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Conquest and colonization of the Americas
Spanish conquest of the Americas
Spanish colonization of Latin America
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During the 16th century, Bartholomew De Las Cases was a spaniard thats writings were written intended to pressure the Spanish government to improve the treatment of the Amerindians. Amerindians were native people of the new world and many were slaughtered and forced to be slaves by conquistadors. For example, Hernan Cortes. Not all of the explorers were that cruel to the natives but, the people who were had received many complaints from some of the travelers as well as from the natives.
Bartholomew de las Cases also known as, the protector of the Indians was a religious man born in Seville, Spain, in 1474. In 1502 he went to Cuba, and for his military services there was given an Encomienda which is a grant by the Spanish Crown to a colonist
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Aztecs were located in mexico, the king specifically mentioned in this account was King Montezuma, the last ruler of the Aztec empire before the spanish took over. He was a well respected warrior and leader, during the 16th century. Hernan Cortez was the spanish conquistador that came to the Aztec’s empire. When Cortes arrived to mexico in 1518 it was the beginning of the end of the Aztec empire. Hernan was a liar, the first thing he said to montezuma was that he (Montezuma) had nothing to fear and they wanted to be friends. Cortes ended up taking advantage of the friendliness and hospitality of the Indians. The spanish’s method of taking over was to provoke fear within the Indians so they would listen to everything they ordered. To do so “the Spaniard fired one of their cannons” This confused the indians because they thought the spanish were supposed to be friendly so the indians panicked and “were all overcome by terror.” Whenever a Spaniard asked for something Montezuma would deliver, this made his people angry and they lost respect for their great leader. The Spanish raided the Aztec empire of all their gold and valuables, even the kings stash. From what only they thought was beautiful. Whatever they didn’t want was destroyed or burned. They were greedy and cruel people that wanted all of the gold they could get. After robbing the empire of all of its stored gold he forced slaves to find him more. Fear is what made the Indians obey Cortes and his
The source of the first passage that I read was History of the Indies written by Bartolome de Las Casas written in 1528. Bartolome was a 16th century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar/priest, who condemned the treatment of Indians in the Spanish empire. Bartolome widely disseminated History of the Indies and helped to establish the Black Legend of Spanish cruelty (Give Me Liberty, 28). The source of the second passage that I read was the “Declaration of Josephe” which was created by Josephe on December 19, 1681, and Josephe was a Spanish-speaking Indian questioned by a royal attorney in Mexico City investigating the Pueblo Revolt, which is the revolt of the indian population, in 1680, which temporarily drove Spanish settlers out of present day New Mexico
In 1518 Hernán Cortés took command of an expedition to secure the interior of Mexico in the name of the Spanish Crown. In the letters he detailed his expedition and the land and peoples they conquered and encountered. The first letter, dated 1519, is a problematic document as it is written in the third person and was most likely not actually wire by cortez. The second and third letters are much more reliable and were published in Seville in 1522 and 1523 respectively. The culture, geography, economy and other details of the Aztec civilization, as well as Cortés and his forces’ interaction with them, are detailed in his letters which are addressed to the monarch of the sponsor of his force, Spain. In his letters Cortés also gave justification and explanation of the actions he took in Mexico.
