Spanish conquest of America

One of the most important moments in human history was the Spanish conquest of America, being the moment in which the Western European world collided with the New World, changing the way human beings understand everything. To talk about the long and violent conquest of American cities by the Spanish, in this lesson from a teacher we are going to offer a summary of the Spanish conquest of America.

It is called the conquest of America, or colonization of America, to a long historical period in which the greatest Western European powers seized the American zone, the main one being Spain, being the first to discover the area and, therefore, start the conquest earlier.

The dates of the beginning of the conquest may vary depending on what we take as a basis, but it usually uses the dated 1492, being the year in which Christopher Columbus came to America in what is known as "discovery"

Almost all the Native American peoples resisted to the European conquest, but the military power of the Spanish was far superior and with time almost all the peoples submitted and accepted the Spanish laws and religion. Even so, some peoples managed to maintain their society until centuries later, and even today we can find peoples with pre-European traditions.

Characteristics of the conquest of America

To better understand the conquest of America, we must talk about the main characteristics of the Spanish conquest to understand many defining elements of this entire process. The characteristics of the American conquest are as follows:

• The discovery of America was paid for by the Catholic kingsThis being the reason why they had so many rights over the area, and that is why their successors conquered much of the continent.
• Although many Europeans tried to conquer America, the Spain's biggest rival in the conquest it was Portugal, which took Brazil and engaged in struggles for years to decide who would take the continent.
• The conquest was influenced by various agreements, such as the Treaty of Tordesillas, in which the area that Spain and Portugal could occupy was delimited by a relative limit. The reality is that this treaty was totally useless and it was common for the powers to go to the other side of the limit to conquer regions.
• The conquest was a constant period, since it was many centuries in a row in which the Spanish were conquering some areas after others and, to do so, they had to evangelize them.
• The conquest had a religious element, since the main idea of ​​the taking of the continent was to convert people to Catholicism, being the reason why the Church supported the campaign so much. The idea was that the greater number of faithful would give more power to the Pope and, more in crisis, so the Vatican was a firm defender of the conquest.
• The conquest was characterized by having many protagonists, who could be of many types and with totally trades. different, being able to find adventurers, conquerors, officials, religious and even representatives of the King. Every European who wanted power and influence and could not because he was not the first son of his family decided to travel to America to make a name for himself.

The reasons that led the Spanish to conquer the American continent are numerous and very interesting to understand the amount of people and resources used to undertake this company. Therefore the main causes of the Spanish conquest of America were the following:

• The need for European crowns of achieve greater wealth due to the increasing cost of the countries. Spain was in a difficult situation after taking over many regions in Europe, so it was essential to achieve a series of conquests that increased their wealth, being especially important the gold that could be found in soil American.
• Navigation improvements that allowed longer trips and with greater precision, being elements such as better compasses or vision systems essential to improve navigation. Another important advance in terms of navigation was the Columbus's discovery on the winds that helped get to America.
• The increase of the European population, which had to look for new lands to occupy and in which there was a greater number of resources and food. It became common to travel from Europe to the new lands that were being conquered, since the death of so many indigenous people allowed the Spanish to occupy the areas.
• The greatest military and technological power of the Europeans against the Americans, causing the conquest to be rapid as they were much superior in terms of firepower. The natives encountered countries far more advanced than themselves in all aspects of military life and they were massacred for the Spanish.
• The diseases That the Europeans carried the American population brought thousands of deaths in the region, since the Americans did not have defenses for many of these. In some cases these diseases even affected the European allies, since the contagion was in many cases involuntary.

Another important factor of the Spanish conquest was its consequences, since the end of the conquest brought enormous changes to American and European society, changing the world forever. Some main consequences of the conquest for the world were the following:

• The loss of independence of the American peoples, who submitted to the laws of Spain, thereby losing their own legislation.
• The disappearance of many American languages, being replaced by Spanish, although in certain areas autochthonous languages ​​that have survived to this day were maintained.
• Evangelization of all the people who surrendered to the Spanish, many religious groups such as the Jesuits or the Franciscans, and the Pope himself creating bulls to give meaning to the conquest Spanish. This caused that the American beliefs were disappearing, leaving place to the new catholic religion.
• They brought thousands of African slaves to work in the new lands, due to the death of many natives, this is how the mixing of races throughout America began. This caused enormous racial problems that persisted for years and that even today cause problems in some American countries.
• The miscegenation became common, not only among natives and Europeans, but also among other races such as Africans, causing even the existence of manuals of miscegenation and a racism that would continue in the region during years.
• Europe and America exchanged animals and agricultural products changing the landscape of both areas, America was no longer prepared for certain invasive species. At the same time, the European market changed, as products from America became very valuable, and some even entered European diets on a common basis.
• Gold and silver, Together with new products such as chocolate, they caused Spain to achieve an economic expansion never seen before, and for this reason it became the largest empire in the world for years.

To finish this summary of the Spanish conquest of America summary, we must talk about the various phases in which it is usually divided, explaining what happened in each of them. We must bear in mind that the Spanish conquest it was a long period and in which, little by little, the Spanish changed the Americans to what they wanted them to be. Therefore, after its discovery and conquest, they began processes of changing the culture and religion of these peoples.

Discovery

The discovery of America is the first period within the conquest, being the October 12, 1492 when the Spanish discovered the continent after the first of the Christopher Columbus travels. After that, Columbus made three other trips, in which he discovered much of South and Central America, as well as several islands in the Caribbean. During these trips the Spaniards claimed for themselves all the discovered areas, many of which were uninhabited.

Conquest

The second stage of the Spanish conquest in America is known as conquest, being the period in which the Spanish took the areas of the continent, using violence to take over regions where resistance was encountered. Among the peoples who fought against the Spanish to avoid the conquest we must name the aztecs and to incas as the two peoples that could really face the Spanish on almost equal terms, although finally the Spanish conquered them and took the entire area for themselves.

Colonization

Colonization is the way we know the process of cultural imposition to integrate language, customs or lifestyle European in the American people, making all its previous characteristics disappear at the same time. This process was simple as a large part of the Americans were taken by diseases or died in combat, making it easier for the survivors to take Spanish customs if they wanted survive.

Evangelism

Evangelization consists of replace the religions of the American peoples with Catholicism so present in Spanish culture. The idea was that large European religious groups would come to the continent and occupy some important positions to evangelize the entire population, some of these being Jesuit groups, being key to understanding the mentality of the Americans and their departure centuries later being one of the causes of the independence of the colonies Spanish.