Spain’s original goal was to come to Latin America to create wealth and spread
Christianity to the people. What happened instead was 350 years of Spanish rule that resulted in social, political, and economic changes for the native people. The changes were both negative and positive. Colonization helped the countries become unified under one language and religion. However, Spanish colonization had a negative impact by creating more poverty and discrimination toward the native people. The native people faced discrimination and inequality that caused an increase in poverty and an income gap that still exists today. How can the gap between the rich and the poor be closed?
The majority of Spanish people who settled in Latin America were looking for a way to increase their wealth. They saw the native people as a source of labor they could use to complete tasks. If the natives refused they would have the conquistadors force them. The
Spanish thought they were helping the native people by teaching them Spanish language and the Catholic religion. In reality, the Spanish saw the native people not as good as them and treated like slaves. The Spanish did not see them as equals and took away their human rights.
As the Spanish began to settle in Latin America, they brought with them diseases that began to kill of the native people. Diseases such as small pox and typhus caused a decline in the native population. The diseases reduced the native population by almost 70 percent. As a result, the Spanish lost a great deal of their labor force. The Spanish looked for another way to get their work done. The solution they found was to import slaves from Africa to replace the work being done by the natives. The Africa slaves were used mostly in the sugar plantations and in Fitzgerald 2 the mines. The addition of the African people changed the social hierarchy and a new mix of races and classes to Latin America.
The creation of interracial groups created a social hierarchy known as castes. At the top of the hierarchy were the Spanish people who were born in Spain. The next class was the
Spanish people born in Latin America. The next level of the hierarchy was the people who were half Spanish and half native. The next level of the
Those creoles pushing towards revolution to free themselves from Spanish rule felt that the Spanish crown was only abusing, discriminating and holding them back form growing economically. The elite felt they were not part of a revolution seeing themselves only as people who were All those part of the social context of Latin America, felt differently within Indians, on side of the Spanish King, though great abuse fell through. "Nonetheless, the Indians of New Spain (and elsewhere) enjoyed a set of legal privileges, exemptions, and protection which significantly interferes with their complete integration into colonial society, and kept them in a legal bubble of tutelage ruptured only with the advent of independent Mexican nationhood in the third decade of the nineteenth century (Van Young, 154). The point here is that where these and other legal and administrative remedies were applied in favor of the Indians of colonial New Spain, they were applied in the kings' name. Furthermore, religious and civic ritual of all kinds constantly stressed the centrality of the Spanish king to the colonial commonwealth, and his benevolence and fatherly concern with the welfare of his weakest subjects (Van Young 155). "Situated as they were between the Spaniards and the masses. The creoles wanted more than equality for themselves and less than equality for their inferiors" (Lynch, 44). The creoles discriminated against those in lower classes than themselves.
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.
criollos, and mestizos (a mix between Spanish and Indians) went past their ethnic differences and
Conquered, Controlled, Creoles. The Creoles had been born in America but had "pure" Spanish blood. They are on top of the social pyramid. During the 19th century they had wanted to gain power and fight for Independence, all over the South American region, the Caribbean and Central America. The Creoles had led the fight for independence because they wanted more economic power, to keep lower classes down socially, and they had struggled politically.
The diseases the Europeans brought with them affected the indigenous negatively because it killed a large portion of the population in a painful way. The Natives had very little diseases before the Europeans invaded their land. Unlike people in the Old World, the Natives did not farm cattle or pigs and did not live near the animals they did have. They never had the opportunity to develop immunities to diseases that the cattle and Europeans carried when they came upon their shores. The diseases spread quickly and attacked the indigenous in gruesome ways. Smallpox caused sores to erupt on their skins that were so painful that an Aztec account states that “[the sick] could only lie on their beds like corpses” (Document 4). The pain would not
They didn’t want to be anything like the Spaniards because they held a massive hatred towards them. This was do to the fact that they had been treated so terribly by the
Once people started to realize there was a lot of work to be done in America, they purchased the African people to use
As a mix of diverse people gave rise to a new social structure and introduced a cultural blending in the Spanish empire, located in Latin America, eventually a growing population of lower-classed non-white people became angered at the privileges of the whites. Being denied the status, wealth and power that were given to whites, the mestizos and the mulattoes resented the Spanish. Masses of enslaved Africans and the many populations that were looked down upon suffered economic misery and longed for freedom, eventually leading revolutions across Latin America. Those revolted were motivated by love for one’s race and freedom, like what Father Miguel Hidalgo says in Document A of the Latin American DBQ, “we are not Europeans; we are not Indians;
The Spanish were motivated to conquer the new world by riches that would ultimately lead to power. Men like de Soto led men that were greedy and were
Catholicism remains the principal colonial heritage of Spain in America. More than any set of economic relationships [. . .] more even than the language[. . .] the Catholic religion continues to permeate Spanish-American culture today, creating an overriding cultural unity which transcends the political and national boundaries dividing the continent. (Van
The greed for gold and the race for El Dorado were the main inducements of the Spaniards who, at the peril of their lives, crossed the ocean in unfit vessels in a mad pursuit after the gold and all other precious property of the Indians” (Peace 479). The royal rulers of Spain made it a rule that nothing would jeopardize their ability to rob the land from the native people of Latin America. The missionary process, “had to be encouraged, but the missionaries could not be permitted to dominate the colony at the cost of royal rule” (Gibson 76). The European governments established missionaries to cleanse their minds of any guilt aroused by the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children. When European “ships arrived in the 16th century to colonize the land and exploit its natural resources, they killed indigenous people and brought black slaves from Africa. Millions of indigenous people were slain and their cultures completely destroyed by the process of colonization” (Ribero). The overall devastations caused by the Christianization of the native inhabitants created a blend of cultures within the indigenous civilizations which gradually isolated old native ways into a small population of oppressed people. The Christianized people became a symbol of loyalty to the European powers and were left alone simply on their religious status. This long term mission of total religious replacement caused very strong and advanced
The Spanish have been exposed to various diseases within Europe and thus buit an immunity to it, but the Amerindians were never exposed to these diseases causing millions of the Amerindians to die while the Spaniards were fine.
The Spanish colonizers had a huge influence on the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Peru’s, culture, language, traditions, religion, even on their native food. One can say that this came into being shortly after Columbus discovered the New World. The Spanish conquistadors, who sailed with Columbus to the New World, were the first to leave their mark on the new territory. We still see some of these traditions in today’s society. The Spanish taught the Indians of their oral traditions of legends and jokes, music, food, beliefs, and customs. The Indians even picked up on their native tongue, Spanish, and used it as their own and still do to this day. There are many things in the Mexican culture which have contributed to the shaping and molding of the modern Latino society, such as the Mexican history, culture, language, religion, and traditions.
Europeans were the initiators of the collision of cultures in the "New World," and initial contact ended poorly for the most part (Shultz, 2014). According to Kevin Shultz (2014), the Spanish was the first to settle early colonization in North America. Unfortunately, contact with the Spanish reduced the population by twenty percent in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries due to exposure to diseases. Shultz (2014) also states that the native people were abused brutally by the Spanish. The Spanish forced the natives into slavery to mine for gold. The Spanish's dealings with the native people in the native lands seem to have been cruel and full of devastation.
The Colonial expansion was the name of the movement, They incited this to spread the belief of the catholic faith. During this time, it was said that over 16 million Spaniards emigrated to Latin America. There were several hardships that they may have faced along the way. Hunger and disease were obvious problems of this time, but it also could've been difficult to learn the environment along with the language that comes with it. If I was in their shoes, I would've stockpiled salt and meat, then I would've gotten a translator.