Cortes Thesis

When Moctezuma met Cortes did not trust him at first. The reason being is because his looked very sketchy. But the Aztecs said to trust him. So Moctezuma trusted Cortes and passed the thrown down to him. The reason why it happened so fast they said that because there was a tail that said that one day their true leader so that’s what they thought about Cortes, he’s the one. From that point on it was fine until something happened. The Aztecs attacked Moctezuma. During the battle, Moctezuma was killed and at that very moment Cortes became the true leader and took his position. The aztecs lost that battle, they didn’t know how to react. The Aztecs became slaves for Cortes. All slaves were forced into becoming christians. Today, in spain, holds

Convinced of the superiority of Catholicism to all other religions, Spain insisted that the primary goal of colonization was to save the Indians from heathenism and prevent them from falling under the sway of Protestantism. The aim was neither to exterminate nor to remove the Indians, but to transform them into obedient Christian subjects of the crown. To the Spanish colonizers, the large native populations of the Americas were not only souls to be saved but also a labor force to be organized to extract gold and silver that would enrich their mother country. Las Casas’ writings and the abuses they exposed contributed to the spread of the Black Legend-the image of Spain as a uniquely brutal and exploitative colonizer. This would provide of a potent justification for other European powers to challenge Spain’s predominance in the New World.

Hernan (also Hernando or Fernando) Cortes was born in Medellin, Estramadura, in Spain in 1485 to a family of minor nobility.

Before the English ventured to Roanoke Europeans explored and settled the New World. The Spanish were the most successful in settling the New World. They conquered most of Central and South America. Their main objective was to convert all of the Indians to Christianity. “Spain’s claim to posses the Americas was based on discovery, conquest, and settlement, but even more important, it was founded on the sacred enterprise of extending the Catholic faith to (in Spanish eyes) “barbarous” native peoples” (Horn 12).

Slavery, like Portugal, was crucial for Spain. Unlike Portugal Spain used Native Americans as their slaves. (Mainly because of geography) Spain also believed in Encomienda. Which is basically there way of “giving back” to Native Americans, they would teach Native Americans their religious views and in return Native Americans would be forced to work to death. So it would appear that converting people (slaves) to Catholicism was an important reason why they went to the “new world”. Needless to say relations between Spain and the Native Americans spoiled just like the relationship between Portugal and Africans did. A lot of Native Americans believed that Spain gave them nothing. Most if not all of Spain’s economy was based on mining silver and gold and sugar plantations. At the time of this colonization and for the next 200 years Spain is extremely rich.

This shows the Spaniards being cognizant of the Native struggle and being advantageous (Document B). In document E, according to Duarte Barbosa, a Portuguese merchant, The King of Portugal believes that anybody who doesn't believe or obey him will be destroyed and taken over. In 1514, the King of Portugal took over a proud king from the East coast of Africa by force and killed and captured many people. In 1519, Hernan Cortes wrote to King Charles V of Spain saying that he stumbled across a large town filled with innocent women and children and he proceeded to do them harm and treat them like animals and take over the town with the help of God. This lead to the people recognizing the power of God, leaving them hopeless and hostile (Document F). In 1494, Christopher Columbus stumbled upon a new land called Hispania, which is an Island located in present day Haiti and back then, just a land in the New World. Columbus describes to the to the Spanish Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, that this Island is filled with products that can benefit the Spanish such as honey, iron, plains, fields, and land for building houses (Document C). This message presents the ambition that the Spanish had only two years after

For thousands of years mankind has felt an insatiable desire to explore. Many people groups from around the world have discovered and conquered new lands. The Spanish Conquistadors are among these. In the 1500s, there were many compelling incentives luring them to gain control of the Aztec Empire in New Spain (Mexico). What impelled the Conquistadors to conquer the Aztecs was a desire to spread the teachings of the Christian church, to gain wealth allowing them to establish roots in New Spain, and to develop relationships between the Aztecs and the continental Spaniards.

In Age of Expansion, Spain sent conquistadors to take over new land to gain gold, spread the word of God, and bring glory to Spain. During this conquest, the Spaniards acted very rude to the natives of the New World and saw themselves as highly superior. These first travels were led by Cortez, who made it very clear that they were the ones in charge. In an excerpt from document 1, the Spanish tell the Indians that they must “agree to let the Christian priests preach to you” or else the Spanish would take them as slaves or kill them.

