Quiz 8 · Point of View and Bias — Ancient America to the Singularity

Who made this?

1. Who made it?: The picture shows the cloth entire, as it survives in the 1892 lithographs. The Lienzo de Tlaxcala was painted around 1552 by tlacuilos, painter-scribes, of Tlaxcala. Their names are not recorded. The city's own council ordered the work: its minutes from 1552 speak of gathering the record of the war “from when the Marqués came,” to be taken to Spain for the emperor to see.
2. When, and where?: Around 1552, in Tlaxcala, a generation after the war. By tradition three great cloths were painted: one for the emperor, one for the viceroy, one to stay in Tlaxcala's own archive. On the cloth, dozens of scenes sit in a grid beneath one large scene, each with a short caption in Nahuatl, and in scene after scene the warriors of Tlaxcala stand large, armed, and forward, beside the Spaniards.
3. Why, and for whom?: Tlaxcala had fought beside the Spaniards against the Mexica, and its leaders spent the rest of the century reminding the crown of it. The cloth is the reminder at full size: an account of the war from Tlaxcala's point of view, made to secure the privileges its service had earned. It is evidence, argument, and invoice in one object.
4. Who has it now, and how did it get there?: Nobody has it. All three original cloths are lost; the one kept in Tlaxcala disappeared in the 1860s, in the years of the French invasion of Mexico. What survives are copies: a 1773 copy by the painter Juan Manuel Yllalñes, now in Mexico's National Library of Anthropology and History, and lithographs published in 1892 by Alfredo Chavero, made from a copy of a copy. Recent scholars have shown that the 1892 edition itself leans: it drops and softens details that were in the older copies. Even the copyists stood somewhere.
5. Whose voice is missing here, and where can we hear it?: Tlaxcala's, loudly, which is the point: this is one of the great accounts of the conquest from an Indigenous point of view, and it is a point of view, made to persuade. The voices it leaves quietest are the Mexica's, and those of the Tlaxcalans who might have told the alliance differently. A careful reader hears the cloth best beside the twelfth book of Quiz 7, which tells the same war from the city that lost it.

For your notebook: an account can be true, Indigenous, beautiful, and made to win something, all at once. What is your own account of your last argument made to win?

Sources: Actas de Cabildo de Tlaxcala (1552), as quoted in López and Núñez, Latin American Research Review (2020); Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City (the 1773 Yllalñes copy); Travis Barton Kranz and others on the Tlaxcalan pictorials; Oxford Art History, “Object, Image, Cleverness: The Lienzo de Tlaxcala” (2013).

First, the idea

Every account is made by someone standing somewhere. Point of view is the where: the writer's position, side, moment, and audience. Bias is the lean that comes from standing there: what gets emphasized, what gets left out, which words carry a charge. Bias is not the same as lying. An account can be honest in every fact and still lean, because the facts were chosen.

Four places to look. The maker's interest: who benefits if you believe this account? The card's questions again. The loaded words: “invasion,” “conquest,” “arrival,” and “encounter” can all name 1519, and each word votes. The selection: what a source includes and what it passes over in silence; the silence is often the argument. The audience: an account written to a king, a court, or a buyer bends toward what that reader needs to hear.

Where the painter stood. The painters of the Lienzo stood in Tlaxcala's council hall, painting for the emperor's eyes, and their warriors are large and forward in every scene. That is not a flaw in the cloth; it is the cloth. You do not correct for a point of view by finding a source with none, because there is none. You correct for it by naming where the maker stood, and then standing somewhere else too: beside a second account, made from different ground.

Then Quiz 2's rule, sharpened: reliable for what? A defense written by the accused is weak evidence of what happened and excellent evidence of what the accused wanted believed. The test asks this as: which source would be most useful for studying X? Match the source's position to the question, not to the truth in general.

Worked example — thinking out loud

Four textbooks describe the same year, 1519. One says the Spaniards arrived. One says they invaded. One says the two worlds met in an encounter. One says the conquest of Mexico began. What does each word tell you about the writer?

I take them one at a time and ask what each word smuggles in. Arrived is a traveler's word; it treats the coast like a destination and takes no side, which is itself a choice, since for the people on the shore something more than an arrival was starting. Invaded takes the shore's side: it says the coming was an attack. Encounter stands carefully in the middle, two parties meeting, and its very evenness can hide how uneven the meeting was. Conquest began writes the ending into the first sentence: it tells you the outcome before the story starts, from the winner's bookkeeping.

None of the four is a lie. Each is a vote. On the test, the question will read: the author's choice of the word invaded suggests the author views the events as what? And now you can answer it in your sleep: as an attack on the people already there, which is to say, from where that writer stood.

