Cortés' Letter
Fernando Cortes wrote 5 letters in relation to this Roman Emperor and King of Spain.
Who is Charles V?
This is the title of Montaigne's essay describing his time seeing the New World.
What is "Of Cannibals"?
This thinker praises and politically legitimizes the New World society by comparing it to European markets and political systems, while the other critiques Europe itself.
Who is Cortes?
This quote was said by this thinker… "There are houses like barbers' shops, where they wash their heads and shave themselves; there are also baths.
Who is Cortes? (Cortés, p. 210)
In his letter he describes the city and markets of this New World Empire.
What is the Aztec Empire?
In his essay, Montaigne uses this word, referring to "actions, behaviors, or conditions that are savagely cruel, brutally violent, or uncivilized and primitive."
From Quote: “I think there is nothing ____ and savage in that nation, from what I have been told, except that each man calls _____ whatever is not in his own practice” (Montaigne, “Of Cannibals,” p. 185).
What is barbaric?
Cortés portrays the Aztecs as civilized to show their value to Spain, while Montaigne uses indigenous peoples to criticize this continent’s cruelty.
What is Europe?
This quote was said by this thinker… These nations, then, seem to me barbarous in this sense, that they have been fashioned very little by the human mind, and are still very close to their original naturalness.
Who is Montaigne ("Of Cannibals," p. 185)
Rather than being primitive, Cortes explains in this quote that this city is flouring in trade, even highlighting the trade of these two precious metals:
"There are jewellry shops, for ___, and ___, and stones, and other valuables of feather-work, as well arranged as can be found in any of the squares or market-places of the world” (Cortés, Second Letter to Charles V, p. 210)
What are Gold and Silver?
This quote is arguing that this continents forms of violence, such as torture and execution, are actually more cruel and barbaric than the practice of cannibalism. Quote: “I think there is more barbarity in eating a man alive than in eating him dead; and in tearing by tortures and the rack a body still full of feeling, in roasting a man bit by bit, in having him bitten and mangled by dogs and swine” (Montaigne, “Of Cannibals,” p. 189).
What is Europe?
Cortés compares Aztec political organization to Italian city-states to make it understandable, while Montaigne rejects this idea that European norms should be the universal standard.
What is European/Cultural superiority?
This quote was said by this thinker.. "There is always the perfect religion, the perfect government, the perfect and accomplished manners in all things. Those people are wild, just as we call wild the fruits that Nature has produced by herself and in her normal course; whereas really it is those that we have changed artificially and led astray from the common order, that we should rather call wild."
Who is Montaigne ("Of Cannibals," p. 185)
In his second letter, Cortes explains the political organization of this New World society, comparing it to these three Italian City States:
“[A]s far as I have been able to judge about the form of government, it is almost like that of ____, or ____, or ____, because there is no one supreme ruler” (Cortés, Second Letter to Charles V, p. 210).
What are Venice, Genoa and Pisa?
In his essay he describes how indigenous visitors reacted to this European society.
What is France?
Both authors, in different ways, push back against the idea that indigenous peoples are simply “savage” by showing they possess this.
What is an organized society?
This quote was said by this thinker... "They thanked me for this, and took him with a public crier, who proclaimed his offence, leading him through the great market place, where they put jim at the foot of a sort of theatre, and with a loud voice again published his offence. And all having seen him, they beat him on the head with Sticks until they killed him."
Who is Cortes? (Cortés, p. 211)
Similar to Machiavellian thinking, rather than being a monarchy, what form of government is Cortes attributing to this New World society?
What is a republic?
This is the larger argument that Montaigne is trying to make in his essay, when he says this: “[T]hey had noticed that there were among us men full and gorged with all sorts of good things, and that their other halves were beggars at their doors, emaciated with hunger and poverty” (Montaigne, “Of Cannibals,” p. 193).
What is that the extreme inequality in France is far more barbaric than the cannibalism in the New World?
While Cortés’ letter ultimately supports Spanish expansion and control, Montaigne’s essay undermines it by arguing that the "civilized” societies are actually more this than the New World.
What is Barbaric?
This quote was said by this thinker... "Truly here are real savages by our standards; for either they must be thoroughly so, or we must be; there is an amazing distance between their character and ours."
Who is Montaigne ("Of Cannibals," p. 192)
Both Cortes and Montaigne offer arguments in their works to rethink this concept. Montaignes argument tells the reader to look back to Europe to see it, while Cortes argues that it is lacking in the new world.