all right so this lecture is on the conquistadors as well as the native american or indian people's attempt to resist said conquistadors so this is basically going to be an overview of the major conquistadors and not only who they were but more importantly what their expedition attempts were what they accomplished or what they failed at accomplishing uh and so again this is just kind of the main players here this is not a full history of all the conquistadors and what they accomplished but more importantly we're going to go over what changes happened as a result of these conquistadors actions what that means for the people in europe and for the native americans and for the people attempting to colonize this region so we're going to go ahead and get started on our lecture here so for our first slide uh of course we're going to talk about cortez and the aztecs cortez is definitely one of the first examples that people think of when we talk about a conquistador and so we're going to go just straight up into his background here he's definitely like i said the most famous specifically for what he did to the aztecs and in mexico cortez was born in spain in 1485. he was the son of a noble family who had very little wealth so he had the name but not the the finances to support that high status he was enthralled by the tales of the spanish indies the you know he was a kid when the discovery of the americas happened so we grew up hearing these amazing stories of this uh wonderful land far off in the west so so he definitely wanted to be a part of that he came to hispaniola as a young man he started to farm actually he wanted to be a farmer in 1504 but over the years he gained prominence his community but unfortunately he contracted syphilis and was able to accompan unable excuse me unable to accompany an expedition to south america which is what he really wanted to do he wanted to be a part of these journeys these explorations uh he was able to recover and in 1511 he joined diego velasquez specifically on a mission to conquer cuba and he continued to rise in power and in prominence under velazquez so um an expedition order was made uh or another one an additional explanation expedition order was made to explore central america with cortez as the leading general so this is his first chance to go out to explore to make a name for himself uh instead of being under velazquez he had gathered 300 men to lead the expedition in a very short amount of time he was again very eager to do this uh but velazquez was worried that cortes would actually rise above him in status and in power so velasquez actually ordered a halt of this expedition uh but cortes who has basically been waiting his entire life for this opportunity just ignores velasquez's order uh so he actually has a fleet of 11 ships 600 men 16 horses and numerous cannons weaponry and such and they set sail on february 18 15 19. uh so cortes is definitely i want to do this you know and in his mind i was born to do this so he pushes forward despite being ordered not to uh now when cortes first lands in south america uh more central america uh he had his ships destroyed in order to prevent retreat basically the only option for him and his men was to conquer there is no going home it was definitely a very strong motivational tactic to get his men to cooperate uh and again conquering is the purpose here that's what conquistador means it's people that conquer these the conquistador is basically a phrase that's used to refer to spanish warriors and conquerors and this is of course for glory for the spoils of war uh for the empire we're going to talk about the motivations a little bit later on uh and so cortes he's he's a very smart strategist he decides to make allies with uh people called the tatomac that's spelled t-o-t-o-m-a-c uh they were actually a former enemy of the aztec people who had been conquered by them so a lot of native americans saw the spanish and as we'll see the english later on as allies to help fight their own enemies because you know they see that they have superior weaponry superior battle strategies they have large forces so if we join with them then they can defeat these big bad guys who have been ruling over us for hundreds of years uh so uh the totomac operated as guides and and even insisted in the warfare and we'll talk about other groups that come later on uh so cortez's army makes the march uh specifically their goal is the capital of the aztec empire tenochtitlan uh but of course this takes a long time you're going through uh uncharted land vicious jungles so it takes about three months for his army you know his entire army to get there but of course they do interact with native american people along the way and cortez's orders are to just terrorize pillage they also use fear tactics to convince others to join their armies uh but then there are some like the tatomak who actually want to join this spanish uh one of the groups uh is actually called the tallax collands and you can see that that's spelled on the slide there t-l-a-x-c-l-a-n-a-s uh that is my best guess that the pronunciation is tallaxcalans so i apologize again if that's incorrect i do not speak nahuatl uh but again that they were enemies of the aztecs and they did not need coercion they jumped on the bandwagon and helped cortez uh and along the way uh cortez's tactics were brutal uh his armies pillaged raped and murdered anyone that they came across men women children no one was excluded from his violence uh a really good example i i say good but a bad you know example of what he did was uh the encounter at the city of cholula this was a population of about 40 000 people uh the city actually accepted him in him and his armies because they were secretly planning to ambush them you