Native American civilization was not always a pit of terror and agonizing torture for every single being. The Spanish arrived in Hispaniola, during the early 1500, with the seemingly good intention of introducing to the indigenous the Christian faith. Unfortunately, their mission turned into an almost complete annihilation of a culture unlike their own. Bartolome de la Casas, depicts a graphic and ultimately disturbing castings of the happenings during their expedition. The Spanish Christians involved in these happenings can be seen as hypocritical, heartless, and close minded. Although, in the minds of these men, they were completing their God assigned duties, such as
Spain, as one of the most powerful nations in the old world, had a great influence on many events in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Spanish also had an influence on many other empires/nations' fate. One of the empires that suffered a grave fate at the hands of the Spanish was the Aztec empire. The Aztec empire was not the oldest Mesoamerican empire and it was formed from an agreement between three city-states. The Aztec's class system had the emperor on top, then the priests, and everyone else below them. The priests were responsible for keeping the gods happy. The sacrifice of goods and people was a commonplace in the Aztec culture, and it was often the goods/people of other nations that were taken for sacrifices. As one can imagine,
Bartolome de las casas: “In Defense of the Indians”(c.1550). Bartolome de Las Casas describes the treatment of Native Americans during the early settlement of the first thirteen colonies. Bartolome de las casas was a spanish historian, who in the 16th century was given the title of Protector of the Indians and sat at the Council of the Indies.Bartolome de las casas had the “intent to reveal to Spain that...its colonial rule would lead to… punishment at God 's hand” (LUNENFELD 6)This text was created to bring to light the hardship Natives went through during the Age of Exploration. Natives were badly hurt by the inflow of Europeans, and due to this faced many hardships such as disease, war, and disrupt to their way of life.In other words their
The discovery and conquest of American Indians inspired efforts to develop an ideology that could justify why they needed to enslave the Indians. The Spanish monarch wanted an ideal empire. "A universal empire, of which all their subjects were but servants. Charles V remained for them the dominus mundi, the legitimate and God-ordained lord of the world." (Weckmann, The Transit of Civilization, 23) Gold and religious conversion was the two most important inspirations for conquistadors in conquering America. Father Bartolome De Las Casas was a Dominican priest who came to the New World to convert the Indians to become Christians. He spent forty years on Hispanolia and nearby islands, and saw how the Spaniards brutally treated the Indians and sympathized with them. The Devastation of the Indies was an actual eyewitness account of the genocide by Las Casas, and his group of Dominican friars in which he demonizes the Spanish colonists and praises the Indians. Father Las Casas returned to Seville, where he published his book that caused an on going debate on whether the suppression of the Indians corrupted the Spaniards' values. What Las Casas was trying to achieve was the notion of human rights, that human beings are free and cogent by nature without the interference of others.
At first, it seemed like the Spanish had total control of the city, but trouble soon broke out. In May 1520, Cortes briefly left the city. Ignorantly, his men, for some odd reason, attacked the Aztec. "Those Idiots!" I bet Cortes would have exclaimed as he came back to find his men being besieged in Moctezuma's palace. Cortes, being quite the intelligent thinker, thought that calming them would be the best way out of the situation.
He noted in his “History of the Indies” the he “went about his concerns like the others, sending his share of Indians to work fields and gold mines, taking advantage of them as much as he could” (Baym Ed. 39), which caused him great grief and guilt. He went as far as to suggest that African slaves be sent to Hispaniola to compensate for his error. After very little thought he concluded that this would be a bad idea, because he would be treating the Africans no different than he had the Indians. This is where his fight begins. In his text “The Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies” he goes into great detail about the horrible treatment that the Indian’s received from the colonists. He starts out the text with “This was the first land in the New World to be destroyed and depopulated by the Christians, and here they began their subjection of the women and children, taking them away from the Indians to use them and ill use them” (Baym Ed. 40). This is just the beginning of the descriptive memories of Las Casas. The reader cannot read this without feeling absolutely repulsed at these colonists. Learning that they were not great peacemakers but horrible devils opens the eyes of those who were once ignorant. Las Casas continued his studies until he became a priest in the meantime. According to David Orique, who wrote Bartolome De Las Casas, a Brief Outline of His Life and Labor, “Friar Anton Montesino delivered the first speech on behalf of the Indians”. “Along with Dominican confreres he denounced as a mortal sin the encomienda system of forced labor” (Orique). Las Casas continued to observe and take notes of the horrendous dealings with the Indians. Eventually this lead him to denounce any ownership of Indians or businesses associated with them. Here is where he chose to take a stand. He began to
The Aztec Empire was the most powerful Mesoamerican kingdom of all time. They dominated the valley of Mexico in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Aztecs were an advanced and successful civilization that built beautiful, sophisticated cities, temples, and pyramids. They also created a culture full of creativity with mythological and religious traditions. Aztecs lead a structured and evocative life that let their society to become a very superior civilization. The Aztec’s communication skills were very well developed for their time; through religious beliefs, government involvement, and family life they lived a full and productive life. Until in 1519 when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico, and defeated the Aztecs.
