6.6 Conquest of the Americas

Notes

Spanish conquistadors conquered the two largest American empires within a few years.

• Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico in 1519 and, with thousands of Indigenous allies such as the Tlaxcalans, conquered the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan in 1521. The Aztec ruler was Moctezuma II.
• Francisco Pizarro captured the Inca ruler Atahualpa in 1532. The Inca had just fought a civil war.
• Reasons for Spanish success: diseases such as smallpox killed huge numbers of Indigenous people, who had no immunity; Indigenous allies; steel weapons, guns and horses; and divisions within the empires.
• The encomienda system gave Spanish colonists the right to force Indigenous people to work.
• The priest Bartolomé de las Casas spoke out against the abuse of Indigenous people.
• Colonial society had a class system: peninsulares (born in Spain), creoles (Spanish descent born in the Americas), mestizos (mixed European and Indigenous), and Indigenous and African people at the bottom.