know if we pretend to be friendly we'll catch them off guard and attack them unfortunately cortes learned of their betrayal and so he invited the leaders to dinner for negotiations but instead he attacked the leaders and then had his army along with his indian allies uh invade the city and they killed thousands throughout the city again regardless men women and children uh so uh definitely violent and vicious is his tactics there there is no other option in his mind uh so they finally do arrive again after three months at tenochtitlan but uh cortez and his army were completely overwhelmed by the city uh this was larger than probably any other city that many of these men had even seen in their lifetimes as was mentioned in the lecture from native american history it was larger it was one of the largest cities in the world at the time uh and they were really surprised as well by the intense architecture and infrastructure again they had defense bridges they had canals they had floating gardens they had massive buildings and temple structures this uh the picture actually at the very beginning of of the slideshow uh is actually i'll go back here is actually a depiction of uh tenochtitlan and you can see you know just how how massive and and just completely different this city would have been to anything that these men had experienced but of course cortez is here to win so he's not going to let the size the massive nature of this city throw him off so specifically he utilized his indian alliances of course again with throw with threats with coercion uh to get the leaders of the city to let his army in again this is under the guise of peace under the guise of you know we're just exploring we just want to get to know you and your people uh and so on november 8 15 19 is when the aztec army is peacefully let into the city of tenochtitlan now the aztec emperor at this time was montezuma ii uh he actually agreed to meet with cortez in person and of course this is the same story over and over again similar to what happened with the people of cholula cortez's agreement to meet with montezuma is a lie cortez actually captures him and holds him prisoner uh cortez's goal is to just basically use montezuma as a puppet to gain control of the city uh he believed that the people would not attack his army as long as the emperor was in danger uh now again his his ideas here are based on european ideologies the king the monarch is is sacred they have they have a divine right to rule if your king is under threat you would not do anything that would lead to harm him but of course aztec culture is is different this idea of divine right the sanctity of kingship is is not the same as the way that it is in europe as we're going to see here actually in fact while cortez was uh you know using montezuma as his puppet uh he actually got word that there was another spanish expedition being led by a man named penfilio narvaez which is actually coming to relieve cortez of power so he actually left a garrison of his soldiers to watch montezuma keep an eye on tenochtitlan and he actually left to go fight off narvaez to stop him from taking control uh just really shows that cortes was drunk with power with authority with being the top dog so he goes he defeats narvaez and actually adds narvaez's soldiers to his own forces so he is able to build up his army and he returns to the city he returns to tenochtitlan now while cortez is gone the aztec people uh still in the city actually completely lose respect for montezuma uh they recognize that he's a puppet they recognize that he's not speaking with his own words and if in fact during one of his attempts to address the people they stoned and even shot arrows at him during his speech in fact he died three days later from his wounds he received now what's interesting is the people of tenochtitlan actually believed that the spanish had actually killed him uh this isn't too far stretched because previous to montezuma's death uh the spanish had killed several leaders during a festival celebration in the middle of a party uh so even though it was the aztec people themselves that accidentally killed montezuma uh it wasn't too far of a stretch to think that the spanish would have done it based on their previous actions so the aztec people decided to besiege the garrison basically we're going to attack them we're not going to let cortes come back into the city when he gets back here uh so of course cortez comes back the city is not in the position of strength under spanish control that he thought it would be so he works with native american allies to sneak the remaining uh soldiers out during the night they are successful but they are pursued by the aztecs so it's basically kind of a hit and run you know the the native american the aztec people attack cortez flees so his army is severely diminished as a result of of this uh basic basically this fleeing from tenochtitlan uh even though eventually cortes does stop he tries to fight them off uh he does technically win but in in the longer term it was a major loss because of how many people he lost uh it's what's called a pyrrhic victory you win but not really uh so so cortez's victory was a pyrrhic victory now cortes he reorganizes he regroups uh and again really relies heavily on the support of other native american people who are enemies of the aztecs uh and again he he persuades he coerces he terrorizes and decides that he is going to launch a siege against the city of tenochtitlan so if they can surround the city cut off the water supply eventually the people will break they'll have to come out and that's our way in which is what they do they lay siege to the city for three months this course a very long time but eventually uh cortez and his army make their