Indigenous Groups In The 1500s

It was possible for small Spanish and Portuguese contingents to claim the Americas in the 1500s because they divided and conquered the indigenous groups residing in the Americas by using intentional tactics that involved advanced armed force and taking advantage of them and their beliefs after gaining their trust and unintentional tactics that included the spread of disease. These tactics were possible to use as the Portuguese and Spaniards had horses and weapons that were advanced compared to the indigenous groups in the Americas. Additionally, several indigenous groups had beliefs that these mysterious people with a white complexion were gods or super natural forces with healing powers as Álvar Nύñez Cabeza de Vaca provided an example in
It was also observed that the trust of the indigenous groups could be earned in other ways in Pero Vaz de Caminha’s account of the “innocent” indigenous people in Brazil where he recounts that they began to trust him and his men when they began to exchange gifts and give them food (5-7). It is crucial to note that in this document, Vaz de Caminha describes the people as “innocent”, implying that the people would be easy to manipulate and take advantage of. Three examples reside in the claiming of the lands in Brazil, Peru and Mexico. Each of the three examples used the different tactics to accomplish the goals of the Spanish and Portuguese of claiming land with the use of the different tactics to deprive the indigenous groups of any power they may have had in order to create an ease in claiming the
In 1519 Spanish leader, Hernán Cortés and his followers were believed to be gods. The Mexicas of the Aztec Empire believed in a deity known as Quetzalcoatl that had a white complexion and was supposed to return to the land one day. It was the qualities and materials, such as horses and cannons, of the Spaniards that the Mexicas had never seen that allowed the Mexicas to believe that Cortés was Quetzalcoatl. Once Cortés learned of the beliefs of the Mexicas through an indigenous woman who became his translator, he was able to take on the role of pretending to be Quetzalcoatl. This allowed Cortés to capture the Mexica leader, Moctezuma and stay in Tenochtitlan. It was the duration of the stay of the Spaniards that ultimately caused the Aztec Empire to collapse when slaughter brought by disease and armed force made its way throughout the empire (49-50) The Spaniards used the intentional tactic of taking advantage of the beliefs of indigenous groups to gain their trust by pretending to be the gods they believed in. When they gained the trust of the people of the Aztec Empire, they used the tactic of armed force and unintentional tactic of disease to take their leader away and gain the trust of other indigenous groups as allies to weaken and collapse the entire empire. In this case the Spaniards were able to use every intentional and unintentional tactic to claim land in