A Theater of Terror: Staging the Encounter in Sahagun's 1585 Revision of Book XII of the Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva Espana

In the histories of the conquest of Tenochtitlan, the Spanish use terror as a tactic of warfare. More specifically, they attempt to intimidate and terrorize the people they encounter, to instill fear as a means of establishing their respective authority in the momentous encounter between strangers. In Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, Matthew Restall describes this strategy as theatrical "display violence," noting that it was a common practice on the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquista (24). In Mexico it was a method used to subjugate a population that outnumbered the Spanish presence and that was envisioned as a future labor force. From bombarding trees and buildings with cannons to seizing lords and massacring undefended populations, the Spanish, Restall writes, used "dramatic displays of concentrated violence in order to terrorize a native group and convince them of the efficacy of cooperation with Spanish demands. Theatrical and terrorizing techniques appear again and again in the conquest expeditions" (24). Indeed, primary sources reveal a Spanish contingent assuming a situation of conflict from the very beginning of the encounter, demanding cooperation or, alternatively, brutal attack.