way into the city there is a great deal of bloodshed and the capital uh the city capital you know the main structure at the center uh of the city is captured on august 13th 1521 and so that is considered by historians to be the official fall of the aztec empire uh so during this battle during the fight for tenochtitlan uh his men of course killed thousands of soldiers pillaged the city lots of destruction lots of burning and in fact after the surrender the tillax clans the ones we talked about earlier the the allies of the aztec or excuse me the allies of cortez against the aztec uh actually went through the city and just killed people even though even though the battle was over even though victory had been declared they killed women and children they raped many of the survivors cortez tortured many of the leaders who had survived just to kill them and the city anyone that was left behind that did survive was captured as slaves and many people just fled into the jungles it was just get out of the city if you can uh and of course once the city was captured it was completely destroyed it was you know burned raised to the ground basically uh cortez wanted to remove all the traces of the aztec people and he wanted to make a way basically for the new head of the spanish empire in america so that would actually become mexico city mexico city was built upon the ruins of tenochtitlan so it's definitely a violent bloody history uh definitely a significant loss of culture of you know the architecture the of the city itself um that is why cortez is perhaps the most famous well-known conquistador was because his battles were unlike any other and of course he was very very successful so moving on to uh just the other explorers that are again the kind of the top people that make this list now you do not need to write down all of this information that you see here you know you've got the name the campaign and then the year uh you don't need to write that down this is just a chronology to help you understand what is happening when uh again just so you have an idea of timelines here so you don't need to memorize it or anything like that so don't stress about that uh so the first guy we're going to talk about is francisco pizarro uh as you can see there he he led a campaign to conquest against the incas he was not as violent and as ruthless as cortes was he he actually tried to meet with the leaders to be diplomatic not just as you know a ruse to attack but it didn't really work because guess what people don't want to be conquered so he still had to fight he still had battles the inca themselves had been weakened uh by some internal conflicts by civil war uh as well as a smallpox outbreak and in fact in a very similar to fashion to cortez pizarro met with the ruler of the inca and eventually held him captive he decided that he was going to execute him by burning him but the king decided to accept christianity at his deathbed again this is you know did he really believe it or was it just an attempt to establish peace we we don't know unfortunately uh but he was killed instead uh he was strangled to death instead of burning to death so uh again that conversion may not have uh helped him as much as he was hoping that it would uh the spanish crown was actually very displeased by the way that pisarro had gained control uh specifically because the king of the inca had accepted christianity you know he's christian now you're not supposed to do that uh so that was a bit of a of a bad mark there for him uh following the incan emperor's death uh the conquistadors quickly captured the inca capital of cusco and the official fall of the inca empire was on november 15th in 1533 uh the conquistadors stripped the city of all gold and silver uh there was actually quite a lot there uh and so this actually destroyed much of the architecture uh in the process because it was embedded in in various aspects of the architecture so the next guy here is uh juan ponce de leon de leon was actually the governor of puerto rico and then he went on to lead explorations of la florida which of course became florida the state he explored much of the atlantic coast and actually made it all the way up to canada he actually attempted to make a spanish settlement somewhere in the carolinas but it was not successful and so it was abandoned uh now uh ponce de leon is the guy where there was the myth that he was searching for the fountain of youth and he was obsessed with it and he never found it uh unfortunately that is just uh an urban legend it's a myth uh he it was never mentioned in any of his writings it was not something that he ever expressed that he was looking for uh that was just something that people wrote about after he had died so unfortunately the the myth of the fountain of youth never related to ponce de leon at all now another guy is panfilio de narvaez uh this is the same guy that attempted to take control from uh cortez but he was not successful so he went on to kind of lead his own exploration um specifically the gulf gulf coast from the tampa bay area all the way to alabama and he actually built boats to get back to mexico because his exploration was of course explore the gulf coast then sail back to mexico because mexico was held by spain at this time uh but unfortunately a storm uh while they were on the sea destroyed their ships killed many of the people and in fact there were only just a few survivors who were lost for eight years they experienced captivity by native american people and in fact the account that you're going to read for this week for your discussion board post um alvarez uh the nunes account that actually comes from one of the men who was a part of narvaez's expedition so so that's kind of a firsthand account you'll get to