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Spanish colonization of americas history
Spanish empire and the americas
Spanish conquest of the new world
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Then soon the conquest of the Americas by the Spanish around 1492. This started the chain of effects that led to the change in China and for the Native Americans. Because of the changes, this led to the Native Americans becoming slaves because of the discovery of silver. In Document 6, that was written by Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa, spook of the slavery and the forced work that they were put through just so the Spain, Philippines, and Chinese can get their silver. Though Antonio was a Spanish priest, he was able to speak of the “poor fellows” condition of work, telling the labor they went through everyday.
In order to collect a profit, the Spanish forced the Indians to work. The Spanish not only stole treasures from the Indians but also benefitted from the Indians labor. In A Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies by Bartolome de las Casas (Doc 8), it described how the Spanish enslaved the native people in order to get more wealth. Also, in document 8, it compared the Spanish to wolves because they were very aggressive. On the other hand, it compared the Indians to sheep as they were the weak.
The Spanish conquest on the Mayans was a significant event during the 1500’s. The Spanish conquest brought their military equipment’s that was no match for the Mayan Indians. As the conquest continued to expand throughout Central America there was little unity among other tribes beside the Mayan empire. The reason for this is because they believe that the Spanish were much inferior to their own beliefs and ancestry.
After the Civil War, the second Industrial Revolution swept the US and the country began to flourish. Baring the economic prosperity, many Americans grew the urge to expand overseas. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, foreign policy was the hot topic among citizens and government officials. There were two sides to the argument; some Americans pushed for the aggressive foreign policy while others favored for the US to keep their nose out of foreign affairs. Notable figures in government took bold stands for and against foreign affairs.
“Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress”, chapter one of “A People’s History of the United States”, written by professor and historian Howard Zinn, concentrates on a different perspective of major events in American history. It begins with the native Bahamian tribe of Arawaks welcoming the Spanish to their shores with gifts and kindness, only then for the reader to be disturbed by a log from Columbus himself – “They willingly traded everything they owned… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” (Zinn pg.1) In the work, Zinn continues explaining the unnecessary evils Columbus and his men committed unto the unsuspecting natives.
The French and Spanish both expanded to the Americas during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Both had different desires in doing so, but had similar viewpoints on the Natives that have settled American lands. The French sought out to find tradeable goods and new riches in the Americas while the Spanish expanded due to religion, competition and slavery. In Document 5, an Algonquian village with the name “Secotan” is pictured showing readers what a Native village in the Americas may have looked like in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Cottages made with lumber and sticks were used as shelter and storage facilities for food and weapons.
The author gives insight on how many ways the Spaniards used their power to assist in the downfall of the Aztecs. The reason why the Spaniards became victorious, was because the Spaniards were looked upon as if they were gods because of their outer appearance. The Aztecs broke bread and welcomed the Spaniards with gifts and parties. The Aztecs triggered their relationship with the Spaniards by holding a ritual for the arrival of the god which included a human sacrifice. The Spaniards didn’t agree with the rituals and began to despise the Aztecs.
The Spaniards made a big impact in the Americas. They killed many Incas,Tainos, and Aztecs. These populations lost many including their emperors. On the Spaniard 's side they had power by killing Atahualpa and Montezuma they could create colonies and take riched back to their country. The Spaniards weren 't the only ones to look for riches in the New World.
Argumentative Essay Outline I. Claim: Celebration of Columbus Day should be abolished due to Columbus’ harsh treatment toward the Native Americans and fallacies in his exploration. II. Sub-Claims: A) Reason: Columbus’ exploration was not meant to discover America but to conquer and exploit existed American civilizations.
Though they once felt powerful as a group, they knew there could be many other much stronger civilizations further away to be fearful of. But there was one other factor that resulted in the Spaniards’’ victory over the Aztecs. “The natives could do little to stop the invisible warrior that marched alongside the Spaniards - disease. Measles, mumps, smallpox, and typhus were just some of the diseases Europeans were to bring with them to the Americas” (McDougal 556). Because of their lack of immunity to the diseases brought over by the Europeans, hundreds of thousands of Aztecs and other native Americans died.
On these islands I estimate there are 2,100 leagues of land that have been ruined and depopulated, empty of people.” (Las Casas) Nothing positive came from the people of Spain setting foot on the land of the Indians. Depopulation was just one of many hazardous effects that the Spaniards
When thinking of the Spanish Conquest, two groups often come to mind: the Spaniards and the Native Americans. The roles of each of these groups and their encounters have been so heavily studied that often the role of Africans is undermined. As Matthew Restall states in his article Black Conquistadors, the justifications for African contribution are often “inadequately substantiated if not marginalized [as the] Africans were a ubiquitous and pivotal part of the Spanish conquest campaigns in the Americas […]” (Restall 172). Early on in his article, Restall characterizes three categories of Africans present during the Conquest – mass slaves, unarmed servants of the Spanish, and armed auxillaries (Restall 175).
The Native Americans were seen as weak willed, for they barely resisted the conquest of their homes. If the Native Americans showed no incentive of retaliating and were better at manual work, it seemed natural to the Spanish that they be enslaved. The Native Americans, on the other hand, saw the Spanish in a different light as well as they watched many Spaniards become obsessed with gold. The Spanish were given Gold as gifts and went crazy just holding it and lusting for more, like savage monkeys. The Spanish, by nature, couldn’t help but become greedy monsters for gold, because in Europe riches were equivalent to power.
One of the most important in events in history is the discovery of the Americas. The invasion and exploration of the Spanish had a quite impact. In my opinion after reading and watching the video, I believe it brought a negative impact. One of the greatest tragedies in human history is the spread of communicable diseases, such as small pox, measles, influenza, whooping cough and mumps. Indian people were expose to these diseases that had no immunities to them, causing massive deaths.
This power imbalance and these payments are key in the subjugation of the natives. Furthermore, the paternalism of the Spanish toward the Indigenous peoples is obvious: “Captain [Cortes] stared at him [Cuauhtemoc]…then patted him on the head” (p.117). Post-conquest, and still today, “difficult relations” between the descendants of the Indigenous peoples and the “others” (p.117) still exist. The European view of the natives “as idolatrous savages” or, on the contrary, as “models of natural virtue” (p.175) demonstrate the versatile and often contradictory views held. Similarly, the Aztecs at times saw the Spaniards as gods, and other times as gold-hungry savages who “fingered it like monkeys” (p.51).