Aim: Did the Spanish colonization of the Americas have a more positive or negative impact?

Period 4: 1450 – 1750

Do Now: You and your brother or sister share a room. You get into a fight and draw a line down the middle of the room; each of you get exactly one half. Will this solution work?

I Treaty of TordesillasA) After Columbus’s “discovery” of the New World, European nations competed for land to colonize.B) To prevent conflict between Spain and Portugal for overseas colonies, in 1494 Pope Alexander VI made the Treaty of Tordesillas; an imaginary line running north and south in Atlantic Ocean. Spain could claim all land to the west of the line. Portugal could claim all land east of the line.

Treaty of Tordesillas

II The Spanish ConquistadorsA) Conquistadors were Spanish nobles who came to the New World seeking wealth, land, and status.

Hernan Cortes

The Spanish Conquistadors Continued…“Born in Spain, conquistador Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) first served as a soldier in an expedition of Cuba led by Diego Velázquez in 1511. He ignored orders and traveled to Mexico with about 500 men and 11 ships in 1519, setting his sights on overthrowing ruler Montezuma II in the Aztec capital of Tenochitilán. It is thought that Cortés’ arrival coincided with an Aztec prophecy about a white-skinned god arriving from the east, which would explain why Montezuma welcomed Cortés and gave him lavish gifts. The Aztecs eventually drove the Spanish from Tenochitilán, but Cortés returned to defeat the natives and take the city in 1521. Cortés became allies with some of the native peoples he encountered, but with others he used deadly force to conquer Mexico. He marched to Tenochitilán, the Aztec capital and home to ruler Montezuma II. Cortés took Montezuma hostage and his soldiers raided the city. Cortés left the city after learning that Spanish troops were coming to arrest him for disobeying orders. He returned to Tenochitilán to find a rebellion in progress. The Aztecs eventually drove the Spanish from the city, but Cortés returned again to defeat them and take the city in 1521. A new settlement, Mexico City, was built on the ruins and settled with Spanish colonists, becoming the centre of Spanish America. Cortés secured control over Mexico, inflicting great cruelty on the indigenous population. Western diseases such as smallpox also caused huge fatalities. In 1523 Cortés was named governor and captain general of New Spain. In 1528, amid Spanish fears that he was becoming too powerful, he was forced to return to Spain.” www.history.com

Who was Malinche “Dona Marina”?In 1519, a young woman named Malinche was captured by Spanish conquistadors. Within a short time, Malinche learned Spanish and became friends with Hernán Cortés. The Spanish renamed her Doña Marina. Malinche was a Totonac Indian (enemies of the Aztecs). Malinche hoped the Spanish could free the Totonacs from Aztec rule. Malinche helped Cortés as a translator. Malinche also helped convince other American Indian nations to join Cortés.

Hernan Cortes, 2nd Letter to Charles V, 1520… This great city… is situated in this salt lake…There are four avenues or entrances to the city, all of which are formed by artificial causeways... The city is as large as Seville or Cordova [cities in Spain]; its streets, I speak of the principal ones, are very wide and straight; some of these, and all the inferior ones, are half land and half water, and are navigated by canoes… This city has many public squares, in which are situated the markets and other places for buying and selling. There is one square twice as large as that of the city of Salamanca, surrounded by porticoes, where are daily assembled more than sixty thousand souls, engaged in buying and selling; and where are found all kinds of merchandise that the world affords, embracing the necessaries of life, as for instance articles of food, as well as jewels of gold and silver, lead, brass, copper, tin, precious stones, bones, shells, snails, and feathers…

Hernan Cortes, 2nd Letter to Charles V, 1520…This great city contains a large number of temples... In these chapels are the images of idols… the principal ones, in which the people have greatest faith and confidence, I precipitated from their pedestals, and cast them down the steps of the temple, purifying the chapels in which they had stood, as they were all polluted with human blood... In the place of these I put images of Our Lady and the Saints, which excited not a little feeling in Montezuma and the inhabitants, who at first remonstrated, declaring that if my proceedings were known throughout the country, the people would rise against me; for they believed that their idols bestowed on them all temporal good, and if they permitted [their idols/gods] to be ill-treated, they would be angry… and by this means the people would be deprived of the fruits of the earth and perish with famine. I answered, through the interpreters, that they were deceived in expecting any favors from idols, the work of their own hands, formed of unclean things; and that they must learn there was but one God, the universal Lord of all…

Hernan Cortes, 2nd Letter to Charles V, 1520…The extent of Montezuma's dominions has not been ascertained, since to whatever point he dispatched his messengers, even two hundred leagues from his capital, his commands were obeyed, although some of his provinces were in the midst of countries with which he was at war. But as nearly as I have been able to learn, his territories are equal in extent to Spain itself, for he sent messengers to the inhabitants of a city called Cumatan (requiring them to become subjects of your Majesty), which is sixty leagues beyond that part of Putunchan watered by the river Grijalva, and two hundred and thirty leagues distant from the great city; and I sent some of our people a distance of one hundred and fifty leagues in the same direction. All the principle chiefs of these provinces, especially those in the vicinity of the capital, reside, as I have already stated, the greater part of the year in that great city, and all or most of them have their oldest sons in the service of Montezuma. There are fortified places in all the provinces, garrisoned with his own men, where are also stationed his governors and collectors of the rents and tribute, rendered him by every province; and an account is kept of what each is obliged to pay…

Anonymous Aztec Source"The 'stags‘ [horses] came forward, carrying soldiers on their backs…

Foam from their muzzles drips onto the ground in fat drops… When they run, they make a loud noise, as if stones were raining on the earth. Then

the earth is pitted and cracked open wherever their hooves have touched it.” – Anonymous, Aztec