read there uh the next individual is hernando de soto he had actually helped pizarro with the conquest of the incas so he had already had some experience kind of knew what he was doing in exploring and attempts to conquest the native american people he started in florida and went as far north as north carolina and he actually moved westward from that making his group of congisidors the first europeans to see and cross the mississippi river so they definitely did quite a bit of travel and exploration one of his uh of course one of his strategies was was pillaging and plundering uh but an interesting strategy was that he tried to convince the local people that he was a god uh as a means to gain trust to gain control you know i'm i'm one of your spirits i've come down uh but this didn't really work because you know if you remember from our uh native american history lecture uh native americans of north america don't really believe in gods and deities as much as they do you know spirits and things like that so um whereas that strategy may have worked for native americans in south america uh it wasn't as accurate for northern native american culture in fact it was um when de soto actually got sick with a fever and died as they had just crossed the mississippi river so his men in order to try and keep this he's a god thing alive they actually uh sunk his body in the mississippi river and just told the native americans that he had left that he had you know gone back to wherever the gods live so that was a huge failure of course dying on your own expedition is definitely a huge failure but they also did not find as much you know gold silver and all that stuff that they were expecting and so half of the expedition died of course including desoto and so after desoto dies they actually decide that they're going to return to mexico you know we don't have our leader we should we should go back this has been a huge failure and the spanish crown considered it a huge failure uh then the last game we're going to talk about is coronado hernan excuse me francisco vasquez de coronado uh he uh also made allies with native american people and they explored much of what would eventually become america's southwest so places like arizona new mexico nevada utah um regions like that uh and in fact uh coronado and his men were the first europeans to see the grand canyon and the colorado river uh so if you've ever seen the grand canyon before i i can't imagine what you know they were thinking when they saw that because there's there's nothing like it in europe uh he uh coronado was involved in some violent conflicts with native americans particularly the zuni people did not get along with him very well and he was actually injured in one of their battles now specifically he was uh exploring the west he was the one that kind of had this mission in his mind that he wanted to accomplish he was looking for uh the seven cities of sibola or the seven cities of gold which was rumored to be in the area it's basically mythical cities of that were all made of gold this is kind of where the origin of the el dorado myth comes from again this is not one of the myths el dorado is not something that a lot of people experience at the time believed in in fact the seven cities of sibola was a much more popular um idea than than anything else but of course he did not find these mythical golden cities and when he returned back to spain his missions were also considered a failure and in fact he went bankrupt at the end of his life uh so an important point to note about these other explorers is is for we often think that the spanish only explored and stayed in central and south america uh which of course that was where their first expeditions were their first conquerings uh but they didn't they actually tried to go to north america they tried to explore the whole continent the whole region uh but it just wasn't successful it didn't work out uh because of you know various factors it just it didn't work so this is another one of those things where you can imagine how different history would be if the explorations of north america were actually successful if they were actually able to establish a foothold that would have completely and radically changed american colonial history but of course it didn't happen uh and in fact uh really quick on the next route uh here's desoto's expedition you can see here that he came up from florida came around went all the way up to north carolina here uh made his way into you know eastern tennessee and then of course cross the mississippi river uh where is it on the map here across the mississippi river right here and then eventually they had to abandon ship and go home uh so definitely areas that we don't think of uh were explored here now let's focus really on the changes these changes were monumental of course again they changed the world uh so it's very important to uh discuss the the outcomes of conquistadors and their you know success so first off for almost an entire century spain would have total control of the new world um other than portugal portugal is there portugal is in brazil but other than portugal nobody else is there uh so spain really gets to claim the islands the continents they're they're claiming much of the new world uh modern modern day american west is also part of the new spanish empire so all of the goods all of the money the gold the silver that's coming from this region is all getting channeled into the spanish empire and for almost a century from the time that columbus discovered the americas uh to an event which we're going to talk about in next week's lecture uh war with the english specifically spain is viewed as the strongest world power for almost 100 years so that's a big deal uh also when