Reading Primary Sources: A Beginning List of Questions and Issues

1. How did the document come about? To whom was it addresed? Who was the author? In what social position?

2. What was the author's purpose? What was his/her intended meaning?

3. What were the particular and broader historical contexts in existence that may have influenced the writing of the document?

4. What are the limitations of the source? For example, so many historical documents express the thoughts and actions of the dominant, the victors, "the winners," as opposed to the subordinate, the losers, the poor and humble.  The documents on Cortez and the Aztec empire that we have in Lim tell us nothing about the ferocious resistance of the Aztec, Cortez's recruitment of Amerindian allies, and the great, bloody battle that eventually brought a "Spanish" victory and the Aztec defeat.

5. What is the historical significance of the evidence in the document? Important consequences? Implications? Connections with other developments?