Not all of the people who come to the USA get to enjoy having the American dream. For Enrique and Rosa, who escaped from the ruins of the hometown in Guatemala, El Norte meant freedom of hardship. In the movie, Rosa and Enrique were farmers heading towards America, to escape the bad guatemalan government and wanting a better life. National Guatemala became a place of fear of Enrique and Rosa, whose parents were killed by Guatemalan government forces who dominated the state in the 1980s. As part of the Indian population of Guatemala, they were not accepted in their own country.

The 16th century was truly the rise of the west. The Protestant Reformation was sweeping through Europe, changing the ways people worshipped, thought, and communicated. Ideas and inventions were ubiquitous throughout the western world, making Europe the cultural and technological center of the world. Each nation within Europe was in a desperate competition to usurp the other in land and commerce. Therefore, the discovery of the Americas began a race for the commodities of the New World between the European superpowers. Spain quickly saw the potential in the Americas and

By the early seventeenth century, different colonies all over form Spain,England,France,and Netherland were all competing for land and trade like gold and spices around the world.Columbus was an Italian explorer who wanted to speak to their king.He had a planed to take their gold and spices and bring them back to Spain.He searched to find a way to achieve and conquer his goal “Where there a king,there is gold”.Later on in the century people who were searching for land and trade throughout the New world which began the claim to own and colonize their land.Capture of Aztec capital lead the people destruction of the city . It was then and only then that rivals started fighting over land possession and trade routes to collect riches,food and

Ever since humanity could interact with one another, we would gather among ourselves and share stories. As time went on these same stories were passed down from generation to generation, changing the contents of the story ever so slightly. These stories were called legends and folktales. They share a half true story about a hero tackling an obstacle, these stories are typically important because they share a meaning and symbolizes characteristics from a certain culture in which they originate form. In With a Pistol in His Hands, Americo Paredes compares both the legend of Gregorio Cortez and the actual real-life events in order to point out the differences in hope that it would shed light of the injustice that Mexican-Americans endured during this time.

The Europeans eventually came to dominate the land once held by the Native Americans through theft, disease and converting the natives to Christianity. First many times the Europeans had their own best interest in mind when they went to meet the natives. The Europeans such as Cortes had heard stories of gold and wanted to take the gold for themselves. He told the Aztec Chief Montezuma the amazingly ridiculous lie that the Spanish had “a strange disease of the heart for which the only known remedy is gold” (Kennedy and Cohen) Worse yet for the Aztecs who believed the Spanish conquistadors were the god Quetzalcoatl and thus allowed entry into the city. This gave up the intelligence of what the city had; it gave the Spanish the knowledge of how to defeat the city. Shortly later Cortes conquered the Aztec capital. However, Cortez was far from the only European who was attempting to take advantage of the wealthy natural resources of the new world. Juan Ponce De Leon searched for gold in Florida. Francisco Coronado explored the southern plains in his search for gold abusing Native Americans along the way by placing iron collars on them and harassed his captives with vicious dogs. Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incan empire in Peru and took a huge load of silver for Spain. Later the silver taken from the mines in Bolivia and Mexico resulted in a silver price revolution in Europe. The Europeans also captured natives and

During the Inquisition, hundreds of thousands of Jews and Muslims were either converted to Catholicism by force, tortured, or killed. These massive groups of people were conquered and controlled by Spain. This fact gave the monarchs the idea that if they could convert these people to their religion, maybe they could discover other societies and convert their people. The Spanish went on to conquer the Incas and the Aztecs in the 1500s, two South American peoples (Herbut). Although no one can say whether or not these events would have happened even if the Inquisition did not, the Inquisition certainly inspired the Spanish to set out exploring and to conquer new territories. Exploration and expanding their empire made Spain a more prominent and stronger global power. Spain was also able to gain knowledge and insight from visiting these empires. The conquered civilizations, the Aztecs and Incas, used a form of government that combined religion and politics. In their government, there was no main leader of all citizens. Instead, missionaries from various cultures were granted control over areas of land which are now known as parts of Mexico and the American Southwest (Spanish Colonization). Even though the original reason to come to these areas was to convert both societies to Catholicism, Spain ended up benefiting from learning this style of government and they were able to use it to their own political benefits

                          In 1511 I served as a soldier in an expedition of Cuba which was ordered by Diego  Velazquez.I ignored his orders and decided to travel to Mexico instead,I brought 500 men and 11 ships with me in 1519.I first arrived in Cozumel, and began to explore the land for colonization.