Spanish Exploration Study Notes

FOUNDATIONS OF THE ATLANTIC WORLD HIST 1301 | History Spanish Exploration The Spanish kings Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castille were unwilling to let Portugal take the lead in developing maritime trade with regions outside of Europe, even in the face of the Romanus Pontifex. After the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula was overthrown by 1492, Isabella and Ferdinand could focus on issues outside of the peninsula without having to worry about the threat the Muslims represented. Christopher Columbus, a Genoese navigator, came to them in 1486 asking for money for expedition. Columbus postulated that he might sail the Atlantic Ocean westward to reach Asia. Isabella and Ferdinand granted his proposal, eager to establish an all-water path to Asia to rival the Portuguese. They had the same commitment to advancing Christianity and halting the rise of Islam as the Portuguese kings. They considered themselves, in fact, to be the leading advocates of Roman Catholicism in Europe. With three ships, Columbus sailed from Spain on August 3, 1492. He made a quick halt at the Canary Islands before setting off once more on September 6. After travelling for five weeks, he arrived in the Bahamas, which he thought were a region of Southeast Asia known as the Indies. From there, he set sail for Cuba and the island that Columbus called Hispaniola, which translates to "little Spain" and is currently shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. After first contact, Columbus referred to the people living on Hispaniola as "Indians." While some welcomed the Europeans and tried to find out whether the locals possessed gold, another group, maybe suspicious of the outsiders, fought them. After leaving a small group of men to establish a settlement in Hispaniola, Columbus and his crew headed for Europe, bringing several Arawak captives with them. When they landed in Spain in 1493, Columbus thought he had made it to the Indies. He made three more trips back to the Americas. He visited the Venezuelan coast on his third expedition, and he was certain that it was a part of the Asian continent. The Italian cartographer Amerigo Vespucci, who accompanied successive Spanish and Portuguese expeditions to South America, gave the continents they dubbed the Americas after Europeans soon realised that the territories Columbus had discovered were indeed new continents. The era of European colonisation in the Americas began with this. One group of people attempting to impose dominance over another, generally for the goal of economic exploitation, is known as colonialism. The Spanish, Portuguese, and other European powers that had claimed areas in the Americas in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were absorbed into the colonial empires that these countries were starting to establish. Columbus's explorations did not yield the wealth that the rulers of Spain had anticipated. Conquistadors spearheaded Spain's exploration of the new continents anyway. While some of these explorers were landless and wanted to better their condition in life, others were nobility or had military expertise and had battled the Muslims in Spain. The encomienda, a hereditary grant that entitled the bearer, known as an encomendero, to the labour of a predetermined number of conquered people or to a tribute of precious metals or agricultural output, was one tool used by the Spanish government to recompense the conquistadors. Indigenous peoples were prohibited from being sold into slavery by the Crown, but the encomienda system allowed Spanish settlers who wanted to make money from their labour to mistreat them. The enormous riches that the Spanish had anticipated finding in Mexico were quickly found. After landing at Potonchan on the Yucatán Peninsula in 1519, the conqueror Hernán Cortés marched northward into the interior of Mexico, where he came across the formidable Aztec Empire. The Spanish were astounded by the grandeur and elegance of Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the Aztecs. Moctezuma II, the Aztec monarch, initially greeted them and gave them presents. However, in an effort to exert authority over his people, Cortés captured Moctezuma and exploited him as a puppet. Tenochtitlan citizens fought the conquistadors in 1520 when the Spanish massacred participants in an Aztec ceremonial ceremony, sparking a conflict. Amidst the turmoil, Moctezuma II met his demise, maybe at the hands of his own people who believed he had abandoned them. The Spanish, fearing total devastation, left Tenochtitlan for the neighbouring city of Tlaxcala, which was Tenochtitlan's competitor. In May of 1521, Cortés and his Tlaxcalan allies made their way back to Tenochtitlan. By this point, the Spanish-brought infectious illnesses were starting to affect the Aztec people. Although smallpox was most likely the cause, other illnesses could also have been on the rise. (For instance, there is proof that a salmonella outbreak in 1540 also claimed a large number of Aztec deaths.) The Aztecs were sorely outmatched and unable to overcome Cortés and his Native American allies. Tenochtitlan fell to the Spanish after a threemonth siege, and they started converting the Aztecs to Christianity. While some Aztecs chose to convert on their own, many were coerced. Catholic churches were constructed on top of the demolished Aztec temples. Tenochtitlan was renamed Mexico City by the Spanish, who also made it the colony of New Spain's capital. Eventually, the colony's abundant silver reserves gave the Spanish kings the money they so desperately desired. After conquering the Inca Empire in South America, Francisco Pizarro, another Spanish explorer, quickly equaled Cortés's accomplishments in Mexico. Pizarro set off from the Canary Islands in January 1530 on a mission to conquer Peru, which he had heard was abundant in valuable metals. Queen Isabella of Portugal, the spouse of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who was also king of Spain, had given her consent for his conquest in 1529. The opposing successors to the Inca throne were at battle, and the Inca king had lately passed away from smallpox. Pizarro exploited the confusion and the knowledge that years of battle had worn down the Inca soldiers. He had taken Atahualpa, a participant in the civil war, in 1532; the Spanish hanged him the following year, though he had promised Pizarro that he would fill two rooms with silver and an entire room with gold if he was freed. The Inca capital of Cuzco was thereafter taken over by Pizarro. Like Mexico, Peru possessed vast silver reserves, but it was essentially made into a Spanish colony. The Incas did not submit to Spanish domination inertly. In 1536, around 100,000 Incas, led by Manco Inca, besieged Cuzco. But since they lacked the Spanish gunpowder weaponry, they were unable to expel the Europeans. The Inca Empire was partitioned by the Spanish into four areas, each ruled by a Spanish governor. Pizarro was granted the area that is now Peru.