talking about conquest there's what we call the three g's of conquest gold glory and god so not only did the spanish want to gain money and fame for themselves of course as individual conquistadors like cortez he wanted to gain a name for himself but also for the spanish empire for for queen and king and country uh but also conversion and and glory for god was a major aspect of conquest if you remember during this time there's the protestant reformation going on in europe new religious groups are developing and the power and authority of the catholic church is dwindling spain was intricately linked with the catholic church it was a strongly catholic empire so the new world becomes a place where the faith of catholicism can grow without any protestant interference um by having you know forcing native american people to convert you're allowing christianity or catholicism to spread and it's seen as a victory against the heresy that's growing in europe uh the native american populations themselves were viewed as heathens uh who needed to convert either willingly or under force in a very odd sense this is a way of attempting to save their souls they're like children they don't know any better they they've never you know heard it so we need to either convince them and if we can't convince them we have to force them that's the only way to save their souls uh so that's kind of the idea that's going on here uh many native american people despite the attempts at forced conversion held on to their beliefs in a variety of ways uh for example the dia de los muertos which is of course the spanish uh holiday of the day of the dead a lot of people compare it to spanish halloween but uh mexican halloween but it's a little bit different here but it actually has its roots in pre-columbian specifically aztec and mayan religions so that's an example just one way at how the culture of the people that existed prior to columbus's explorations and con uh the conquistadors conquests uh how they still survive today um however not all spanish people actually believed in forced conversion there was a priest by the name of bartolome de la casas and you can see actually the picture of on the bottom right is de la casas he actually had a change of heart concerning uh indian people and religion he actually said that the spanish empire had behaved very unjustly and tyrannically towards these people and in 1514 he decided to free all of his indian slaves and gave up all his land and spent the next 50 years preaching for fairness and justice he had actually lived in the caribbean in his mind conversion was supposed to be through tolerance through love they should change if they want to change uh he actually convinced the spanish monarchy along with the pope to issue official statements on better treatment of native american peoples uh and unfortunately people did not heed his words you know they there's a whole ocean separating you from the king and the queen of the pope so people still kind of did what they wanted to um he was heavily opposed by local priests local scholars local officials and conquistadors of course uh and he actually gained the nickname the protector of the indians which of course sounds like a very noble title to us but it was meant to be to be insulting to be rude uh and instead he was actually banished from hispaniola and forced to return to spain uh and persecution against native american peoples and specifically their religion uh and forced conversion continued uh la casas actually believed that god would wreak fury against the spanish for what they had done to the native american people so one of the other massive uh changes is actually going to come through what is called the colombian exchange the colombian exchange is a name that historians use it's not something that refers to a particular exchange it is named after columbus because he initiated this exchange but it is uh basically refers to the massive exchange of plants foods animals diseases culture etc etc uh that was a result of the discovery of the new world uh so again this is this is a historical term used by historians to identify really the massive cultural shift that was a result of these exchange of goods across the continent and of course this includes things that were intentionally as well as unintentionally transferred so first off food is a big one uh foods that europeans had never encountered before came from the americas things that we're we're very familiar with today in fact tomatoes potatoes squash corn peanuts peppers pumpkins pineapples papayas lots of peas avocados various types of beans the cocoa bean which is used to make chocolate and chocolate itself had come from actually the aztecs and in exchange the europeans brought over to the americas uh rice wheat barley cattles pigs wine grapes coffee olives bananas uh even things uh accidentally weeds were transferred like kentucky bluegrass and dandelions so there's definitely a massive shift in the foods that people eat specifically the new foods from the from the americas helped add vital sources of food nutrition to various areas of europe uh an excellent example of this is the irish and the potato uh the two are very synonymous in our minds today but before columbus there was no potato in ireland uh but it actually added an essential nutrients and really even a commodity for the irish people to trade uh of course you know another example is tomatoes we see you know tomatoes being central in italian cooking you know what is pizza and spaghetti without tomatoes but those were not a part of italian cuisine until the tomato was brought over so and those foods really became central to certain european cultures now uh there's also going to be a general increase in in diet and better nutrition for