what is the spanish conquest

After defeating the local natives in two battles, he discovered a far more valuable asset in the form of a woman whom Cortés would have christened Marina. According to some other sources Tangaxuan II was dragged behind a horse and then burned. Though these captains of Moctezuma were sentenced to be "burned to death", Moctezuma continued to remain a prisoner, fearing a "rebellion in his city" or that the Spanish may "try to set up another prince in his place." Pedrarias sent a kinsman, Gil González Dávila, to explore northward, and he found civilization on the shores of Lake Nicaragua. [44]:196 Although he did not know if the rumor was true or not, Cortés ordered a pre-emptive strike, urged by the Tlaxcalans, the enemies of the Cholulans. p 62-64, Thomas, Hugh. Before leaving, he said that there would be omens for Moctezuma to know that what he has been told is true. However, since the women and children, and many men, had already fled the city,[44]:200–01 it is unlikely that so many were killed. [51][44]:205–06, On 8 November 1519, after the fall of Cholula, Cortés and his forces entered Tenochtitlan, the island capital of the Mexica-Aztecs. The treacherous massacre of the Taino of Xaragua was one of the most cruel and complete mass killings of Taino on the island. Confederacy of Tlaxcala [44]:287–94 Aztec sources state the Spaniards killed him. On January 2, 1492, King Boabdil surrendered Granada to the Spanish forces, and in 1502 the Spanish crown ordered all Muslims forcibly converted to Christianity. [72], To the Aztecs, Tenochtitlan was the "altar" for the Empire, as well as being the city that Quetzalcoatl would eventually return to. [44]:386–87, 391, 401–03, Cortés then ordered the idols of the Aztec gods in the temples to be taken down and replaced with icons of Christianity. [39] Not surprisingly, many publications and republications of sixteenth-century accounts of the conquest of Mexico appeared around 1992, the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's first voyage, when scholarly and popular interest in first encounters surged. The viceroy was infuriated when he learned that some Spanish soldiers had begun supplementing their incomes by raiding the villages of peaceful Indians in order to sell them into slavery. The Spanish conquest of the Americas had massive consequences for the world system and millions of people. Following an earlier expedition to Yucatán led by Juan de Grijalva in 1518, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés led an expedition (entrada) to Mexico. However, it appears that Cortés perceived Cholula more as a military threat to his rear guard than a religious center, as he marched to Tenochtitlan. PLAY. Testing Military Superiority as a Cause of Europe's Pre-Industrial Colonial Conquests." To this day, the title of Duke of Moctezuma is held by a Spanish noble family. [44]:284, When Cortés returned to Tenochtitlan in late May, he found that Alvarado and his men had attacked and killed many of the Aztec nobility in the Massacre in the Great Temple, that happened during a religious festival organized by the Aztec. Key Concepts: Terms in this set (16) What were the conquistadors primarily driven by? Flashcards. "Cortes and the Downfall of the Aztec Empire: A Study in a Conflict of Cultures. Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs. conquest synonyms, conquest pronunciation, conquest translation, English dictionary definition of conquest. In fact, "Cortes owned several hundred, used mainly in gold placering." In the West Indies. 24 March – Leaders of Potoncan sue Spaniards for peace and gift the Spaniards, 20 slave women. A number of modern scholars cast doubt on whether such omens occurred or whether they were ex post facto (retrospective) creations to help the Mexica explain their defeat. V. 1550). Human sacrifice and reports of cannibalism, common among the natives of the Aztec Empire, had been a major reason motivating Cortés and encouraging his soldiers to avoid surrender while fighting to the death.[44]. [44]:218 On the same day that the Spanish expedition and their allies entered Tenochtitlan, Moctezuma came to visit Cortés and his men. [7] On the western side of the Yucatán Peninsula, the Spanish were attacked at night by Maya chief Mochcouoh, a battle in which fifty men were killed. According to Bernal Diaz, he sent more than ten thousand warriors under the command of Chichimecatecle as Cortés marched on the day after Christmas 1520. The conquest of Mexico, the initial destruction of the great pre-Columbian civilizations, is a significant event in world history. These historians believe this means that Moctezuma did not think the Spanish were supernatural. