Transcript for:
Spanish Colonization in the New World

though the spanish began colonizing in the new world after 1493 it is important to remember that during the first 25 years of the spanish colonial period all of the colonizing efforts took place in the caribbean islands of the west indies that is prior to 1519 there was not an attempt to establish a colony on the mainland of the western hemisphere all right so in this lecture we want to start talking about how the spanish began to refocus their colonizing efforts beyond the caribbean islands and onto the mainland of of the western hemisphere so let's start this lecture by looking quickly uh at the map and just kind of refreshing our memories remember that the spanish initially uh colonized on the island of hispaniola where um santa domingo was located and you can actually see santa domingo uh on this map but after um a few years the seat of government shifted from the smaller island of hispaniola um to the larger island of cuba and throughout the um spanish colonial era now especially in this part of the world cuba became kind of the administrative center now that would shift to the mainland after 1519 and indeed mexico city would become the dominant administrative center of new spain which was the name of the colony that the spanish established here in the new world so i put this map up just to kind of refresh your memory and in 1519 now we're going to see the spanish attempt to establish a permanent settlement on the mainland and more specifically the spanish are going to attempt to occupy of the aztec capital of tenochtitlan all right so let's talk a little bit now about the um spanish conquest of tenochtitlan all right in 1519 the man pictured in this slide hernan cortes was commissioned by the governor of cuba the spanish governor to undertake a uh occupation uh expedition um and the occupation was targeting um tenochtitlan the the capital city of the aztecs the spanish by this time had heard of the aztecs they had heard stories about a great empire in the interior of modern mexico but they had never been there they had never had direct contact with the aztecs um they did understand that um the the uh emperor mortizuma had a large and powerful army and so they knew that hernan cortez was up against considerable odds nevertheless he was commissioned to undertake this occupation with 11 ships um 500 men and those 500 men would include it would include um a small number of men who would be mounted and there were 13 horses that initially accompanied the the um expedition and of course now these were going to be the first of the horses um introduced into um the western hemisphere at least the mainland of the western the western hemisphere now in defense of tenochtitlan the emperor montezuma um was able to muster a very large army and we don't know exactly how many warriors he we had he had under his command but the estimates from the time and and they remain um somewhat um relied upon in the present days is that he may have had as many as 200 000 uh under his command now these men did not have the same technology that um the spanish had nevertheless um you can see that they greatly greatly out uh numbered um the spanish indeed outnumbered the spanish on on the order of 400 to one something like that so the point is that the the aztecs had a considerable advantage um going into this conflict and it would be a conflict uh which of course then raises the very important question how was cortez able to overcome um these odds given that he was so greatly outnumbered and it's a question that has kind of fascinated historians ever since but if we look at the causes and the course of the confrontation itself we can begin to understand a little bit about how it was that that cortes was able to overcome these odds because we do know that by 1521 um cortes was able to occupy and occupy and seize control of the aztec capital all right so in order to help students kind of understand cortez's advantage i i break down cortez's advantages under four classifications um so there are four basic advantages that um cortes had and this is these are the the advantages that if you remember them you'll have a good understanding of why and how cortez was able to accomplish what he did okay the first advantage he had was a technological advantage okay that included such things as horses the um spanish had domesticated horses um the the the aztecs obviously did not which not only gave the spanish a significant advantage in combat but it also gave them a considerable advantage in terms of communication information could be shared very quickly um and disseminated very quickly um on horses where whereas the aztecs did not have that advantage the the spanish also had the advantage of gunpowder they had developed gunpowder the use of gun power and and obviously firearms uh technology okay they had primitive muskets they were called the spanish musket was called an arc bus and the arc bus um was able to fire a a ball and that ball was abs absolutely capable of considerable damage including obviously um killing people but the thing to remember about the arc bus and and indeed gunpowder technology more generally at this time is that it was very slow and it was very cumbersome and the net result then is that even though um the spanish did uh and and were able to to utilize this technology to their advantage um it wasn't as big as an advan of an advantage as you might think especially given the numerical advantage that the aztecs had right the aztecs had bow and arrow technology even longbow technology and that allowed them to um literally if need be rained down um walls of of arrows um flying through the air uh at the in the direction of of the spanish and given that there were so many um archers uh among the aztecs that had the effect of to a very large degree nullif nullifying um the musket technology of the spanish muskets were not accurate um beyond more than say 30 yards and even then they were not particularly accurate because um the balls that fired first of all there was no rifling in the barrels of the of the of the the muskets themselves which meant that the projectile as it came out um it was not spinning because it was not spinning it was kind of like a knuckle ball in baseball it was bobbing