Abstract

This lesson plan consists of primary sources on the conquest of Mexico linked to simple overviews. They include twenty-two chapters from the major Aztec/Mexica source: Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, or The Florentine Codex; forty excerpts from Hernan Cortés' first, second, third, and fifth letters to Charles the V; twenty-six excerpts from Bernal Díaz del Castillo's The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, and images from The General History and the Lienzo de Tlaxcala. Additional sources include an excerpt from Diego de Muñoz Camargo's Historia de Tlaxcala on the massacre at Cholula from a Tlaxcalan perspective and an excerpt from Francisco López de Gómara's Conquista de Méjico, the only Spanish account of the massacre at the festival of Tóxcatl.