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico (1519–21),[6] was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Brandt, Anthony. It would be another 40 years until Spain finally attempted the Spanish conquest of the Philippines again. The end of this latter campaign is generally marked by the downfall of the Maya state based at Tayasal in the Petén region, in 1697. After his Dominican monasteries in Nicaragua and Guatemala failed to bring better treatment to the Indians, he went to a province of northern Guatemala to pacify it without military force. Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico. Spain had won what today is known as the Conquest of Granada. Maxixcatzin, Xicotencatl the Elder and Chichimecatecle told Cortés's men: "Consider yourselves at home. [citation needed] Its huge pyramid (larger in volume than the great pyramids of Egypt)[69] made it one of the most prestigious places of the Aztec religion. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. p. 43. It is likely that a 1585 revision of Bernardino de Sahagún's account of the conquest survives today only in the form of a copy because it was made in Spain for Prescott's project from a now-lost original. Learn about the contributing factors that allowed the Spanish explorers to overpower the Inca Empire and establish control of the region; Key Points. Malintzin became Cortés’s mistress, learned Spanish, and served as Cortés’s interpreter and advisor. [73] If the population of Tenochtitlan was 250,000 in 1519, then Tenochtitlan would have been larger than every city in Europe except perhaps Naples and Constantinople, and four times the size of Seville. Matthew Restall, "Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest", 2003, Anonymous informants of Sahagún, Florentine Codex, book XII, chapter XVI, translation from Nahuatl by Angel Ma. "[44]:181 Some accounts would claim that this idol or deity was Quetzalcoatl, and that the Aztecs were defeated because they believed the Spanish were supernatural and didn't know how to react, although whether or not the Aztecs really believed that is debatable. As Cortés told his men, the natives "think of us as gods, or godlike beings. [44]:282–84[clarification needed], Cortés led his combined forces on an arduous trek back over the Sierra Madre Oriental, returning to Mexico on St. John's Day June 1520, with 1300 soldiers and 96 horses, plus 2000 Tlaxcalan warriors. Most first-hand accounts about the conquest of the Aztec Empire were written by Spaniards: Hernán Cortés' letters to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and the first-person narrative of Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain. Several Aztec noblemen loyal to Cortés, including Cacamatzin, and their families also perished, including Moctezuma's son and two daughters. Two letters to Cortés about Alvarado's campaigns in Guatemala are published in The Conquistadors. They returned with samples of gold and Cortés' interest in the Tarascan state was awakened. Cortés strode ahead of his commanders and attempted to embrace Moctezuma, but was restrained by Cuitlahuac and Cacamatzin. Formation of the republics (c. 1840–c. [35], The best-known indigenous account of the conquest is Book 12 of Bernardino de Sahagún's General History of the Things of New Spain and published as the Florentine Codex, in parallel columns of Nahuatl and Spanish, with pictorials. Previously, during Juan de Grijalva's expedition, Moctezuma believed that those men were heralds of Quetzalcoatl, as Moctezuma, as well as everyone else in the Aztec Empire, were to believe that eventually, Quetzalcoatl will return. [65] This may have also come from a mis-translation of the version of the story written in Latin.[66]. Therefore, the Spaniards lacked a sense of danger and power structure within the empire. The Spanish Conquest The Aztec empire reached its height in the early 16th century, under Emperor Moctezuma . 1 August – Spanish punitive expedition in Tepeaca in reprisal for the murder of Spaniards by its inhabitants. Las Casas later repented when he saw the even worse treatment given to the black slaves.