The Spanish Conquest of the New World

Gregory H. Nobles writes, "Conquistadores would have this order ask to the Indians before battle and whence com workforcece the attack with assertion (in their minds, at least) that they had offered an alternative to war" (44).

Diego Velasquez, who archetypal came to the New valet in 1493 with Columbus' second expedition, participated in the conquest of Hispaniola. He was after sent by Columbus' son, Diego, to conquer Cuba and become its first Spanish governor. With him, came Hernan Cortes. In 1518, Cortes persuaded Velasquez to give him didactics of an expedition to take command of Mexico, which had been discovered the year before.

Cortes set sail on February 19, 1519, condescension the revocation of his commission; Velasquez had become (rightly) fearful of Cortes' ambition. Cortes led his men forward under a pair of banners emblazoned with the words, "Comrades, let us follow the sign of the holy Cross with true faith, and by dint of it we shall conquer" (Diaz 33). The expedition landed and subjugated the town of Tabasco, then heard of the great Aztec empire and its ruler, Montezuma II. Cortes spelled the great chief's name "Mutezuma," in an effort to record the correct phonetic sound. The name means, roughly, " chivalrous Lord." In modern Spanish, the

Englebert, Omer. The know of the Conquistadors: Junipero Serra (1713-1784). New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956.

Cortes moved north and founded the city that would become Veracruz, combustion his ships to avoid desertion. He then marched to Tenochtitlan, where Montezuma first welcomed him. The Spaniards took the ruler hostage, which created an uprising, during which Montezuma was killed. By 1523, Cortes had been named governor of New Spain, and the Aztecs had been reduced to the lowest class in a new Spanish hostelry. He had declared his independency from Velasquez and paid allegiance only to the king in Spain, Charles I, rectify known as Charles V, Holy Roman emperor.

Nobles, Gregory H. the Statesn Frontiers: cultural Encounters and Continental Conquest. New York: Hill and Wang, 1997.

The conquistadores had been accompanied from the beginning by Catholic missionaries, especially members of the Franciscan, Augustinian, Dominican, and Jesuit orders. This was the means by which Christianity was first spread across the Atlantic. These missionaries considered it their sacred duty to convert the heathens to Christianity, and the authorized prevalence of Catholicism by dint of Central and South America is a testament to their effectiveness. They also made the Church a very powerful institution in the new society; by 1859, when the Church's assets were nationalized, the Catholic Church owned about a third of all property and land in Mexico. Among afterwards missionaries to the New World was Francis Solano, who was canonized in 1726, and "who traveled through Peru, Chile, and northern Argentina, playing the violin and, alone and singlehanded in his efforts, baptizing nigh hundred thousand Redskins" (Englebert 6).

name has become Moctezuma; in English, Montezuma (Cortes 460n).

At the time of Spanish conquest, the population of the whole region was estimated at about 6 million, a number it did not relate again until the twentieth century. Paul Aron notes, "The p
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