How Did Hernan Cortes Build An Empire

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On the other hand, there is an example of slavery in Spanish colonies where the situation was much more complicated. When Pope granted Spain the right to colonize the newly discovered lands back in 1493, he required the conquistadors to enforce the Christianity on the conquered terrains. It means that Christians could not be slaves and that only those natives who refused to become Christians could be enslaved. Pope abolished the enslavement of the natives that were converted to Christianity; however, Hernan Cortes has had his own ideas on the way the colonies had to develop. Hernan Cortes, who conquered the Aztec Empire and launched the genocide of millions of natives, was one of the most prominent and successful of the Spanish conquistadors (Madley). …show more content…

Cortes was given the title of the premier encomendero of the New Spain which actually made him the ruler of the Spanish colonies in the New World. Cortes divided the lands into encomiendas and assigned his followers to rule each of these territories. According to his ruling, all the indigenous people who lived within these encomiendas were bound to these lands and hence, were considered slaves to the local encomenderos. Despite the directive given by Pope back in 1493, in the 1520s, when Cortes got to rule the New Spain, the encomenderos found the way to bypass the requirements of the Pope. They claimed that the natives kept worshiping their old gods even though they were forcefully baptized; hence, they rejected Christ and were not regarded as Christians (Burkholder and Johnson). It opened the door for the enslavement of the indigenous population of the American

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