and weaving all over the place and it was very difficult to know um where it was going to go and even if it would hit its target all right on the other hand given the the numbers of archers that the aztecs had um the weapons advantage very much played into um the the to the aztecs okay so there was a technology advantage but and this is something that i stress to students all the time all the time this technology advantage actually played into the second advantage more than anything okay and that was an advantage of psychology okay the fact of the matter is the spanish had a psychological advantage over um the aztecs okay they could summon upon science um they understood science they understood technology and they could use that to their advantage and cortez most definitely did use that to his advantage okay it is important to remember that there was this long-standing story of quetzalcoatl the feathered serpent the god of peace who had been sent out of of the valley of mexico during the toltec era and there is you know uh at least a legend um that says that um the aztecs feared uh and were possibly waiting for the return of quetzalcoatl again whether or not there's any historical validity to that is widely debated today there are some historians who believe that yes indeed um the the span excuse me the aztecs were afraid of a possible return of quetzalcoatl but we don't have any real um evidence uh in the form of documentation uh to prove that on the other hand if they were anticipating the return of of quetzalcoatl then that would certainly play into cortez's psychological advantage as well okay but the biggest advantage in terms of psychology tied directly to technology all right whether they believed that that cortez was quetzalcoatl or not they certainly did believe that he was some sort of a god okay that was something that became very evident um and it had to do with the fact that this technology gave the appearance that cortez was a god okay for example the arc bus the musket okay when the ark bus was fired there was a bright flash of light and a thunderous boom that accompanied um that the firing of the musket okay there was nothing in the aztec world at that time um to to compare that to other than thunder and lightning the kind of thunder and lightning that appear in the sky all right and who commands thunder and lightning well none other than god's command thunder and lightning and so the idea that here you have this light complected man who has appeared um with with people who first of all um ride on these these mounted beasts that are that are very fast and very strong and and that that are able to summon up thunder and lightning um well this is the stuff of gods and and we know then that the aztecs um welcomed uh cortez into the city when he first arrived uh tenochtitlan he was welcomed into the city and that was because he was respected he was a revered uh as as a god or for all intents and purposes as a god all right so the psychology of both technology and the aztec world view very much played into um cortez's hand and ultimately helped him um bring down this empire okay the third important advantage was a political advantage the one thing that the aztecs had done as they expanded their empire is that they had alienated certain groups of people along the coast and and throughout mesoamerica right through military conquest they had um generated enemies and the net result is that cortes was able to come into mesoamerica and take advantage of that political division okay cortes took uh as a mistress a woman by the name of who came to be known as dona marina was the daughter of one of the coastal chieftains and dona marina ultimately became cortez's mistress and and she had children by cortez in mexican history and and according to the aztecs at the time um they had a name for her and they called dona marina la malinche okay la malinche even in in um even in uh mexican uh culture and tradition today refers to basically somebody who is evil or bad and especially to somebody who is a traitor okay dona marina was seen as a traitor to the aztec to to the native americans and so she became known as la malinche the evil one the traitorous one but she is seen that way because she helped um cortez she served as an intermediary she spoke the language of the people and so in many ways dona marina became the eyes and the ears and the voice of cortez he was able to communicate with her she was then able to communicate with the various uh people of the region again that included many of the aztec enemies and so through dona marina cortez was able to actually build an army he arrived with 500 men but by the time he arrived in tenochtitlan his force had grown considerably certainly by thousands and it's unknown for certain how many um uh indians joined in with um cortez but nevertheless his um his force began to grow considerably due largely to the political divisions that existed within mesoamerica more generally finally the fourth of the important advantages the court cortes had at his disposal was a biological okay we talked it at extents about the colombian exchange and when we did we talked about smallpox okay we can see from the story of um the conquest of tenochtitlan the actual um introduction of smallpox into um tenochtitlan and how that ultimately now is going to contributed contribute more than anything to the fall of um the the aztec capital all right so having identified these four advantages let's talk a little bit about um the actual um course of events in the fall of of tenochtitlan all right cortes set out um in um actually set out in i believe it was like november of 1918 and he arrived on the mainland uh and began to establish himself uh in 1519 okay in 1519 he arrived on the coast and he was able to garner support uh and as he and his growing party uh arrived in tennessee the gates of tenochtitlan motezuma threw open the gates and welcomed him into the city he did not even have to fight to enter the city okay motozuma had heard long before cortes arrived motezuma had heard stories of this man along the coast and he had heard stories of his great powers and consequently multizuma threw open the skates of the city he actually put up cortez in his father's palace and it was there that cortes began to