Transcription
After Christopher Columbus accidentally stumbled across the West Indies in 1492, Spain was among the first countries to explore and conquer this new world that would become known as the Americas. The powerful Ottoman Empire had long been inhibiting European trade routes to the east by charging high taxes, so the Spanish crown funded Columbus to seek new trade routes.
When he landed in what is now known as the Bahamas, he initially thought it was India. He explored the islands looking for wealth and initially established a friendly rapport with the indigenous populations, although he also considered that they would make good slaves and should be converted to Christianity. Columbus returned to Spain to report his findings before making three more expeditions to the new world, now known to be different from India, as it had been identified first by Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci, who also gave his name to the continent.
Columbus was made viceroy of the Indies but was later removed from this post due to his poor management. Nonetheless, his expeditions carved the way for Spanish exploration. The first Spanish settlements were in the Caribbean, and in 1508, they expanded onto the mainland, settling at Darien on the isthmus of Panama in Central America. From here, a number of conquistadors launched multiple expeditions to discover and ultimately conquer much of South and Central America.
Under the crown of Castile, Vasco Núñez de Balboa established the first stable Spanish settlement on the American mainland, Santa María la Antigua del Darién, in Colombia. In 1523, he led the infamous Pacific march when he crossed the isthmus to become the first European to reach the Pacific Ocean from the new world. Meanwhile, reports of wealth led the conquistador Hernán Cortés to what is now known as Mexico, where he conquered the local Aztec population. The Aztecs were a highly advanced Mesoamerican civilization that covered different ethnic groups and city-states. However, the Spanish had the advantage in weaponry and also brought with them smallpox, which the Aztecs lacked immunity for and so decimated their population. After a 30-day siege of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, Spanish forces gained control and built the new settlement of Mexico City on their own.
Another indigenous South American empire that fell to the Spanish was that of the Incas in the mountains of Peru, which had an elaborate government and agricultural system. However, when the Spanish arrived, it was in the midst of a civil war, enabling them to seize control despite being outnumbered. The conquistador Francisco Pizarro tricked their ruler, Atahualpa, into attending an honorary dinner where his men opened fire on the unarmed Incas. Atahualpa was captured and ransomed, and eventually killed. Despite ongoing Inca resistance, this marked the beginning of Spanish dominance, and Pizarro became governor of all Inca territory.
Elsewhere, also, other conquistadors settled in modern-day Ecuador, Colombia, and Argentina. They had to compete with the Portuguese for territory, though. Under the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, Spain and Portugal came to an agreement which gave Spain most of the conquered territory in South America, whilst Portugal claimed what is now Brazil.
Other nations were also competing for the Americas, including England, France, Holland, and Russia, who went mainly to the north looking for gold to rival that found in South America. Although the Spanish led several expeditions north and even at one point claimed Florida and California, colonization in the north failed. Other nations dominated, and they consequently never established a strong presence in North America. Despite the rivalry for territory with other nations, the Spanish would come to dominate South America over the course of three centuries of colonization.
The Spanish crown, which oversaw Spanish colonies, established methods of rule. The viceregal system was implemented in 1535, with viceroys from Spain sent to govern Peru, Mexico, New Granada, and Río de la Plata. This organized colonization was motivated by a quest for wealth but also missionary zeal. Spain was eager to convert the local indigenous populations to Catholicism. However, the indigenous population of South and Central America declined by 80 percent in the century and a half following Columbus's discovery of the Americas, in part due to diseases brought by the Europeans but also due to poor treatment by their new rulers.
Although the Spanish crown was benevolent towards the indigenous populations, it struggled to enforce good treatment of them from afar. During the first decades of Spanish rule, encomenderos were introduced, a system of rule in which indigenous populations were entrusted to Spanish proprietors who cared for them in return for tribute and labor. However, many proprietors abused the system. The Dominican and later Jesuit church tried to protest against the cruelty, but the encomiendas persisted due to the prevailing belief that native populations were lesser beings since they were not Christians.
There was also disparity between the European settlers. Most viceroys were Spanish-born, making them above the American-born Spaniards and creating some sort of resentment. This tension between Spanish colonists and Spanish ambassadors was not the only tension at the time. The French Revolution in Europe inspired liberalist ideas in South America too. During the Peninsular War in Europe, Spain was too preoccupied to worry about its colonies and to establish juntas, assemblies to rule on behalf of the crown in South America. This gave Spanish colonies a sense of independence that they liked.
All this led to Spanish colonies seeking independence during the 19th century. In 1809, colonies in Peru declared independence, followed by ones in Ecuador and Mexico. The movement persisted across other colonies, so that by the 1820s, all Spanish colonies except Cuba and Puerto Rico were independent. They were aided by the British Empire, which relished the idea of South American trade free from Spanish monopoly. In 1898, the U.S. won the Spanish-American War, with the U.S. occupying Cuba and Puerto Rico, thus ending Spanish rule in the Americas.
Despite gaining independence from Spain, many Spaniards continued to emigrate to the Americas over the course of the next century in a continued search for wealth, territory, and better prospects. The legacy of the Spanish conquest of America lies in the predominance it gave to Spain during the Age of Discovery, as well as what became known as the Columbian Exchange: the exchange of populations, goods, crops, and knowledge between the Americas and Europe and Africa. Today, although Spain no longer rules in the Americas, its legacy can be found in the culture, language, and architecture it left behind.