2 Scorched Earth, Black Legend Environcide and the early 16th- century Spanish conquest of America

2021 ◽  
pp. 59-96
Keyword(s):  
16Th Century ◽  
Spanish Conquest ◽  
Black Legend

scholarly journals Translation and Historical Stereotypes: The Case of Pedro Cieza de León’s Crónica del Perú

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan J. Zaro
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Spanish Conquest ◽  
The Third ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Black Legend

Abstract Translation and Historical Stereotypes : The Case of Cieza de Leon's Crónica del Perú — The Crónica del Perú (books I and II) by Pedro Cieza de León (1553) is one of the most systematic and objective descriptions of the Spanish conquest of America. It is also one of the best written. The book was first translated into English by Captain John Stevens in 1709, then by Sir Clements R. Markham in 1864 for the Hayklut Society, and finally by Harriet de Onís in 1959. However, none of these translations does justice to Cieza's magnificient work. While the two first translations are full of mistakes, acknowledged and unacknowledged omissions, as pointed out by Diffie, 1936; Bernstein and Diffie, 1937 and Pedro R. León, 1971, the third attempts a conflation of the two books into one, resulting in a confusing edition not devoid of misprints and inaccuracies. This paper attempts to show how the English translations of the Crónica, by way of unfortunate or deliberate manipulations aiming to obliterate the objectivity of Cieza's writing, have contributed to the reinforcement of the stereotypes which shape the "Black Legend" of the Spanish conquest of the New World. Stereotypes that, in the light of examples like this, perhaps need to be redefined.

The Moon in Meso-America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Milbrath
Keyword(s):  
Classic Maya ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Central Mexico ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Southern Mexico ◽  
Spanish Conquest ◽  
Ethnographic Studies ◽  
Lunar Cycles ◽  
Postclassic Maya

What is known about the Moon among the ancient Maya of southern Mexico and Guatemala and the Nahuatl-speaking people of central Mexico, especially the Aztecs who lived in the Valley of Mexico and their neighbors in Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley, has been obtained from records related to astronomy and lunar cycles inscribed on Classic Maya monuments dating between ad 250 and 850/900. Modern scholarship focusing on the mathematical units and glyphic writing has helped in deciphering the records. Postclassic Maya codices dating from 1300 to 1500, sent to Europe shortly after the Spanish conquest, also have lunar tables that have been decoded by study of the lunar cycles and glyphs. Painted books dating prior to the conquest in 1521 are also known from central Mexico, but these can only be understood with the help of books that were painted by native artists later in the 16th century and annotated with texts written in Spanish and Nahuatl. These glosses provide information about lunar deities and beliefs about the Moon. Furthermore, knowledge of the Moon in Meso-America is greatly enhanced by ethnographic studies and study of iconographic representations of deities representing different lunar roles and phases.

Surgery in Peru

2011 ◽  
Vol 93 (8) ◽  
pp. 280-281
Author(s):  
Jaime Herrera-Matta
Keyword(s):  
Survival Rate ◽  
Surgical Procedures ◽  
Word Of Mouth ◽  
Surgical Instruments ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Southern Coast ◽  
Spanish Conquest ◽  
Instruments And Techniques ◽  
Gold Plates ◽  
Religious Reasons

Major surgical procedures in Peru are known to have been practised as far back as 700 BC. Trauma was an indication for these procedures, although some were done for religious reasons or as punishments. There is clear evidence that surgeons of the pre-Inca civilisation at Paracas, at the southern coast of Peru, carried out cranial trephination and limb amputations. They were not only skilful but successful – a 65–90% survival rate has been estimated from archaeological evidence. They had developed practical surgical instruments and techniques and were adept at using materials from their environment, fashioning limb prostheses and gold plates to cover trephination sites, and brewing anaesthetic from corn and other plants such as coca and cacti. This knowledge was transmitted by word of mouth up to the Inca civilisation and practised until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.

