The conquistadors had many factors that had helped them conquer the large Native American civilizations that had already inhabited the Americas, but the greatest factors working in their favor were disease, technological advances, and tactics they used against the Native Americans. When the Europeans arrived to the Americas, they were set on their conquest to explore and to hopefully gain more wealth from conquering the Native American civilizations. The overall arrival of the Europeans would change the course of history and lead to devastating effects for the Native Americans.
One of the first things that the Native Americans were affected by was the diseases that the conquistadors brought over from Europe. The disease that had the biggest
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During Cortés’s conquest of the Mexica, he encountered a people known as the Totonac. The Totonac held a resentment for the leaders of the Mexica, and when Cortés learned of this, he pledged that he would take part in their fight against the Mexica. This eventually led Cortés to take control of the Mexica empire. The conquistadors had also used a pattern of ransoming and terror to assert their authority to the Native Americans. For example, when Columbus returned to La Navidad to find the 39 men he left there dead, he blamed the Taino and therefore turned against them. In reaction to the death of the 39 men, the Spanish started to use scare tactics and violence to assert their authority to the Taino, and Columbus kidnapped Caonabo, the leader of the Taino, and ransomed him for his life (Reardon, PowerPoint 11, Lecture Two). The tactic of ransom was also used by Cortés when he seized Montezuma, the leader of the Mexica, and held his life for ransom to extort the Mexica to do his bidding. The conquistadors were also often able to acquire information about the Native American societies they were about to encounter by using people inside or who had encountered those societies before. For example, Cortés used a Mexica girl named Malintzin as a translator and was able to acquire information about the Mexica people and resources from her. This information helped the conquistadors better understand their enemy in order to assess their strengths and