[95]. He also sent two men, Pedro de Alvarado and Bernardino Vázquez de Tapia, directly to Tenochtitlan, as ambassadors and to scout for an appropriate route. Malintzin's Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico. "[49] Hugh Thomas concludes that Moctezuma was confused and ambivalent about whether Cortés was a god or the ambassador of a great king in another land. 2. The native texts of the defeated Mexica narrating their version of the conquest describe eight omens that were believed to have occurred nine years prior to the arrival of the Spanish from the Gulf of Mexico. They placed the portable bridge in the first gap, but at that moment their movement was detected and Aztec forces attacked, both along the causeway and by means of canoes on the lake. The Spanish conquest of the Americas (1519-1533) was a series of wars fought by New Spain in hopes of conquering additional lands to their empire. The Spanish, Tlaxcalans and reinforcements returned a year later on 13 August 1521 to a civilization that had been weakened by famine and smallpox. One of the enslaved Nahua woman (known as La Malinche, Doña Marina, Malintze, and Malintzin), is multilingual and will serve as one of the main translators for the expedition. Conquistadors by Margaret Duncan Coxhead. The bridge was later called "Alvarado's Leap". [86] l. The Council of the Indies was constituted in 1524 and the first Audiencia in 1527. However, the Chichimecas counter-attacked and Alvarado's forces were routed. An Indian chief who was being executed was about to be baptized. They combined forces to defeat the Mexica of Tenochtitlan over a two-year period. Particularly important were the 1571 Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary compiled by the Franciscan Fray Alonso de Molina,[92] and his 1569 bilingual Nahuatl-Spanish confessional manual for priests. With this pair of translators, Cortés could now communicate to the Aztecs. It is said that Cortés, upon reaching the mainland at Tlacopan, wept over their losses. Totonacapan A few of the indigenous nobility learned Spanish. Take advantage of our Presidents' Day bonus! [42], In 1510, Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II was visited by Nezahualpilli, who had a reputation as a great seer, as well as being the tlatoani of Texcoco. Come to the land, come and rest: take possession of your royal houses, give food to your body. [44]:102, This strategy was not unique. One Minute History - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQNIJBgSm5lg0mGTGn19EIQ Native speakers of Nahuatl would call her "Malintzin". The indigenous people of Central Mexico had practices rendering labor and tribute products to their polity's elites and those elites to the Mexica overlords in Tenochtitlan, so the Spanish system of encomienda was built on pre-existing patterns of labor service. "[39]:64[78], Moctezuma had the royal palace of Axayácatl, Moctezuma's father, prepared for Cortés. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the events by Spanish conquerors, their indigenous allies, and the defeated Aztecs. The Spanish discovered that they could not remove their portable bridge unit from the first gap, and so had no choice but to leave it behind. The most important of these are the pictorial Lienzo de Tlaxcala and the Historia de Tlaxcala by Diego Muñoz Camargo. Although none of his settlements in the Nicoya Bay region survived, he and his men began the permanent Spanish occupation of Costa Rica. Other city-states also joined, including Cempoala and Huexotzinco and polities bordering Lake Texcoco, the inland lake system of the Valley of Mexico. [71], The massacre had a chilling effect on the other city states and groups affiliated with the Aztecs, as well as the Aztecs themselves. This, despite Moctezuma's chieftains, nephews and relations suggesting they should attack the Spanish.[44]:243–49. Other navigators from Spain followed, some seizing natives as slaves, and in 1509 Fernando V, the king of Spain, granted concessions for colonization of the region to Alonso de Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa. The capital was also used for central and imperialistic governmental control. Spanish Conquest. The Manila Galleon brought in far more silver direct from South American mines to China than the overland Silk Road, or even European trade routes in the Indian Ocean could. [40] Although scholars of the modern era point out its biases and shortcomings, "there is nowhere they can get as good a unified narrative of the main events, crises, and course of the Mexican conquest as Prescott's version."