Electrochemical nucleation and growth of copper on iron and aluminum: A TEM study of industrial copper cementation

1978 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 454-455
Author(s):  
L.E. Murr ◽  
V. Annamalai
Keyword(s):  
Metal Surface ◽  
Copper Deposit ◽  
Nucleation And Growth ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Electrochemical Reactions ◽  
Mine Shaft ◽  
De Re ◽  
Copper Precipitation ◽  
Electrochemical Nucleation ◽  
Interesting System

Georgius Agricola in 1556 in his classical book, “De Re Metallica”, mentioned a strange water drawn from a mine shaft near Schmölnitz in Hungary that eroded iron and turned it into copper. This precipitation (or cementation) of copper on iron was employed as a commercial technique for producing copper at the Rio Tinto Mines in Spain in the 16th Century, and it continues today to account for as much as 15 percent of the copper produced by several U.S. copper companies.In addition to the Cu/Fe system, many other similar heterogeneous, electrochemical reactions can occur where ions from solution are reduced to metal on a more electropositive metal surface. In the case of copper precipitation from solution, aluminum is also an interesting system because of economic, environmental (ecological) and energy considerations. In studies of copper cementation on aluminum as an alternative to the historical Cu/Fe system, it was noticed that the two systems (Cu/Fe and Cu/Al) were kinetically very different, and that this difference was due in large part to differences in the structure of the residual, cement-copper deposit.

‘Vat is the clock, Jack?’: Shakespeare and the Technology of Time

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Chiari
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Tactile Contact ◽  
New Instruments

Sophie Chiari opens the volume’s last section with an exploration of the technology of time in Shakespeare’s plays. For if the lower classes of the Elizabethan society derived their idea of time thanks to public sundials, or, even more frequently in rural areas, to the cycles and rhythms of Nature, the elite benefited from a direct, tactile contact with the new instruments of time. Owning a miniature watch, at the end of the 16th century, was still a privilege, but Shakespeare already records this new habit in his plays. Dwelling on the anxiety of his wealthy Protestant contemporaries, the playwright pays considerable attention to the materiality of the latest time-keeping devices of his era, sometimes introducing unexpected dimensions to the measuring of time. Chiari also explains that the pieces of clockwork that started to be sold in early modern England were often endowed with a highly positive value, as timekeeping was more and more equated with order, harmony and balance. Yet, the mechanization of time was also a means of reminding people that they were to going to die, and the contemplation of mechanical clocks was therefore strongly linked to the medieval trope of contemptus mundi.

Peering Beyond the Imperial Gaze: Using Digital Tools to Construct a Spatial History of Conquest

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy M. Mikecz
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Spanish Conquest ◽  
Digital Maps ◽  
Spatial History ◽  
Colonial Texts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Spatial Narrative

Ethnohistorians and other scholars have long noted how European colonial texts often concealed the presence and participation of indigenous peoples in New World conquests. This scholarship has examined how European sources (both texts and maps) have denied indigenous history, omitted indigenous presence, elided indigenous agency, and ignored indigenous spaces all while exaggerating their own power and importance. These works provide examples of colonial authors performing these erasures, often as a means to dispossess. What they lack, however, is a systematic means of identifying, locating, and measuring these silences in space and time. This article proposes a spatial history methodology which can make visible, as well as measurable and quantifiable the ways in which indigenous people and spaces have been erased by colonial narratives. It presents two methods for doing this. First, narrative analysis and geovisualization are used to deconstruct the imperial histories found in colonial European sources. Second it combines text with maps to tell a new (spatial) narrative of conquest. This new narrative reconstructs indigenous activity through a variety of digital maps, including ‘mood maps’, indigenous activity maps, and maps of indigenous aid. The resulting spatial narrative shows the Spanish conquest of Peru was never inevitable and was dependent on the constant aid of immense numbers of indigenous people.

Justice et utopie chez Thomas More

Moreana ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (Number 193- (3-4) ◽  
pp. 54-73
Author(s):  
Nicolas Tenaillon
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
The Future

As a renowned jurist first and then as a top politician, Thomas More has never given up researching about a judicial system where all the fields of justice would be harmonized around a comprehensive logic. From criminal law to divine providence, Utopia, despite its eccentricities, proposes a coherent model of Christian-inspired collective living, based on a concern for social justice, something that was terribly neglected during the early 16th century English monarchy. Not only did History prove many of More’s intuitions right, but above all, it gave legitimacy to the utopian genre in its task of imagining the future progress of human justice and of contributing to its coming.

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