european people because of this increased access to good foods better foods um one of the main unintended consequences and this is one we talked about in our age of exploration lecture uh is the transference of diseases which was again a part of this uh colombian exchange uh europeans as well as actually uh uh enslaved africans brought new diseases with them that native american people had never been affected by the europeans and africans they had resiliences that had built up so they were carriers without exhibiting symptoms of these diseases whereas indian people had not built up any immunities and so they were very very vulnerable to these diseases this this phenomenon is referred to as a virgin soil epidemic and these diseases hit the native american populations with very intense ferocity in fact various diseases uh include smallpox tysis diphtheria even bubonic plague malaria yellow fever and cholera these diseases and and smallpox really in particular smallpox was the number one issue in fact you can see that there's uh an artistic rendering from a south american group of people on the bottom left there which is depicting its people suffering from smallpox uh and this this completely decimated native american populations in fact estimates go as high as 90 of native american populations being killed just by diseases again we really don't know the exact numbers simply because of the lack of record um some of it comes from native american people not keeping records and some of it also comes from the huge destruction that was a result of spanish conquistadors so so that's why it's hard for historians to really gauge what happened but of course diseases also cause huge social upheaval uh those of us that are living through covet right now understand that disease results in social change um specifically for native american people uh the shaman and the village leaders could not cure the diseases their medicinal practices were nowhere near as advanced as europeans and even then european medicine was not advanced at all so no one really has advanced medicine but native american people are are less advanced than europeans at this time uh and so a lot of people lose faith in their own individual religions and their own support of the village leaders uh even if they do survive the epidemic in fact this is why a lot of native american people actually choose to convert of course there are forced conversions there then that is a prominent prominent feature but there are some that that do choose to convert of course you know you've got the the white man comes in and he's not injured he's not sick but our people are that maybe that means that their god is right and what we've been doing is wrong uh so it definitely causes people to question their own faith their own practices uh so it definitely causes some change for them again there is forced conversion though and that still is a factor here uh the explorers definitely viewed the conquistadors viewed this as punishment from god against those who oppose them uh so of course you know this is definitely a huge boon for them and continues to motivate them to just keep doing what they're doing because in their minds it makes them look like they're in the right uh so this high rate of death also leads to a massive loss of native american knowledge of the knowledge that they had but also the knowledge of their societies of their cultures we did talk a little bit about how the the culture was tried to kept be kept alive by its descendants but by the year 1800 most people native american and european alike had completely forgotten about the complicated and massive empires the confederacies and the powers that it had existed before europeans came uh it really wasn't until modern archaeology that people remembered you know what there were the aztecs there were the maya these people had massive complicated empires they were very you know intelligent very you know advanced civilizations but but people had just forgotten about it because the memory of them was completely wiped out by europeans i mean cortes basically destroyed tenochtitlan to destroy any memories of the aztec people so it's hard for people to remember that culture if it's intentionally eradicated uh also unfortunately uh native americans for what for reasons that historians are still trying to figure out did not have as many diseases which europeans had no immunities to so so really the disease exchange really just went from europe to native american people uh and again the theories are kind of varied on that but mostly it's because native american people were much more isolated in general whereas europeans and you know there was a lot more not just europeans but there was a lot more uh continental interactions between europe and africa and even asia and you know eastern europe there was there was a lot more interchange so but again that's something that historians are still kind of trying to figure out why no diseases from native americans transferred to europeans still a bit of a historical mystery uh so another huge change is the creation specifically in central and south america of a new racial class which is called the mestizo for the for the most part spanish women did not come to the new world unless they were escorted by a husband uh this is different than what the english will do as we'll see but because you have conquistadors you have conquerors you have warriors these are the people that are coming to the new world the new world is not a place for women at this time so because of this the men that come to south and central america will marry rape or just have sexual relations with native american women and this is on a large scale and so there are going to be many mixed-race children that are born out