[41]. p. 60-62. [44]:204, In one of his responses to Cortés, Moctezuma blamed the commanders of the local Aztec garrison for the resistance in Cholula, and recognizing that his long-standing attempts to dissuade Cortés from coming to Tenochtitlan with gifts of gold and silver had failed, Moctezuma finally invited the conquistadors to visit his capital city, according to Spanish sources, after feeling as though nothing else could be done. An extract of this important manuscript was published in 1991 by James Lockhart in Nahuatl transcription and English translation. p. 237, Thomas, Hugh. As a result of these unions, as well as concubinage[citation needed] and secret mistresses, mixed race individuals known as mestizos became the majority of the Mexican population in the centuries following the Spanish conquest. A word or phrase that is commonly used in conversational speech (e.g. [34] Texcoco patriot and member of a noble family there, Fernando Alva Ixtlilxochitl, likewise petitioned the Spanish Crown, in Spanish, saying that Texcoco had not received sufficient rewards for their support of the conquistadors, particularly after the Spanish were forced out of Tenochtitlan. Velázquez may have personally contributed nearly half the cost of the expedition. The Siege of Tenochtitlan lasted eight months. July/August – Cortes' soldiers desecrate Cempoala, 16 August – Spaniards and Totonac allies embark on march toward the Valley of Tenochtitlan, passing Citlatapetl and many other notable geographic landmarks like Cofre de Perote, 31 August – Tlaxcalteca attack Spaniards after they enter Tlaxcalteca territory and succeed in killing two horsemen. Cortés first sent Francisco de Las Casas to relieve the rebellious Olid but then marched to Honduras himself to reprimand Olid. [citation needed], In any event, the population of the city rose en masse after the Spanish attack, which the Spanish did not expect. The Spanish conquest of Petén was the last stage of the conquest of Guatemala, a prolonged conflict during the Spanish colonisation of the Americas. It is impossible to know if these leaders understood the Catholic faith. [44]:172–74, As before with other native groups, Cortés preached to the Tlaxcalan leaders about the benefits of Christianity. At that time, Yucatán was briefly explored by the conquistadors, but the Spanish conquest of Yucatán with its many independent city-state polities of the Late Postclassic Maya civilization came many years after the Spaniards' and their indigenous allies' rapid conquest of Central Mexico (1519–21). Notably, the accounts of the conquest, Spanish and indigenous alike, have biases and exaggerations. [72] The most common estimates put the population at around 60,000 to over 300,000 people. [44]:359, 368, Despite the stubborn Aztec resistance organized by their new emperor, Cuauhtémoc, the cousin of Moctezuma II, Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco fell on 13 August 1521, during which the Emperor was captured trying to escape the city in a canoe. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. To ensure the legality of this action, several members of his expedition, including Francisco Montejo and Alonso Hernandez Puertocarrero, returned to Spain to seek acceptance of the cabildo's declaration with King Charles. [38] A popular anthology in English for classroom use is Miguel León-Portilla's, The Broken Spears: The Aztec Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico from 1992. [44]:134 The Cempoalans were accustomed to the hot climate of the coast, but they suffered immensely from the cold of the mountains, the rain, and the hail as they marched towards Tenochtitlan. Hernán Cortés gained their support when he "promised to make them rich and give them commands [rewards]." With the help of tens of thousands of Xiu Mayan warriors, it would take more than 170 years for the Spanish to establish full control of the Maya homelands, which extended from northern Yucatán to the central lowlands region of El Petén and the southern Guatemalan highlands. Those polities now came under Spanish rule, also retaining their internal structures of ruling elites, tribute paying commoners, and land holding and other economic structures largely intact. Early June – Cortes establishes the colony of Villa Rica de la Veracruz and relocates the company to a beach near the settlement of Quiahuiztlan. The ensuing Chichimeca War (1550–1590) would become the longest and costliest conflict between Spanish forces and indigenous peoples in the Americas. As news of the Spanish conquest spread, wealth-hungry Spaniards poured into the New World seeking land and gold and titles. [54] However, armed with the knowledge