learn about the great wealth the riches that existed within tenochtitlan and he began to envision himself as a great um emperor uh over the city in controlling uh all of this aztec wealth and power all right so initially cortes kind of set himself up as an emperor um with montezuma's support and in many ways montezuma became his puppet okay and because he became a puppet there were many nobility aztec leaders who began to question montezuma's fortitude his strength and his loyalty they they began to see him as caving into um the will of cortez all right the problem um that cortez had is that as he became more powerful he became more independent-minded and he began to think of himself as being um an emperor apart from the cuban governor remember the governor of cuba had sent him there the governor of cuba had not intended that cortes would become his own independent uh his own independent emperor there okay so consequently uh in 1520 now after cortes had been there um for about a year the governor of cuba decided that it was time that that cortes be relieved of his command he'd become just a little bit too big and too powerful and so the governor of cuba in the spring of 1520 sent a man by the name of panfilo narvaez to the mexican mainland with the intention that nadavis would now relieve cortes of his command okay well cortes got word of the not of is expedition before uh it arrived and consequently cortes left the city of tenochtitlan he traveled down to the uh coastline and this was in the late spring and early summer of 1520 and he basically parlayed with many of naravayas's men and he convinced many of narvaez's men if you come over to his side he'd take you back to tenochtitlan and he'd set people up with land and gold and they'd have everything they needed and he was so influential that most of panfilo narvaez's men um basically defected they went over to cortez's side naravis was defeated and he was sent packing uh and back to cuba okay cortes then began his march back to tenochtitlan the problem for not cortez now is that in his absence multizuma had begun to lose his power okay the nobility in aztec in tenochtitlan that is the aztec nobility had begun to challenge the rule of montezuma okay the nobility had wanted to throw cortez out and that set the stage then in um june of 1520 for the clash the great clash between um the spanish uh and the aztecs okay in in in mexican history it became known as the noche triste the sad night okay on the sad night basically what happened was um the spanish were forced by the much larger um aztec forces to abandon the city but in so doing the spanish had been ruthless in their treatment of of um the aztecs and they had been very destructive of the capital that's why it's called the noche triste the aztec capital to a very large degree was not completely destroyed but it was destroyed and many of the residents of of tenochtitlan lost their lives many spanish lost their lives but the point is that in the aftermath of the noche triste now the spanish had been forced out of the capital city and the capital city had been reclaimed by the aztecs okay now here's the problem just a couple months after the um the uh noche triste the aztecs began to report a deadly virus that was killing people okay people were dying in large number smallpox had been introduced okay and given the timing of this introduction of of smallpox it's widely believed that smallpox was transported by um the men who had arrived with panfilo narvaez okay those that had been um new to the city uh introduced this it introduced smallpox in the city they had not been there very long but they didn't have to be there very long and smallpox spread white like wildfire in the fall and winter of 1520 and 1521 it wiped out much of the population and then in the spring of 1521 okay the smallpox outbreak occurred in in the fall of 1520 okay the following spring in 1521 now basically um cortez launched his new uh invasion by this time during the winter months he had built ships even and those ships had allowed him to sail uh out onto tenoch uh excuse me out on to lake tex coco uh and to fire upon and to occupy even though the drawbridges had been raised up tenochtitlan was penetrated and given the weakness of the population the population had been um busy trying to nurse the sick um you know in a sense now they were no longer able to fend off um the spanish they did their best uh but by summer of 1521 tenochtitlan had fallen the aztec capital had been occupied and now um the spanish are going to occupy control and begin to build a city around tenochtitlan okay that city would become known as as mexico city okay and mexico city um and by the way the name meshika refers to the aztec the the aztec people the aztecs referred to themselves as the meshika the people okay mexico or the mexico city became this the people's um city okay as for cortez cortez was was shortly there after um replaced uh as emperor um mexico city that um the colony of new spain was claimed and controlled by um the the um the spanish empire um basically cortez himself became a where very wealthy um and comendero is what he was called him he was basically a landowner very powerful uh plantation owner but he was never returned to political power all right he retired in the new world uh um a very wealthy very comfortable life but he largely was removed from political power at that point all right so following the occupation of tenochtitlan now uh and the establishment of a foothold on the um in mexico the spanish are going to start looking northward okay they're gonna start looking northward and they're going to start looking to colonize in what would become the united states okay now i point out um the the importance of sacatechus here the location of sacatecas because it's going to be critical to understanding what happened with the colonization of florida okay we're going to talk next about the um conquest the occupation of florida okay now here's what happens in the case of sacatechus zakatekis was a whoops i don't want to get ahead of myself sakatecas was the site of a very important silver strike okay silver was discovered uh in sacatecas and that silver once it was processed was loaded up onto ships and it was sailed um on silver galleons uh back to