Spanish Conquest Of The Americas

labor. Eventually, this had lead to Spain’s failure and resulted in a time of "rapid inflation

Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2003

Conquest is an extremely violent thought, to subjugate and assume control of a group of people and their land with military force. It’s hard to imagine a large following, much less countries, that support imposing brute force onto strangers. Given that conquest is violent, why did Europeans conquer the Americas as they did? The Europeans followed the belief of Christianity, which forbids such massacres and hate, how could they have conquered and killed? Many, like Jared Diamond, promote the idea that it was pure geographical luck which granted Europe easier diffusion of knowledge; metal weapons and political organization which were more advanced. However, this idea becomes problematic because it assumes that no matter the inhabitants of the more fortunate land, conquest would have happened because of predetermined facts like geography. With this argument, one could say Natives would have conquered Europeans or that they would have been able to defend from their conquest if they had the same or better geographical luck. I believe that geographic luck is not enough to enable the conquest of the Americas. I want to argue that the major reasons behind the European conquest of the Americas were largely in their motivation to gain riches to boost their economy and the justification of their conquest by disguising themselves as saviors to the Native Americans.

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.

For decades, the history of Latin America has been shrouded in a cover of Spanish glory and myth that misleads and complicates the views of historians everywhere. Myths such as the relationship between natives and conquistadors, and the individuality of the conquistadors themselves stand as only a few examples of how this history may have become broken and distorted. However, in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest Matthew Restall goes to great lengths to dispel these myths and provide a more accurate history of Latin American, in a readable and enjoyable book.

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.

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.

The Conquest of Mexico and the conversion of the peoples of New Spain can and should be included among the histories of the world, not only because it was well done but because it was very great. . . . Long live, then, the name and memory of him [Cortés] who conquered so vast a land, converted such a multitude of men, cast down so many men, cast down so many men, cast down so many idols, and put an end to so much sacrifice and the eating of human flesh! —Francisco López de Gómara (1552)

One of things that was brought to Mexico during the Colombian Exchange, although unintentonally, was disease. The Spanish brought diseases such as smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, and mumps. These were diseases that the natives had not been exposed to, so they had no immunity to them. Even though the Spanish did have much more advanced weaponry than the natives, it was the diseases that wiped out most of the native population. It is believed that within a century of the arrival of the Spanish, the population of the Aztecs decreased by 80-95%, going from 12.5M to roughly about 1.5M in population (History of Disease). The Spanish shared the same fate, but not as severe, many died from syphillis. A disease that was much more dangerous during that time than it is today. (Columbian Exchange)

Religious beliefs are one of the key factors that have shaped our world society today. The Spanish religious conquest was one of the first early history examples that played a big role in America. As soon as the Spanish landed in New Spain it changed the Native Mexican culture. The consequence of the spiritual conquest was the loss of the native people beliefs, buildings, and customs. However, the Native Mexicans did not respond well to the conquest, it caused them to rebelling against the Spanish, but with time they started to accept the Spanish ways.

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.

Because the Indians and Spanish lived in different areas in Latin America, the Indian culture and society did not change significantly. Or did there society change?

1. Three arguments’ that Juan Gines de Sepulveda used to justify enslaving the Native Americans were for gold, ore deposits, and for God’s sake and man’s faith in him. 2. Three arguments that Bartolome de las Casas gave in attacking Spanish clonial policies in the New World were the Indians eating human flesh, worshiping false gods, and also, he believed that the Indians were cowardly and timid. 3. For comparisons that Sepulveda used, in lines 1-7, to express the inferiority of the Indians was their prudence, skill virtues, and humanity were inferior to the Spanish as children to adults, or even apes to men. Comparisons he used to dismiss the significance of the Indians