of these interactions which is completely unprecedented territory for spanish culture and the the name for these children of mixed races is called mestizo that's the term that was used to describe these children in fact you can see the the painting there is a on the top is a contemporary painting of a spanish man who had married an incan woman and they had a mestizo child uh so this and he was a person of status and wealth enough that he was able to have a painting painted so this was something that was very common from higher members of society to to lower members of spanish society so mestizos were basically considered a middle class between the the you know the pure spanish and the indian people uh so they were treated better than native american people but they did not have the same you know freedoms and liberties and status as fully spanish individuals but this starts to change over time as as more and more people are mestizo and as more you know mestizo individuals uh rise in individual prominence by about 1700 by the 1700s a majority of the population of new spain the regions of of mexico new mexico modern day new mexico are gonna be mestizo people there's hardly really by by you know the time that the americas are being settled or north america is being settled but by the time the american revolution is going on most fully spanish people just live in spain there's no one that was you know came from spain and is going to these areas so it also creates a better acceptance of native american people within spanish culture because you've got a lot of these people that half their children or their children are are half native american so so there is that that is also how certain aspects of native american culture were able to continue because these women had children that they then passed their traditions on to uh despite you know in some of these cases that you know these the women were raped and such they still wanted to pass on their cultural traditions so whether it was by marriage uh or otherwise that's how their culture survived uh and so in fact uh of course many of the regions of mexico as well as the caribbean and latin american culture is definitely a blend of spanish as well as native american culture and then also an important point to know and this is one that people kind of forget about is that there is going to be widespread awareness of europeans among the native american populations uh and and this reaches all the way up to north america uh by the time the english settlers come to north america in fact local populations had heard through various trade networks various you know forms of communication that europeans existed or had even interacted with them themselves uh in fact many times when settlers came to north america they found european goods in places where native americans themselves had never met europeans in person so uh the the disney film pocahontas is a very poor representation because you know when she meets the europeans and she sees their ships she's completely baffled by who these people are and what they want well by the time the english and john smith are coming to america the politicians have have definitely heard about these strange people so it was not a mystery of who these people were and in fact these tread trade networks also allowed for the spread of european diseases through native american populations diseases travel very quickly so um it traveled along their trade networks uh for example the pilgrims had actually found an abandoned native american village that belonged to people who they learned were wiped out by smallpox uh so even you know a lot of the reason why the american north america was seen as this new and bountious land you know no one's here we can come occupy it well that's because these people a lot of them have been killed off by diseases that were spread by the spanish over 50 years earlier uh so it definitely causes some some weird conceptions about the the new world and and the people that had once lived there uh but also specifically not only was their knowledge of europeans but the violence of the spanish left a precedent for expected interactions with other european peoples so for basically native american peoples told about the manipulation the violence the cruelty the murdering the raping they told other people about what was happening so because news of these you know very violent vicious people traveled very quickly native americans would be much more tentative and prone to violence themselves based on how their people had been treated and how they had heard these europeans were going to behave so they were particularly wary of any and all foreigners despite their motivations simply because they heard that these people are are violent that these people are dangerous uh so much of what had happened in new spain and you know south america what what we're gonna what we talked about today's lecture happened way before the english begins to settle uh but what's important here is is this precedent that has been set like i said the the spanish gave the native americans an image of what european people are and that image was one of death one of violence one of murder uh and so native american people expect europeans to behave this way and so this results in much more violent conflicts because of expectations that have been set by the spanish uh but of course we're going to talk about um uh you know also native america excuse me uh north american you know once america is established as a nation and mexico as a nation and some of the historic interactions there uh and you know some of the threats of the spanish empire so so this is all important in establishing where the english settlements come in and how that goes on to affect american history