In the book Discovering the American Past, Wheeler does an extraordinary job detailing the events that took place some 20,000-40,000 years ago. As a student you encounter the impressions the Native Americans had of Cortes (both in letters and pictures), and vise versa. As you read on you will find out how the Europeans and Indians first met, what they thought of each other through letters and pictures, and finally how they ended up.

After Christopher Columbus met the first Indians, Europeans became fascinated with the New World and its inhabitants. As Europeans were publishing their accounts with Indians, many artistic depictions were being circulated even though many never knew what an Indian looked like. Indians had their impressions of Europeans first through stories and song because they didn’t have a central form of writing at the time. This later helped the generations to come with how to deal with the whites.

The Native Americans were far more technically advanced than the Europeans were. The Natives began practicing agriculture, and when the Europeans arrived, the Natives were raising small crops already. Contact with other Indians

In the Native Americans accounts it seems as though Cortes’ strike was all of a sudden. Even worse he started the attack on the first day of the fiesta. So no one was expecting it. The Native American were dancing, singing, and eating when all of a sudden Cortes and his army started going up to people and cutting off arms, legs, heads, anything to destroy what once was so peaceful. While fighting in the war Natives recall having sores on their bodies. “Soon after an epidemic broke out in Tenochtitlan…it began to spread killing a vast number of people. Sores erupted on our faces, our breasts, our bellies; we were covered with agonizing sores from head to foot” (Wheeler, pg 19). This turned out to be smallpox just one of the many diseases that the Europeans brought with them.

It seems that when Cortes is describing the Native Americans in his letter to King Charles I of Spain he almost sounds disgusted, like they are scum of the earth. For example their customs; “…some piercing the ears, putting large and ugly objects in them, some piercing their under lips down as far as their gums, hanging large stones, or gold, so weighty they looked deformed” (Wheeler, pg 7). Cortes thought nothing good of the Natives he thought their beliefs were wrong. “It should be believed, that it is not without cause that God, Out Lord, has permitted that these parts, should be discovered in the name of You Royal Highnesses, so that his fruit and merit before God should be enjoyed by Your Majesties, of having instructed these barbarian people, and brought them through your commands to the True Faith” (Wheeler, pg 9). Another example: “… the great evils and injuries they practise in the service of the Devil will be forsaken” (Wheeler, pg 9). Who is Cortes to say what beliefs and customs are right from wrong? He is just some white guy that the King of Spain picked to find more about the new world.

Sources-11 thru 14 shows brutality among the Europeans. Scenes which depict peaceful Native Americans trying to welcome the Europeans, but the Euro

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