2.1 New Spain Colonization And Conversion

There were initially two to ten million natives in the United States prior to European contact. Those numbers dwindled down drastically in the years that Europeans came and started colonizing. The Europeans came to explore the New World in search of land, spices, gold, God and glory. Among these colonists were the Spanish and they colonized most of the southwest of the United States. Evidence of their settlements can still be seen today in the missions scattered across the land. These missions were started with the purpose of converting the Native Americans to Christianity. Now, imagine living your entire life with a particular set of beliefs, based on your ancestors and culture, and a group of foreigners come and proclaim that your views are all wrong and that you must follow their beliefs for the salvation of your soul. This is exactly what the Spanish did to the Natives. The relationship between the two parties were strained and rife with tension due to the conversion of the natives and the constant abuse doled out by the Spanish. This subsequently led to the disintegration of native life and culture.

The Spanish conquistadores were arrogant and sent ravage upon the indigenous peoples. The Spanish were arrogant towards the indigenous peoples by taking their gold and keeping it for themselves instead of returning it to the Spanish royalty. De las Casas had a exceptionally, incredible description of them, the

Any student of history has come to recognize the fact that history is written by the victor and in lieu of this, research becomes essential to uncover where the truth lies. The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, so ironically named, is a personal account for historical events leading up to the conquest of New Spain, formerly known as the City of Mexico. The author, Bernal Diaz, was a soldier of the conquering army who composed the document well after the events took place sometime between 1552 and 1557. Though the document did provide insight in regards to the victor’s perspective, it also served as a tool to rewrite the account of the conquered people.

Throughout the 17th century, many European countries sent explorers and settlers to America. The two most eminent countries that colonized area of America were Spain and Great Britain. Britain began to establish colonies in the northeast; in the area they called New England. The Spanish interest lied in the southwest. Living in two unassociated areas caused the Spanish settlements and the New England colonies to be quite unlike each other. When faced with the task of finding similarities between the two, not much can be found. It is the differences that stand out when studying the English and Spanish, from religion to politics to ideals.

The Spanish came to the New World with the idea that they were going to practically enslave, convert, or kill the natives. Because of this the Spanish’s treatment for the natives was terrible and very early on. They would use natives to help them find gold and do other manual labor activities. The missionaries would attempt to convert them to Christianity and because a lot would not comply they would end up killing them. Early on the British settlers’ relationship with the native Americans is very different. At first, they were friendly. The first British settlers in a way to live on the Native Americans. North America them was very different from Great Britain, and the Native Americans had lived there for very long time. So, the British settlers took advantage of that and began to trade with the Native Americans and use them in order to help their new settlement survive. Although the Spanish and British relationship with the natives differed at first eventually they both ended up doing the same exact thing. They both killed the Native Americans and cause their societies to be displaced. Even though there and goals were different they both used the exploitation of Native Americans in order to achieve these goals.

Many Christian missionaries tried to force Native American people to abandon traditional religious beliefs and practices (Mayo, 33). Christian missionaries would sometimes launch attacks on Native American religious institutions when forcing them to convert to Christianity did not work. These harmful attacks destroyed not only their temples and religious artifacts, but also a huge part of their culture.

I am writing to you today in hopes of expanding Spain’s influence into the American territory of Mexico and Florida. I would like to sail to these new lands in hopes of finding resources such as: Cotton, Silk, Spices, Vegetables, Tobacco, Gold, Sugar, the list could go on and on. I know we will find these resources in these lands because of the Columbian Exchange which was created by fellow explorer Christopher Columbus. Exploring these new lands could strengthen Spain’s ties with the American colonies and could possibly be allies in trade and in war. We may face hardships like unpredictable weather and lack of territorial knowledge but I am prepared to take necessary precautions so that everything will go smoothly. This will also give Spain

In Victors and the Vanquished, Schwartz poses the question of “How can we evaluate conflicting sources” (ix)? Through reading historical events such as the “Conquest of New Spain” there is an undeniably large amount of destruction of cultural material and bias testimonies of events recorded several years after they occurred. After analyzing the Spanish Conquest of Mesoamerica there is a debatable amount of evidence from the Mesoamericans and Spanish explanations of this event in history. The intentions of each explanation created a conflict to historians, art historians and anthropologists on which viewpoint holds to accuracy. There is also the issue of not only inaccuracies, but the motives behind each bias account. As many of these aspects are taken into consideration, interpreting each justification between both sides of history in Mesoamerica as a clash of ethnocentrism between two different cultures that causes an uncertainty of what actually happened in history.

The role of the Roman Catholic Church in Spain’s conquest and colonization of continental America was a two-fold process whereby under the façade of conversion and control lay the primary goal of gaining wealth, enforcing laws and the inevitable extension of control while condoning the beginnings of European slavery in the Caribbean.[i]

Europeans attempted to forcefully assimilate the native Americans to Christianity. Spanish missionaries preached the words of God to the Native Peoples who listened out of fear.(Doc.2A) The Europeans viewed them as a barbarous people without the knowledge of God refusing to acknowledge their religions.(Doc.4B)Partly due to the fact the Natives were not Christian the Europeans felt justified in enslaving them.

It inspired people to speak out against the religious government on aspects they did not believe in.

Both of the colonies wanted religious conversions from the Native Americans. The Spanish colonist were very forceful with converting Native Americans to Christianity. Spanish conquerors, called conquistadors, travelled with the armed Spanish Military as well as Roman Catholic Dominican or Franciscan Friars to force religious conversion to any Native American village in the newly claimed Spanish colony. In the New England colonies, leaders of Wampanoag tribes were forced to sign their land over to the English at gunpoint. In addition, select Native American villages were turned into “Praying Towns”, in which the English would convert all of the Native Americans into the Puritan religion and force the Native Americans to give up all of the native traditions. These differences occurred because of the strong beliefs of the colonist. In both the Spanish and English colonies, the colonist believed that their religion was the correct religion, whether that be Catholic in the Spanish colonies or Puritan in the New England Colonies. However, one way that the Spanish and New England colonies varied in their treatment of the Native Americans was the use, or lack of use, of forced labor in the colonies. The Spanish colonies thrived off of the use of Native American labor through the Encomienda system. The Encomienda system granted the forced labor of Native Americans to the owner of the land in the colony. Through this system, the Spanish colonies were able to thrive, however it was deadly to the Native American population. For Native Americans who resisted the Encomienda system, they were killed and in some cases, to the near extinction of a tribe. Noteable, the Indigenous Taino People rebelled against the Spanish and succeeded a peace treaty, however lost ninety percent of their tribe. Meanwhile, the New England colonies hardly used forced labor from the Native

Spain and Portugal spreading Catholicism among the native people was the excuse that the pope used to justified colonization.

The Spanish and English colonies were extremely similar, nearly identical even, in that each gave little respect to the religious origins and customary living of the Native Americans. The Spanish colonists were the first to arrive in the New World in the late 1400s, and, upon arrival, launched cultural attacks on the Native Americans. Spanish friars began stripping indigenous people of their native religion and forcing European practices onto the masses. The Reconquista of Spain from the Moors fabricated a very close relationship between the Roman Catholic church and Spanish authorities. Because the church now held so much power in Spain, Catholic leaders were able to send friars along on the government funded expeditions to the New World. The church

Christopher Columbus found out the Indians cared about others more than themselves and welcomed them quite openly after they got over the fear of the incoming ships. He quickly learned the Native Americans had no form of