Aguirre Wrath Of God Rhetorical Analysis

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Around the beginning of the 15th century until the end of the 18th century, during the Age of Exploration, Europeans began exploring the world by sea to extend their power in the Americas, Middle East, Africa, and were in search of new trading routes, wealth, knowledge, and later on colonizing to control over the indigenous people of the area. A product of this is conquistadors, who are leaders of Spanish conquests of America and conquered territory mostly in Mexico and Peru. Though conquistadors expedition were successful in extending the Spanish control in the Americas, the process was tedious. The conquistadores, were more interested in searching for gold and the fighting aspect instead of governance, which lead some conquistadors and adventures …show more content…

The natives were shown to be laborers who were used to support the Spanish colonists on their expedition. They were treated with brutality, and were said to be useless and slow. Though the natives were also feared because they surround the rainforest and were cannibals, which the Spanish thought was inhumane and barbaric. Along with the natives human sacrifices. Many of the colonists were on guard with the natives because they feared them, but they clearly saw that the Spanish were …show more content…

Herzog shows this in the film when Aguirre wanted to continue on in the expedition because he was power hungry, wanted gold, land, and had hopes to become like Hernan Cortes, but unlike Aguirre, Pedro de Ursua, the original leader of the expedition wanted to turn back. Resulting in Ursua being killed through hanging, which was shown in the film. Aguirre also mentions in the letter the harshness of nature, saying “we made rafts, left our horses and supplies, and took off down the river at great risk to our persons...God only knows how we escaped from such fearsome lake!” The film shows the the colonist most of the time on the river of the Amazons on rafts built by the natives, and because of this the colonists had to abandon their horses and some of their supplies. There were definite conflict between the men and nature, and the cruelty of human nature of greed and power shown in this film. Aguirre shows his cruel human nature and wrath for power when he states “they tried to kill me, and I hung them all.”From this letter it could be seen that the process of colonization was a dangerous process against

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