Impact Of The Spanish Conquistadors

The Spanish conquistadors aimed to express their power through the destruction of the ancient books not only to support their mission, but also to maintain a great control over the native population and force them into obedience. Horan and Begay emphasized the intolerant behavior of the Spaniards against other religions to explain the spark behind this incident, they stated that under Diego de Landa’s command the Mayan books were “burnt by the thousands because they were written by people who did not share the same faith as the Spanish.” Nonetheless, the priest perhaps did not believe this was enough pain for the Native Americans as he also ordered to “hang many Indians by their feet and some by their arms. While being tortured by the friars,
According to the Arizona University website, “No original Aztec manuscript has survived that does not show European influence” . While only four Mayan books were saved, “none of these remaining Mayan codices record any type of history or chronicles, they instead contain astronomy, divination, rituals and calendars”. The impact of the destruction is apparent as it detached the native population from their origins, and forced them to adopt the culture of foreigners. However at the same time, it played to the advantage of the Europeans because not only were they able to eliminate heretical documents as they claimed, but most importantly it gave them the opportunity to reshape the indigenous’ identity the way they wish to serve their colonial ambitions. Many documents today display the Native Americans in a brutal way, exaggerating how much they needed European intervention in order to civilize, which is perhaps a fabricated point of view by colonists to validate their conquest of the
They frequently sent voyagers to obtain more gold and silver, despite how they perceived the natives as barbaric, the Spanish were in awe of the amount of luxury they saw in their temples that were decorated with gold, silver and many other valuables as well as the jewelry worn by the native elites. Moreover, they enslaved the Natives to mine the gold for them before melting it down and shipping it to Europe. Keoke and Porterfield stated “by 1542, the amount of gold shipped to Europe from the Americas tripled the amount of wealth Europeans had. By 1600, the amount of gold and silver in Europe had increased by eight times” . To the Natives, these resources were far more important than their monetary value; they were mainly used in their ceremonial dances to honor their idols and thus these acts marked the loss of important cultural elements. Werner argued that Spaniards were so driven by the “semifeudal values and ideals of the conquistadores, who were determined to valer más (rise in the world) and achieve a life of ease by whatever means were necessary” , selfishly inconsiderate of how much destruction they were causing to symbolic native