The remains of a massacre of Aztecs by the Spanish, Zultepec, Mexico

B) Francisco Pizarro

The Spanish Conquistadors Continued…

Pizarro Continued…“In the 5 years before the Spanish arrival, a devastating war of succession gripped the empire. In 1532, Atahualpa's army defeated the forces of his half-brother Huascar in a battle near Cuzco. Atahualpa was consolidating his rule when Pizarro and his 180 soldiers appeared. Francisco Pizarro was [Spanish born]. He became a soldier and in 1502 went to Hispaniola. Pizarro was with Vasco de Balboa when he discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513. Hearing legends of the great wealth of an Indian civilization in South America, Pizarro formed an alliance with fellow conquistador Diego de Almagro in 1524 and sailed down the west coast of South America from Panama. The first expedition only penetrated as far as present-day Ecuador, but a second reached to present-day Peru. There they heard firsthand accounts of the Inca empire. Returning to Panama, Pizarro planned an expedition of conquest, but the Spanish governor refused to back the scheme. In 1528, Pizarro sailed back to Spain to ask the support of Emperor Charles V. Cortes had recently brought the emperor great wealth through his conquest of the Aztecs, and Charles approved Pizarro’s plan. He also promised that Pizarro, not Almagro, would receive the majority of the expedition’s profits. In 1530, Pizarro returned to Panama. In 1531, he sailed down to Peru. He led his army up the Andes Mountains and on November 15, 1532, reached the Inca town of Cajamarca, where Atahualpa [the Incan emperor] was enjoying the hot springs in preparation for his march on Cuzco, the capital of his brother’s kingdom. Pizarro invited Atahualpa to attend a feast in his honor, and the emperor accepted. Having just won one of the largest battles in Inca history, and with an army of 30,000 men at his disposal, Atahualpa thought he had nothing to fear from the bearded white stranger and his 180 men. Pizarro, however, planned an ambush…

Pizarro Continued…On November 16, Atahualpa arrived at the meeting place with an escort of several thousand men, all apparently unarmed. Pizarro sent out a priest to exhort the emperor to accept Christianity and the rule of Emperor Charles V. Atahualpa refused, flinging a Bible handed to him to the ground in disgust. Pizarro immediately ordered an attack. Buckling under an assault by the terrifying Spanish artillery, guns, and cavalry (all of which were alien to the Incas), thousands of Incas were slaughtered, and the emperor was captured. Atahualpa offered to fill a room with treasure as ransom for his release, and Pizarro accepted. Eventually, some 24 tons of gold and silver were brought to the Spanish from throughout the Inca empire. Although Atahualpa had provided the richest ransom in the history of the world, Pizarro put him on trial for plotting to overthrow the Spanish for having his half-brother Huascar murdered. A Spanish tribunal convicted Atahualpa and sentenced him to die. On August 29, 1533, the emperor was tied to a stake and offered the choice of being burned alive or strangled by garrote if he converted to Christianity. In the hope of preserving his body for mummification, Atahualpa chose the latter, and an iron collar was tightened around his neck until he died. With Spanish reinforcements that had arrived earlier that year, Pizarro then marched on Cuzco, and the Inca capital fell without a struggle in November 1533...” history.com

Primary Source: The Conquest of the Inca…The Governor [Pizarro] said that he had not come to make war on the Indians, but that our lord the Emperor, who was lord of the whole world, had ordered him to come that he might see the land, and let Atahualpa know the things of our faith, in case he should wish to become a Christian. The Governor also told him that that land and all other lands belonged to the Emperor, and that he must acknowledge him as his lord. He replied that he was content, and, observing that the Christians had collected some gold, Atahualpa said to the Governor that they need not take such care of it, as if there was so little; for that he could give them 10,000 plates, and that he could fill the room in which he was up to a white line, which was the height of a man and a half from the floor. The room was 17 or 18 feet wide and 35 feet long. He said that he could do this in two months.From Hernando Pizarro (brother of Francisco Pizarro) “Conquest of the Indians”, Reports on the Discovery of Peru, Clements R. Markham, tr. and ed. London: Hakluyt Society, 1872

III The Spanish ColoniesA)Spain divided their American colonies into 5 provinces, each ruled by a viceroy (governor).B) Jesuits (Catholic missionaries) forced the Natives to convert to Catholicism, and often destroyed anything related to their traditional culture.B)New Spain began the encomienda system: conquistadors were legally allowed to demand labor and/or payment from the natives. Native laborers were called peons.

Mission San Jose in San Antonio, Texas built 1720

The Spanish Colonies Continued…

The Spanish Colonies Continued…D) Not everyone approved of the encomienda system. Bartolome de Las Casas, a priest, wrote a letter to the King of Spain condemning it. In response, in 1542 Spain passed the New Laws of the Indies banning enslavement and abuse. Unfortunately it was impossible to enforce.

“…The Spaniards have shown not the slightest consideration for these

people, treating them… not as brute animals - indeed, I would to God they

had done and had shown them the consideration they afford their animals - so much as piles of dung in the middle of the road…” Bartolome de Las Casas

IV A New SocietyA)The Spanish conquistadors created a new society in the Americas, with a strict class system.B)The Spanish were more willing to intermarry with natives or Africans than other Europeans. However, their children automatically were born into a lower class.

HW Questions1. Based on the primary sources, what was Cortes’

impression of Aztec society? What was the Aztec impression of the Spanish? *Use evidence from the documents.

2. How did Cortes defeat the Aztecs?3. How did Pizarro defeat the Inca? Do you think his

treatment of Atahualpa was excessive? *Use evidence from the document “Conquest of the Inca”.

4. Did Bartolome de Las Casas make a difference by condemning the encomienda system? Explain.

5. Describe the class system that evolved in the Spanish colonies. Did it make sense for the time? Explain.