VOA慢速英语2021--墨西哥城纪念征服战开始500周年

The 500th anniversary of the Spanish battle to conquer Mexico arrives on May 22.

Some believe the battle for Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital now called Mexico City, was the birth of modern Mexico. Others believe it was the start of a tragedy that has lasted for centuries.

The battle lasted for months before the city fell to Hernan Cortes and the Spanish conquistadores, or conquerors¹. The battle was one of the few times an Indigenous² army fought European colonial powers.

"The fall of Tenochtitlan opened the modern history of the West," said historian Salvador Rueda. He is director of the city's Chapultepec Museum.

The event is memorialized by a plaque³ in the city's Plaza⁴ of Three Cultures. It honors Indigenous Mexico, Spanish colonialism and the mixed-race Mexico, also called Mestizo, that came from the conquest.

"It was neither a triumph nor a defeat. It was the painful birth of the Mestizo (mixed-race) Mexico today," the plaque reads.

The Mexican government has backed that idea ever since: Mexico is a non-racial, non-racist, unified⁵ nation where everyone is mixed-race, bearing the blood of both conquerors and conquered.

A few streets away is a different message. On the wall of the small church of Tequipeuhcan, another plaque reads: "Tequipeuhcan: The place where slavery began." It says this is the place where the Aztec Emperor was taken prisoner after his defeat.

"The fall of México-Tenochtitlán started a tale of epidemics⁶, abuses and 300 years of colonial rule in Mexico," said the city's mayor Claudia Sheinbaum.

Over the next three centuries, colonizers stole the land from Indigenous peoples and made them work it, taking the wealth for themselves.

David M. Carballo is a professor of Latin American studies at Boston University. He said the conquest of Mexico "connected the transatlantic to transpacific world and all the habited continents. That kicked off what we now call globalization."

Cortés and his 900 Spanish soldiers started the battle on May 22, 1521. The Spanish army was strong and experienced. It had spent hundreds of years fighting to take back Spain from the Moors⁷. They also brought in other Indigenous peoples who were oppressed by the Aztecs to join the fight.

They stopped water and food from entering the city. Their most powerful weapon, however, was the disease smallpox⁸, which they brought with them from Spain. Against this disease, the Aztecs were defenseless.

Carlo Viesca is a medical historian at Mexico's National Autonomous⁹ University. He said about 150,000 of the city's 300,000 citizens died of smallpox before the Spaniards took control. One Spaniard described it as "walking on corpses," said Viesca.

Because of the number of bodies and the smell of death, the Spanish cold not live in the city for months. Eventually, they destroyed all the buildings to bury the dead in the wreckage¹⁰.

The history of Mexico might have been very different if the former leader, Emporer Cuauhtemoc, had not died of smallpox in 1520.

He had successfully led the Aztec resistance, but was captured and tortured by the Spanish before dying of smallpox. He is still a beloved figure in Mexican history.

The defeat of the Aztecs showed the hopelessness of any attempt by Indigenous peoples in South America to fight the Europeans and their huge armies. There were some battles, mostly between the Spanish and Inca armies during the conquest of Peru. But eventually, the Indigenous peoples fell back on guerrilla actions, such as raids followed by retreats into the remote countryside.

Words in This Story

conquer – v. to defeat

indigenous – adj. produced, living, or existing naturally in a particular region or environment

plaque – n. a flat, thin piece of metal or wood with writing on it that is used especially as a reminder¹¹ of something (such as a historic event or an achievement)

triumph – n. a victory

habited - adj. referring to a place where human beings live

globalizeation– v. to make (something) cover, involve, or affect the entire world

1 conquerors   

征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Danes had selfconfidence of conquerors, and their security precautions were casual. 这些丹麦人具有征服者的自信，而且他们的安全防卫也是漫不经心的。
• The conquerors believed in crushing the defeated people into submission, knowing that they could not win their loyalty by the victory. 征服者们知道他们的胜利并不能赢得失败者的忠心，于是就认为只有通过武力才能将他们压服。

2 indigenous   

adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的

参考例句：

• Each country has its own indigenous cultural tradition.每个国家都有自己本土的文化传统。
• Indians were the indigenous inhabitants of America.印第安人是美洲的土著居民。

3 plaque   

n.饰板，匾，(医)血小板

参考例句：

• There is a commemorative plaque to the artist in the village hall.村公所里有一块纪念该艺术家的牌匾。
• Some Latin words were engraved on the plaque. 牌匾上刻着些拉丁文。

4 plaza   

n.广场，市场

参考例句：

• They designated the new shopping centre York Plaza.他们给这个新购物中心定名为约克购物中心。
• The plaza is teeming with undercover policemen.这个广场上布满了便衣警察。

5 unified   

(unify 的过去式和过去分词)； 统一的； 统一标准的； 一元化的

参考例句：

• The teacher unified the answer of her pupil with hers. 老师核对了学生的答案。
• The First Emperor of Qin unified China in 221 B.C. 秦始皇于公元前221年统一中国。

6 epidemics   

n．流行病

参考例句：

• Reliance upon natural epidemics may be both time-consuming and misleading. 依靠天然的流行既浪费时间，又会引入歧途。
• The antibiotic epidemics usually start stop when the summer rainy season begins. 传染病通常会在夏天的雨季停止传播。

7 moors   

v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• the North York moors 北约克郡的漠泽
• They're shooting grouse up on the moors. 他们在荒野射猎松鸡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 smallpox   

n.天花

参考例句：

• In 1742 he suffered a fatal attack of smallpox.1742年，他染上了致命的天花。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child?你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？

9 autonomous   

adj.自治的；独立的

参考例句：

• They proudly declared themselves part of a new autonomous province.他们自豪地宣布成为新自治省的一部分。
• This is a matter that comes within the jurisdiction of the autonomous region.这件事是属于自治区权限以内的事务。

10 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

• They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
• New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。

11 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。