Treaty of Tordesillas
Spain’s American Empire
•Expanded geographic knowledge
–Vasco Nunez de Balboa
•Journeyed across the Isthmus of Panama, 1513
–Magellan
•Circumnavigation of world, completed 1522
•16 crew members survived
•Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro subdued the Aztec empire inMexico and the Inca empire in Peru
–Technological superiority
–Disease
–“I came to get gold, not to till the soil like a peasant” (Cortes)
•Spain controlled almost all of South America to the fringe of NorthAmerica
–Set up “civilization” : cities, printing presses, cathedrals, universities
–Social structure (peninsulares, Creoles, mulattos, meztizos, natives)
–Oldest European settlement in US = St. Augustine, 1565, to protectshipping lanes and to keep French out
–1609 founded New Mexico with Santa Fe as capital
•Mission system
The SpanishConquistadores
•In the 1500's, Spain became the dominant exploring and colonizingpower
•The Spanish conquerors came to the Americas in the service of Godas well as in search of gold and glory
•Due to the gold and silver deposits found in the New World, theEuropean economy was transformed
•The islands of the Caribbean Sea served as offshore bases for thestaging of the Spanish invasion of the mainland Americas
•By the 1530s in Mexico and the 1550s in Peru, colorless colonialadministrators had replaced the conquistadores
•Some of the conquistadores wed Indian women and hadchildren. These offspring were known as mestizos and formed acultural and biological bridge between Latin America's European andIndian races
Should the conquistadores beespecially blamed for thecruelties and deaths (includingthose by disease) inflicted onthe original Indian populationsof the Americas?
The Conquest of Mexico
•In about 1519, Hernan Cortes set sail from Cuba with men andhorses. Along the way, he picked up two translators - ASpanish prisoner of Mayan-speaking Indians, and an Indianslave named Malinche
•The Spaniards arrived at Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital withthe intention of stealing all of the gold and other riches; theywere amazed by the beauty of the capitol
•On June 30, 1520, the Aztecs attacked the Spanish because ofthe Spaniards' lust for riches. The Spanish countered, though,and took over the capital and the rest of the Aztec empire onAugust 13, 1521
•Due to the rule of the Spanish, the Indian population in Mexicowent from 20 million to 2 million in less than a century
The Spread of SpanishAmerica
•In 1565, the Spanish built a fortress at St. Augustine,Florida to protect the sea-lanes to the Caribbean
•In 1680, after the Spanish captured an area knowntoday as New Mexico in 1609, the natives launched arebellion known as Popes Rebellion. The nativesburned down churches and killed priests. Theyrebuilt a kiva, or ceremonial religious chamber, onthe ruins of the Spanish plaza at Santa Fe
•The misdeeds of the Spanish in the New World led tothe birth of the "Black Legend." This false conceptstated that the conquerors just tortured and killed theIndians, stole their gold, infected them with smallpox,and left little but misery behind