Chapter 3 Explorers from Spain
Source Question
Read the two documents below and answer the questions that follow:
Source A: Cortes describes Tenochtitlan to the King of Spain:
The great city of Tenochtitlan is built on the salt lake...there are two leagues (11 kilometers) from the main body of the city to the mainland. There are four artificial bridges leading to it, and each is as wide as two cavalry lances. The main streets are very wide and very straight; some of these are on the land, but the rest and all the smaller ones are half on land, half canals where they paddle their canoes. All the streets have openings in place so that the water may pass from one canal to another. Over all these openings there are bridges…so well made that on some of them ten horsemen may ride side by side.
The city has many squares where trading is done and markets are held continuously … more than 60,000 come each day to buy and sell, and where every kind of merchandise produced in these lands is found; food as well as ornaments of gold and silver, lead, brass, copper, tin, stones, shells, bones and feathers.
B Native Indian account of the capture of Tenochtitlan.
Alva Ixtilxochitl, whose father was one of the native allies of Cortes, gives an account of the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan:
"On the day that Tenochtitlan was taken, the Spaniards committed some of the most brutal acts ever inflicted upon the unfortunate people of this land. The cries of the helpless women and children were heart-rending. The Tlaxcalans and other enemies of the Aztecs revenged themselves pitilessly for old offences and robbed them of everything they could find. Only Prince Ixtilxochitl of Texcoco, an ally of Cortes, felt compassion for the Aztecs, because they were of his own homeland. He kept his followers from maltreating the women and children as cruelly as Cortes and the Spaniards did.”
(a) From source A how does do we know that the city was built on a lake?
(b) What goods were sold in the main square?
(c) ‘The writer of source A was impressed by Tenochtitlan’. Do you agree? Give two pieces of evidence to support your answer.
(d) What evidence is there in source B to show that the people of Tenochtitlan suffered terribly when it was captured?
(e) Do you think Source B is a reliable source? Give two reasons to support your answer.
Source for both sources: http://www.pbs.org/opb/conquistadors/home.htm
More sample questions and answers
