synthesis of the Spanish Conquest. Hassig’s more thorough retelling of

events was also more useful for those not quite as well versed in Latin American history.

Furthermore, Hassig wrote with a greater believability as a historian because of his admission

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early on that he intended to use heavy amounts of details and compromised figures so as to

incorporate more sources on the era. One does not wish to suggest that Restall’s Seven Myths

was an inferior accomplishment to Hassig’s Mexico, however, if future editions were produced

they should include more of the “how and why” history usually associated with military history.

As these two monographs are recent publications, however, they add significant levels of

analysis to an ever-expanding history of early America and its encounters with modern Europe.