In A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies‚ Bartolome De Las Casas writes to the King of Spain about the treatment of indigenous peoples by the Spanish conquistadors. Being a Spanish Dominican priest‚ he was appalled by how Christians were treating these people. He writes‚ “The Christians seized all the maize the locals had grown for themselves and their own families and‚ as a consequence‚ some twenty or thirty thousand natives died of hunger‚ some mothers even killing their own children
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The Spanish were the first to settle in central and South America. They established their empire by defeating the Aztecs people. While the Aztecs lived in Mexico‚ they structured a wealthy empire by means of warfare. However‚ the Spanish took their empire by exploiting the resentment‚ the subjects had. Francisco Pizarro arrived with a small force of men in Peru. They conquered the Incas‚ who also had a large empire. Even though they had a large empire‚ it suffered large a chaotic royal succession
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in what would become Mexico. They were called Conquistadors and were very ruthless. They had one goal in mind and that was to claim land and destroy anything in their way. Unfortunately their vicious acts of violence weren’t what did most of the damage to the natives. They carried diseases like influenza‚ malaria and measles with them and so millions of the natives died from these diseases. After decades of this type of treatment from the Conquistadors‚ the Spanish Crown realized that if they wanted
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They also brought disease‚ but it didn’t affect them as much as it affected the Incas because the Spanish were immune to it and they had doctors that were knowledgeable about the disease and they had experience unlike the Inca doctors. Even the conquistadors themselves were specialized in fighting. They came with things that all relate back to specialized labor. The Spanish had specialized labor for a long time. The had people like Columbus who were specialized in long distance explorations‚ or people
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the Modern Aztlan Movement • Religion of the Mexica & Bibliography • Major Deitites of the Mexica • Minor Deitites of the Mexica • Aztec Cannibalism: An Ecological Necessity? Path of the Conquest On November 8‚ 1519‚ the Spanish conquistadors first entered the great city of Mexico‚ the metropolis the Aztecs had built on a lake island. Don Hernando Cortes‚ who was accompanied by six hundred Spaniards and a great many native allies‚ at last could see for himself the temples and palaces
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The Spanish’s need to colonize and conquer the Americas derived from their dreams of success‚ wealth‚ and power. When Spanish conquistadors conquered some of the richest and populous lands in South America‚ it caused a chain reaction of voyages and expeditions across Europe. The discoveries of gold‚ silver‚ newly captured slaves‚ and land uplifted the European economy. Self-recognition and “title” was also gained through conquering large‚ plentiful lands. Through the eyes of the Spaniards
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broke the backs of Chinese peasants and allowed for even more European conquest all over the world. When the Spanish founded Potosí in 1545‚ they discovered a mountain that seemed to be made of impure silver. Since precious metals were what the conquistadors had come looking for‚ Potosí was (pun intended) a gold mine of wealth. He Qiaoyuan‚ a Ming court official‚ mentioned‚ in one of his reports to the emperor that‚ “the Spanish have silver mountains‚ which they mint into silver coins.” Though it may
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SmallPox Smallpox is a disease caused by a poxvirus that is transmitted from person to person that causes high fever‚ characteristic rash‚ and may kill about one-third of those infected. Smallpox is the only disease that has been completely wiped out throughout the world. Smallpox is also potentially one of the most devastating biological weapons ever conceived. Smallpox usually requires fairly prolonged face-to-face contact to spread. It’s most often transmitted through the air by droplets
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An obvious conclusion is that the Spaniards’ guns‚ cavalry‚ and military organization‚ led to the Incan Emperor’s capture among his whole army by a tiny group of Spanish conquistadors. However‚ all these conquest factors are approximate and immediate‚ not ultimate nor fundamental. In other words‚ the beginning cause of Spanish development of these technologies and Pizarro’s conquest of Peru rather than the Incan explorers’ development of for example machine guns and Atahualpa’s small Incan gang capture
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animistic and nature religions still remained. Changes in Latin American religious ideologies are easily seen from 1450 to the present day. A new religion entered their society. With the discovery of the new world in 1492 by Columbus‚ many more conquistadors and explorers would come to colonize and explore the new world. Also‚ a group of people called the Jesuits came to the new world. The spread of Catholicism really began in the 1600’s by the Jesuits who controlled much of Latin America at this
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