Las Casas emphasizes on three main issues throughout his account. First, in almost each chapter, Las Casas writes about the luscious qualities of the land and the different indigenous peoples that inhabit them. Second, he explains and describes in detail how the natives were rapidly being massacred by the invading Christian Europeans. Finally, Las Casas discusses how God had brought justice to the Europeans for their diabolical acts upon the natives. Las Casas, a former slave owner himself, realized that those whom he previously enslaved were just as much human and capable of learning and practicing the Christian faith as he was. As a bishop, he realized he could do little for the Natives except document his experiences (in as much detail as possible) and hope that the royal administration would have sympathy for the Natives and establish laws to protect them from the Europeans.
When the Spaniards arrived on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico in 1519, they encountered the advanced society of the Aztecs. With Tenochititlan at its capital, the Aztec empire was vast. The Aztecs had substantial wealth from trading and extensive payments of tribute from conquered peoples. Bernal Diaz in his The Conquest of New Spain comments, "We were dazzled at the richness of the country that we passed through" (282). The Spaniards encountered a powerful, advanced people in the New World, making Cortes and his crew of approximately 600 seemingly ensured of defeat. The Aztec religion lends much to Spanish success in conquest.
Cabeza de Vaca, like many other Spaniards, wanted to seek fortune in the new world, but things did not go as planned, and he eventually lost everything. Although he came to conquer in the name of Spain, he ended up living amongst the Native Americans in need for survival and became very close to them. Although originally the Spaniards were very narrow minded and believed the Indians were uncivilized and barbaric, Cabeza de Vaca shortly found out that they were not uncivilized, but quite the opposite. He saw that they were just as human as the Spaniards were and were no less than they were. His perception of humanity altered as a result of living with “the others.”
Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish explorer, was raised with a strict colonial mindset, due to his service in the Spanish army at a young age. Thus, he joined the Conquest of Mexico, leaving his homeland of Spain with five ships to obtain gold and territory, similar to a vast amount of other explorers in this era. This expedition played a huge role in de Vaca’s life, hence foreshadowing the transformation of his views on many circumstances that were yet to come, one being the Native Americans.
The Aztecs came from Azatlan which is the mythical place of origin(Aztecs of Lost Civilization). Huizilopochtli, the god of war, told the Aztecs to leave Azatlan and wander until they saw an eagle perched on a cactus growing out of a rock and eating a snake(Los Aztecas). The Aztecs traveled many years to find the legend and finally found it while at Lake Texcoco. Lake Texcoco was ruled by the Toltecs between the 10th and 11th centuries(Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia). Since many other tribes also migrated to Lake Texcoco at the same time, the Aztecs were pushed out to the westside of the lake to a swampy area. The only piece of dry land they had was a little island surrounded by marshes. Over a long period of time they built their empire with chinapas. Chinapas were formed by piling up mud from the lake bottom to make little islands(Aztec Empire History). Tenochtitlan (currently Mexico City), which means "Place of the Cactus", became the capital in 1325 and soon there came many islands in which bridges were built to connect the mainland (Los Aztecas). They also dug canals and constructed aqueducts. There were many religious structures, and they built temples and pyramids. By 1502 the Aztec Empire expanded from Guatemala to San Luis Potosi which is in Central and Southern Mexico and extended 800 miles along a northwest-southeast axis. The Aztecs conquered many cities and all became part of the empire which was wedged between high mountains and surrounded by lakes(Aztecs of Lost Civilization/ Azetc Empire History).
The history of the Western hemisphere is full of war and conquest. One of the most significant and defining of those conquests is the downfall of the Mexica/Aztec Empire. While there are many other events to choose from, this one stands out since it was one over one of the largest empires in Central America. It is also important to look at because of the immense cultural impact it had. The story of this takeover reads like a movie script, a small band of Spaniards single handedly takes down the most powerful empire in Central America. It was an epic battle, which unfortunately led to the destruction of a magnificent culture. As in any major historical event there are many underlying themes and storylines that come together to make the event happen. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec is no different. Three major themes are seen in this struggle. One of them is the incredible advantage that the Spaniards technology gave them over the Aztecs. A second major theme is the greed that fueled the conquests in the New World. The last major theme was the effect of the political divisions and rivalries within Montezuma’s Central American Kingdom. As this historical event progressed each one of these themes began to intertwine until they became an almost unstoppable force.