I’ve discovered it wasn’t the Spanish.
Have I been drinking a coco loco? (Coconut water with tequila)
Here’s un punto de vista diferente de la historia (a different point of view of the history).
Elena’s dad, Roman, always used to tell me, Los españoles no conquistaron México.
Then who did conquer Mexico?
A coalition.
The imperial Aztecs violently dominated and brutalized their neighbors. When offered the chance to form a coalition headed by the Spanish to overthrow the Aztecs, the neighboring peoples jumped at the chance.
Payback time.
The coalition had thousands of European soldiers, but it also had ten times as many indigenous warriors from the Tlaxcalatec, Tezcoco, and Matlatzinca groups as well as many other peoples.
The majority of the army that wiped out Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) was made up of indigenous warriors.
So, as my father-in-law used to say, it was the Mexicans who conquered Mexico.
To round off his refrain, he would also add, “The independence was won by the Spanish.”
Again, there is un punto de vista diferente de la historia (a different point of view of the history).
The sons of Spaniards born in the New World didn’t have the same status as those born in Spain. It was these second-class Spaniards who instigated the War of Independence.
And this completes Roman’s expression.
It was los mexicanos who conquered Mexico, and los españoles won the independence.
Celebrate the Independence Day of Mexico and six other Spanish-speaking countries between September 15–18 with me for the next 7 days.
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Thank you Marcus. I always enjoy your emails. I have taken Your Spanish Synergy class. I am so indebted to you. I have taken classes from teachers in Spanish. But, it was your Spanish Synergy that helped me to be able to finally converse with other Spanish speaking people. Thank you.
Hello, Mr Santamaría.
Your knowledge of Spanish AND history of many Hispanic countries is very extensive and your email messages are fascinating.
I speak Castellano, as my father and all his family were born and raised in Castilla la Vieja. But he went to Cuba and married my mother there, the daughter of two Spaniards. I was born there and came to the US as a child. We always spoke proper Spanish with the grammar, syntax and pronunciation (not the Z) and now I understand many of my students who are from Latin American countries.
If we learn the verbs and stay away from the formal VOSOTROS and the Z sound, we pick up the regional nouns and soon blend in. Now, if we listen to Pachuco Mexican, Argentinian Lunfardo or some of my Cuban pronunciation, we can get in trouble and not learn correct Spanish if we imitate the informal, less standard Spanish.
By the way, are your readers aware that Castellano is no longer the official language of Spain?? There’s Catalan, Gallego, Euskera to name just the major ones that the government considers official languages.
By the way, a lot of “Americans” opt to learn Spanish in Costa Rica, Colombia or San Miguel de Allende instead of Spain. I encourage them to do so. Those places are very welcoming and they speak the language gracefully
Great to remember.
I do two and a half hours of Spanish a week, on Mondays with three others an the teacher from Chile, the other hour on Skype with a lady from Barcelona. I‘m 84 and love languages. I speak high German, Swiss German (a different language) and French and a smattering of Italian. I appreciate your mails very much. Muchas gracias!
Valerie (a Brit living in Switzerland)
You are correct, except for this part: “The coalition had thousands of European soldiers, but it also had ten times as many indigenous warriors”. There weren’t thousands of European soldiers, Cortez had only a few hundred. According to the account reportedly written by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, which may have actually been written by Cortez himself, the indigenous warriors numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
Thank you for posting your lessons via email.
Creo que tiene razón (I think you are right). I recently read that Cortez had less than 300 soldiers.
I live.in San Miguel de Allende. The purely Spanish (no Indian blood) who live here are considered as a group pretty snobish, as I am sure you know. Everybody has a rank somewhere it seems.
I would think the ones who won the independence from Spain would be considered Mexicans since they may have been the sons of Spanairds but their mothers were Mexican.
Hey, I could understand the phrase even though I didn’t know all the words in Spanish.
Thank you for continuing to send your emails. One of these days I will sign up for your classes. Not having the continuous time at the moment to get into it, I look forward to doing so in the future.
You are a treasure, Muchas Gracias!
You rocked it again! Thanks
The simple explanation; and easily translated.