How Did All The European Empire In America Have Begun Empires Of Conquest

‘All the European empires in America had begun empires of conquest.’ Anthony Pagden’s statement goes so far as to suggest that the European powers had little initial interest in imposing their culture, customs or religion upon the indigenous population, instead it was only conquest and the rewards of such that concerned the nations of Europe. However, in this essay I will discuss the various interests of the European powers upon the native inhabitants of the ‘New World’, and of which one, if any, holds dominance. In this way I will be able to distinguish what attitudes the European powers had with regard to the native inhabitants of the Americas, and if they do indeed share a common interest towards them.

Pagden’s view that each empire had

As he addresses Ferdinand and Isabella, he states ‘all that is needed here is a seat of government and to command them to do what you wish.’ Spain’s notions of empire had been inextricably bound by it’s cultural traditions of the Reconquista since the eleventh century, therefore Spanish expansion was likely to take the form of conquest. The Spaniards, unlike their European competitors, also arrived with the intention of creating European communities that would be reliant on a native labour force, as Charles Talleyrand noted in 1797, they ‘wished not to cultivate, but to devastate,’. From the point of discovery the Spaniards had looked upon the Americas as ‘objects of conquest’, interested only in the resources the ‘New World’ had to offer, rather than the imposition of Spanish culture, customs and religion upon the native people. Although it would be inaccurate to summarily categorise the Spanish empire as one of conquest as there were aspects which suggest a different approach, as opposed to the one of ‘devastation’ that Talleyrand describes. Cortes had his philosophy, expressed by Gomara, that ‘without settlement there is no good

It was also imposed on the native inhabitants from the outset, used upon arrival to the Indies, the requierimiento was a legal document drawn up in 1512 that stated that ‘Saint Peter and his successors possessed jurisdiction over the whole world’, to which the ‘local population must submit.’ The document was formally read on all expeditions of discovery and conquest, including those of Hernan Cortes. With regard to this, Pagden argues that the Spanish were ‘overwhelmingly concerned’ with ‘rights over people’. This is true to the extent that Spain did want to impose religion upon the indigenous inhabitants, yet this desire appears to only have stemmed from the Spanish crown’s ‘commitment’ with the papacy, religion itself seems to have been used more as a tool to legitimise Spanish expansion. Whether this is the case or not, Christianity according to Euan Cameron, was ‘imposed or adopted to a greater or lesser extent everywhere the Iberians went’. Despite the motives behind conversion, the fact of the matter remains, that Spain was interested in imposing religion upon the native population, and the actions of the church in Spanish America consolidate this. Archbishop Villagomez was one of many to embark on a campaign for the ‘extirpation of idolatry’, in such crusades Spaniards sought to