spain back to the mother country okay and the crown the kings and queens used that silver to basically build armies uh and navies the problem was that those silver galleons as they sailed out of the gulf of mexico and out onto the high seas i'll go back here as they sailed out of the gulf of mexico and out onto the high seas that's when they encountered pirates okay they were french they were they were british they were dutch they were pirates who preyed upon um the spanish silver okay and so in order to try and bring some degree of lawfulness or control into this area now the spanish by the 1520s are going to begin looking at um establishing uh a settlement okay on the island of florida which would allow them then to kind of police those waters and hopefully prevent piracy of spanish silver okay and so in 1513 a man by the name of ponce de leon was juan luis ponce de leon was commissioned to go out and explore um in the north okay a peninsula that was known to exist in the north and that was that was florida okay so this is again this is about the same time um that was um that the spanish were learning about um the mainland okay so here's what's going to happen ponce de leon establishes a uh he first explores um florida in 1513 and then in 1521 he comes back and he establishes a settlement there okay now the problem was that when he arrived uh and and tried to establish a settlement among the um the seminal people now uh he's going to uh be required uh to issue a proclamation to the native american people okay and that proclamation um was required reading and it was therefore called the recuera miento and you can see the text in this slide at the bottom of a portion of the requirement and it goes like this if you do not well and i should clarify i guess um basically under the the terms of the requirement all indians all native americans were declared to be um subjects of the crown okay they were now part of the spanish empire they were to basically obey the king or the queen they were to obey um the mission fathers okay the priests the church all right and if they did not there would be consequences all right that's what the requiremento stated okay you are now subjects of the crown you have certain expectations if you don't adhere to those expectations there will be consequences what are the consequences well this is what the ricotta mientos said if you do not do this that is submit to the king and you maliciously make delay in it i certify to you that with the help of god we shall powerfully enter into your country and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the church and their highnesses that is the priests okay we shall take you and your wives and your children and shall make slaves of them okay that was the first statement that the spanish had when they encountered indians now did native americans understand what was being told um what what you know the statements that were they're being made the answer is um probably not okay because they didn't understand the language on the other hand they very quickly learned it because the requirement was enforced and the net result then is that there was resistance okay there was resistance there was pushback okay now ponce de leon attempted to establish a settlement in in 1521 it did not um survive okay but in 1547 as i told you just a minute ago in 1547 at sacatecas a man by the name of juan de tolusa made this very important discovery he discovered silver okay the the saca take on silver strike now is going to begin transforming the spanish empire okay there's going to be now a tremendous amount of wealth in the form of money that is infused into the spanish treasury okay again the the crown is going to use that money to build navies the spanish armada okay the crown is going to use that money to build armies all right and these armies are going to use to further the conquest of the spanish empire all right so sucka taken silver was very very important but on the other hand it was also preyed upon um by pirates on the in the north atlantic okay and when those pirates um took um um well the spanish crown had to respond okay and so in 1565 the other man pictured in this slide a man by the name of pedro menendez de aviles was commissioned now to return to florida okay the first attempt to establish a settlement in florida by ponce de leon had failed all right the second attempt now in 1565 is going to result in the establishment of a community called saint augustine and saint augustine florida survives today as the oldest european settlement in the continental united states okay this is some well this is some 40 years 40 plus years before jamestown um virginia all right so before the british came on the scene the spanish had established settlements um in the continental united states in this case saint augustine florida it was established by menendez de aviles okay now obvious um like um ponce de leon read the uh recremiento again uh he enforced a miento and in the end there was conflict there was pushback in the form of a seminal rebellion a seminal resistance but on the other hand um the seminals were not able to muster the power to drive the spanish out they did temporarily unseat them from st augustine uh but not for any um length of time the spanish remained entrenched in florida and they would remain so okay not until 1819 did the spanish finally give up florida and that was after andrew jackson invaded florida okay we'll talk about the annexation or the seizure of florida by the united states later in this class but up clear up until 1819 well into the u.s period florida remained part of the spanish realm all right so we've talked a little bit about florida now we're going to kind of shift gears and move a little bit to the west and we're going to talk a little bit about new mexico what happened in new mexico new mexico was a little bit different especially given that the people who occupied the rio grande valley of new mexico were very different than the people who lived in florida okay remember that the rio grande valley had been occupied by people of the anasazi tradition okay we call them the pueblo indians or the pueblo peoples okay the pueblo and peoples of of new mexico were part of that anasazi tradition okay they were sedentary they were farmers