Part A · The skill by itself

1. A history of the California gold rush is written by a mining company in 1890 for its investors. Before reading a word, a careful reader expects the account to lean toward

the miners' unions the company's achievements and the promise of mining the Native nations whose lands were mined no side, because it is a history

2. Two newspaper sentences describe the same event. First: “The workers walked off the job.” Second: “The workers abandoned their posts.” The second sentence's wording suggests its writer views the strike as

a desertion of a duty a legal right a celebration impossible to judge

3. A museum label written in 1930 says a temple was “discovered” in 1839 by two travelers. Maya families were living nearby and guided the travelers to it. What does the word “discovered” leave out?

the date that the place was already known to the people living there the travelers' names nothing; it is the only possible word

Part B · The skill in the wild

Two accounts of one morning: the festival of Toxcatl, May 1520, in the temple courtyard of Tenochtitlan. Read both, then answer. The questions are about the accounts, not about which you would rather believe.

Account A · written from the Nahua record

In May of 1520, with their main captain away at the coast, the Spaniards were quartered in the palace, and the city was preparing its great festival of Toxcatl. The account the elders later gave says the celebrants asked the Spanish captain's permission to hold the dance, and that permission was given. The finest singers and drummers gathered in the temple courtyard, unarmed, in their festival clothes. When the song was at its height, the gates were shut, and armed men came in and killed the dancers, beginning with the drummer. Then the city rose.

Account B · written from the accounts of the captain's defenders

The captain left in charge that May later said that the festival had been a mask for war. He and his men reported warnings that when the dance ended, an attack on the quartered soldiers would begin; the songs and the gathering, in this telling, were the signal and the muster. Facing a rising he believed was hours away, the captain struck first, and by doing so, his defenders wrote, he saved the garrison from destruction.

Both accounts were written for this quiz. Account A follows Book 12 of the Florentine Codex (1577), gathered from elders of Tlatelolco; Account B follows the justifications recorded on the Spanish side, as reported in Bernal Díaz del Castillo's True History (Maudslay translation, 1908) and later histories. Díaz, who was at the coast with Cortés, records that Cortés on his return condemned what the captain had done.

4. Account A is told from the position of

the Spanish garrison the people of the city, as their elders later recalled it the king of Spain a neutral observer with no position

5. Which phrase in Account B does the most work to justify the captain?

“In May of 1520” “the festival of Toxcatl” “he saved the garrison from destruction” “the songs and the gathering”

6. What does Account A include that Account B never mentions?

that the captain was warned of an attack that permission for the dance was asked and given, and the dancers were unarmed that the city rose afterward the month of the festival

7. Account B is the strongest available evidence for which of the following?

that an attack on the garrison was truly planned what the captain and his defenders said to justify the killing what the drummers experienced nothing, because it is biased

8. Complete the sentence so that it matches the lesson.

Bias is [the same thing as lying / the lean that comes from where an account stands / found only in old sources], and the first question to ask of any account is [whether it is well written / who made it, for whom, and why / how long it is].

The key — and why the tempting answers tempt

1. B. Made by the company, for investors: the maker's interest and the audience both point the same way before page one. D is the trap built for good students: “it is a history” is not a position above the ground; it is a claim to one. There is no account from nowhere.

2. A. “Abandoned their posts” is a soldier's phrase for desertion; it carries a verdict inside the verb. The first sentence, “walked off the job,” is the flatter report. The facts are identical; the vote is in the words.

3. B. A place cannot be discovered by the third people to reach it. The word erases the ones already there; the label's silence is its argument. This is the card's fifth question working inside a single word, and it returns, at Copán, in a later quiz.

4. B. The account itself says so: what the elders later gave. Its ground is the courtyard and the city. D again: unarmed dancers and shut gates is a position, the position of the people inside it. Having a position does not make an account false; it makes it an account.

5. C. “Saved the garrison from destruction” converts a massacre into a rescue in five words; it is the sentence the whole account exists to deliver. A, B, and D are facts and framing the account needs, but the charged verdict word is “saved.” Find the word that does the judging.

6. B. Permission asked and granted, and dancers unarmed: the two details that make the captain's case hardest, and Account B passes over both in silence. A reverses the accounts. Selection is the quietest form of leaning: what a source does not say, when it had every reason to know it, is evidence about the source.

7. B. A defense written by the accused is the best possible record of the defense. For whether the attack was truly planned, it is the weakest of witnesses, since the account exists to be believed. D throws the source away; Quiz 2's rule says never throw a source away, ask what it is good for. For the record: the captain's main commander was away that day, and Bernal Díaz writes that on his return he condemned what had been done. No evidence of the planned rising was ever produced.

8. the lean that comes from where an account stands; who made it, for whom, and why. Both are the lesson in one line each, and the second is the card this series puts under every object. “The same thing as lying” is the confusion that makes students throw away honest, leaning sources, which is nearly all of them.

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