Spain And Its Effects On The Colonization Of Spain

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.

In 1490 there was no such country as spain, yet within a century it had become the most powerful nation in europe and within another century had sunk to the status of a third rate power. Describe and analyze the major social economic and political reasons for spains rise and fall.

Although the Spanish and the British started colonizing the new world relatively at the same time their colonization efforts we’re extremely different but had some overlapping similarities. The differences include the two nations different reasoning to explore the New World, their relationship with the Natives, and it types of governments that they attempted to set up. Although some of these differences might not seem as if they are very important, they helped one nation do you better than the other one when it came to colonization efforts.

The Spanish, French, and English all established major settlements in North America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In each colony, settlement revolved around different types of trade: plantations and mining in New Spain, the fur trade in New France, and tobacco and the family farm in British North America. There were many similarities among these countries’ approaches to settling, but also enormous differences.

From the mid 1500’s to the 1700’s, people from all over Europe flocked to the vast lands of North America. Spain and England quickly became the most dominant European presences in the Americas. Citizens of the two countries had very different experiences in the New World. This was partially due to their different interactions with Native Americans, religions and their different motivations for coming to the New World. Although rivals at the time, Spain and England’s colonization efforts shared many similarities.

During the 15th century, many considered Spain insignificant. However, within a century it became a world-dominant power in Europe. Although Spain only took a brief time to rise, it was also short-lived. The rise of Spain was due to its flourishing culture, stable political system and successful voyages to the New World. On the other hand, its decline was due to religious control, resistance from other countries and inflation.

1). The Nations of Europe sought to expand their empire because they were on the verge of overpopulation.Between 1550 and 1600 the population grew from three million to four million people. Also, England and Spain were at a war for power. The Spanish attempts at colonizing the New World had been extremely successful, for they had gained both wealth and power. The English did not see such success, as their ships would crash, be lost to the seas, or their colonization efforts would cease to be useful. Through the Spaniards control over the Americas they had gained a massive naval army, noted as the Spanish Armada. The Spanish attempt to invade England in 1588 failed which lead to the beginning of the fall of the Spanish empire in the New World.

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.

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

Britain and Spain shared similar motivations for colonization, but their colonies were vastly different in many aspects due to differences in their own government and policies. Both countries created colonies to increase their wealth and expand their economies, but religious freedom played a factor in British colonization. The fundamental differences between the two countries led to a difference in the way the colonies of each country interacted with its government. The relationship of British and Spanish colonists with Native Americans also reflected the differences in the motives and the government of Britain and Spain.

As a small island country with a strong sense of superiority to natives, Britain focused more on establishing permanent settlements for its booming population rather than religious conversion of natives or diplomacy in its colonization of the New World. This bled into the American ideals of western expansion and disregard for those who stand in their way.

The Spanish Conquest impacted the Aztec society’s beliefs and way of life. The Aztec empire was a wealthy and a well-organized society. It was an empire that people from Europe had never seen before. There are many mixed feelings about the impact of the Spaniards in the new world. Some experts view it as negative and others believed there were many positive results of this conquest. Regardless if we agree whether the conquest was positive or negative, there is no doubt that the Spanish conquest was the beginning of the end for the Aztec empire. An empire that had their own set of beliefs filled with exotic mythology and legends.

Cortés came not to the New World to conquer by force, but by manipulation. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, in the "Conquest of New Spain," describes how Cortés and his soldiers manipulated the Aztec people and their king Montezuma from the time they traveled from Iztapalaopa to the time when Montezuma took Cortés to the top of the great Cue and showed him the whole of Mexico and its countryside, and the three causeways which led into Mexico. Castillo's purpose for recording the mission was to keep an account of the wealth of Montezuma and Mexico, the traditions, and the economic potential that could benefit Cortés' upcoming conquest. However, through these recordings, we are able to see and understand Cortés'

Victors and Vanquished, through excerpts of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, and indigenous testimonies from the Florentine Codex, shows the exchange of religious ideas between the Spanish and Nahuatl religions. During the Spanish conquest and exploration of Mesoamerica, religion became a focal point in Spanish observations of Nahuatl religions. Influenced by European biases and a colonial mindset, the Spanish criticized indigenous religion by condemning their practices and idols. Natives, on the other hand, hybridized elements of Christianity into their respective indigenous religions.

Between the years of 1535 and 1547, some sixty-six Spanish ships were captured by French corsairs (Lane 19). Shortly after in the 1550’s, the Spanish came to regret their passive defense strategy when French corsairs made their most punishing raids ever on the Spanish West Indies. They descended on colonies like Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba, and caused heavy destruction that they never really recovered from. Finally in the early 1560’s, Spain was forced to react with expensive long-term defenses. Since the Spanish waited so long to do so they not only lost wealth because of what was captured, but now they also had to spend money to protect what was left.