they built um communities they built um small villages if you will they used adobe architecture to to build permanent structures okay and they practiced a religion that was called the kachina religion now the kachina religion is a religion that that effectively worshipped these small statuettes these little figurines which were associated with the physical world okay this was an animistic religion these um kachina statuettes represented um the sun and the moon and the rivers and the mountains and and the the objects of of the natural world and one of the most important of those um features of the natural world was the rio grande itself the river in an arid region where life was tenuous the river was a source of the water that sustained the population and again if at any time that river stopped flowing well the people would not be able to survive and so consequently the river um was was one of the most important of of the kachinas okay so it's sometimes called the kachina sometimes it's called the katsina um but it's the it's the it's the same religion and within that religion then there were a host of different priests um that were part of the religious tradition part of the religious ceremonies okay now in 1539 the spanish first entered um new mexico okay the first arrival was a man by the name of francisco coronado okay coronado arrived in 1539 and he was ultimately seeking what were called the seven cities of sibola the seven cities of sibila were the legendary cities of wealth gold and silver that existed somewhere in the north sometimes called el dorado or part of the region of eldorado okay coronado hoped to find tremendous wealth um in in the north and when when he arrived in new mexico he um not only read the requiremento but he was extremely brutal and oppressive of of the pueblo people he demanded that they tell him where the gold and silver were well they had no idea what he was talking about they tried to get rid of him he punished them okay and the net result then was that the first contact that the pueblo people of new mexico had with the spanish was not a very favorable contact okay nevertheless the spanish continued um to believe that there was gold and silver uh in the north okay in 1598 the other man pictured in this slave one in the slide excuse me juan de onate arrived in the rio grande valley and he established a settlement there and in 1609 um that settlement brought about the establishment of a capital santa fe okay santa fe new mexico today remains one of the oldest cities uh in the united states 1609 is just two years after um the founding of jamestown so at the same time that the spanish or excuse me that the english were establishing a settlement in virginia now the spanish had been very busy trying to establish another settlement in um new mexico and and they were successful uh in establishing santa fe okay by 1680 it's estimated that there was something like 2300 spaniards living in new mexico and approximately 33 of those um well pretty precisely 33 of those settlers were missionaries okay now 1680 is an important year because that is the year of the pueblo revolt i want to spend a little bit of time just a couple minutes talking about a revolt that took place against the spanish in the year 1680 okay now while the kachina were the religion of the pueblo people the spanish and that included catholic priests identified this religion this kachina religion as sorcery okay it was heresy it was undermining what they took to be the only true religion roman catholicism okay so these catholic missionaries um labeled the kachina priests sorcerers they labeled them heretics and in 1675 they along with the governor of new mexico launched a massive crackdown on the kachina religion okay kachina priests were labeled sorcerer sorcerers and four of those kachina priests the most prominent of them were very publicly hanged in santa fe and at the same time 47 others were publicly flogged in an attempt to demonstrate that the the mission fathers and the spanish more generally were not going to tolerate the kachina religion among them all right now one of those priests who was was flogged was a man by the name of pope okay i know it looks like pope but when you put the accent over the e was actually pronounced pope okay pope is now going to launch a rebellion against the spanish all right and basically what he did was he gathered up a bunch of lengths of rope okay and he tied about seven knots uh in those lengths of rope okay then he gave the lengths of rope to out to to runners um to run out to all of the um villages all the pueblos um in the area around santa fe and and the runners received instructions tell the people of each pueblo that every morning when the sun comes up you are to untie one knot in this rope okay and on the day that the last knot is untied that is the day that we will all rise up okay we will strike at the missions okay and there were something like 15 missions in the upper rio grande valley we will strike at santa fe we will strike at all um settlements okay and that's what they did in the summer of 1680 the pueblo people rose up and it was a very powerful opposition the spanish quickly retreated to um santa fe and and they were surrounded in santa fe and ultimately they were forced to abandon santa fe okay almost all of the missionaries were killed um you know 375 spanish were killed in this pueblo revolt including almost all of the missionaries okay pope had forced the abandonment of santa fe and for the next 12 years santa fe remained under control of the pueblo people the problem is after almost 100 years of spanish presence there were also large numbers of catholics now many pueblos had converted to catholicism and when pope died it created kind of a power struggle within and that power struggle then by 1692 allowed the spanish to return and after 1692 then the spanish reclaimed new mexico and they remained in mexico until mexico secured its independence um in 1821 okay the united states would later occupy mexican um new mexico okay so new mexico became part of mexico and the united states would later occupy mexican new mexico okay i'm going to leave it here uh and when we come back in our next um uh presentation then we're going to talk about what happened in texas and california