of Castilian law that he had likely gained as a notary in Valladolid, Cortés managed to free himself of Velázquez's authority by presenting Velázquez as a tyrant acting in his own self-interest, and not in the interest of the Crown. The Aztec Empire ceased to exist with the Spanish final conquest of Tenochtitlan in August 1521. [57], Velázquez arrived at the dock in Santiago de Cuba in person, "he and Cortés again embraced, with a great exchange of compliments", before Cortes set sail for Trinidad, Cuba. Before he arrived, however, Las Casas and González had united against Olid and put him to death. Less successfully, the Nahua allies from Huexotzinco (or Huejotzinco) near Tlaxcala argued that their contributions had been overlooked by the Spanish. First contact experiences on Hispaniola included brutal interactions between the Spanish and the Native Americans. The Chichimeca resisted the intrusions on their ancestral lands by attacking travelers and merchants along the "silver roads." The Spanish Conquest. "[39]:65 Moctezuma and his chiefs were adorned with blazing gold on their shoulders with feathers and jewels. ), began a few miles away in 1543. Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán, then president of the first Audiencia decided, to march on northwestern Mexico with a force of 5,000–8,000 men in search for new populations to subdue, and when he arrived in Michoacán and found out that Tangaxuan was still de facto ruler of his empire he allied himself with a Tarascan noble Don Pedro Panza Cuinierángari against the Cazonci. Córdoba reached the coast of Yucatán. Soon after Cortés first arrived in Mexico in 1519, a native woman named Malintzin (later baptized Marina) was one of 20 women given to Cortés and his men after they defeated the natives in Tobasco. [94], To reward Spaniards who participated in the conquest of what is now contemporary Mexico,[citation needed] the Spanish crown authorized grants of native labor, in particular the assignment of entire indigenous communities to labor via the Encomienda system. The expedition was also partially included in the animated film The Road to El Dorado as the main characters Tulio and Miguel end up as stowaways on Hernán Cortés' fleet to Mexico. Xicotencatl the Elder's daughter was baptized as Doña Luisa, and Maxixcatzin's daughter as Doña Elvira. Cortés ordered Moctezuma to speak to his people from a palace balcony and persuade them to let the Spanish return to the coast in peace. The fall of the Aztec City of Tenochtitlan to the Spanish led by Conquistador Hernan Cortes marked the end of an era as the Old and New Worlds collided with catastrophic results for the New World which would be decimated by War, famine and disease.. On his arrival, Hernan Cortes was accompanied by a force of 530 Armed Europeans and a few hundred Cuban natives and African slaves. Cortés confronted the city leaders in the main temple alleging that they were planning to attack his men. This name is the closest approximation possible in Nahuatl to the sound of Spanish Marina. Early mendicants created texts in order to forward the project of Christianization. Yet weaponry alone clearly would not enable Cortés’s tiny force to overcome a large, … Captain from Castile (1947) is about early Cortés and the Aztec. Nevertheless, Cortés set sail, beginning his expedition with the legal status of a mutineer. Crossing the isthmus, Balboa discovered the “South Sea” (Pacific Ocean) in 1513 and claimed for Spain all the lands it touched. To make sure such a mutiny did not happen again, he decided to scuttle his ships. [61][62] It would not be until the late 20th century that a few feminist writers and academics would attempt to rehabilitate La Malinche as a woman who made the best of her situation and became, in many respects a powerful woman. [44]:220–21 At the end of this explanation, the Emperor pledged his loyalty to the King of Spain and accepted Cortés as the King's representative. That was also the time that Spanish adventurers were swarming by the hundreds to the West Indies, following the discovery of the Americas in 1492 by Christopher Columbus. Late May – Cortés forces attack Narvárez's forces at Cempoala; incorporation of those Spaniards into Cortés's forces, 24 June – Spanish forces return to Tenochtitlan, Late June – Uprising in Tenochtitlan; the death of Moctezuma in unclear circumstances, perhaps killed by the Spaniards, perhaps by his own people; deaths of other leaders of the Triple Alliance.

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