Dbq Spanish Conqueistadors

The Spanish conquistadors’ motives greatly affected the people living in the new world. These motives influenced the Native Americans in all different ways some ways better or bigger than others. Three of the biggest motives that effected the Native Americans were gold, Christianity, and glory. The first Spanish conquistadors’ motive that greatly affected the people living in the new world was the search for gold. You can see that this was a big motive by looking in documents two and three. In document two it talks about how Cortez got lots of money for going to the new world and he promised gold and Indian slaves to people going with him. This document shows how Cortez promised something valuable as gold to motivate people to accompany him on his journey to the new world. In document three it is Cortez again telling his men that if they stick with him and fight the war against the Native Americans he can make them rich men. So as you can see Cortez is using gold as a big motive for going to the new world. Now when you look at how did this affect the Native Americans and it is plain to see in documents two and three that these motives greatly hurt the Native Americans. The second Spanish conquistadors’ motive that greatly affected the people living in the new world was Christianity. This motive is easily seen in documents 1, 4, 7, and 8. Document one is an excerpt that was to be read to the Indians stating that if they did not except the Christian Church as their superior and listen to Christian priests that the Spanish would invade their country and take them all as slaves. Document four is Cortez talking about how he overturned the Indians idols and rolled them down the stairs. Then he goes on to say he replaced the idols with Christian images and Cortez knew that these images were really important to Aztecs and he didn’t care. In document seven it is a royal decree from Charles I. It states that the written down volumes of the Indians rites, idols, and