I'm writing a series of articles about European explorers during the "Age of Exploration and Discovery" from the 1400s to the 1700s. These explorations led to the "discovery" of the Americas and new shipping routes around the tip of South America and South Africa. In previous weeks, I wrote about international sea trade in Europe during this time, and I wrote about the travels and discoveries of Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, and the Pinzon brothers.
The Age of Exploration largely happened because the Mongolian Empire broke apart and it could no longer ensure safe travel on the Great Silk Road. The Ottoman Empire also conquered Constantinople and southern Europe, and travel became unsafe. Western European countries (Portugal, Spain, and Italy) looked for new trade routes to India and China. They were also trying to find resources so they could mount military campaigns against Islamic countries.
After Columbus discovered the Caribbean islands, other explorers followed, and they kept looking for a passageway to India, China, and the Pacific Islands (which they called the East Indies). While exploring around the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean, they found the territories of Central America, Venezuela, and Brazil, and they realized they had found a whole new continent. Soon after, Portuguese and Spanish explorers established colonies (towns) in these new lands, and they started searching for people and treasure inside the continent.
In this post, I will describe how European explorers known as Conquistadors found the Inca and Aztec empires, and what happened as a result. Disclaimer: Please note that I don't mean to glorify the horrible things these explorers did. I only want to describe the history of what happened. Unfortunately, this history was originally written by the Europeans so the slaughter and conquest the committed is presented positively.
Conquistadors
"Conquistador" is a Spanish word that means "conqueror." These were explorers and soldiers who colonized the communities of Central and South America. Conquistadors brought many other people with them, including merchants (traders), sailors, artisans, and priests. They also brought animals, weapons, and diseases.
Many explorers were looking for business opportunities and a new life in the New World. European peasants joined the expedition in the hope of becoming merchants, sailors, artisans, and government administrators of new territories. Some people also escaped religious prosecution from Europe and founded new religious communities.
Metals were especially valuable for trading. Gold and silver could be minted as coins, and these could help European monarchs finance armies, buy weapons, build more ships, construct buildings and churches, and pay for many other projects. Other metals could be sold as raw materials for weapons. Later on, explorers discovered they could export natural resources such as timber and sugar cane to Europe.
Stories about mythical lands of gold (such as the "Seven Cities of Gold," El Dorado, and even the Fountain of Youth) inspired treasure hunters to explore all corners of the New World, throughout South America, into the American Southwest, and around Florida.
Historical legend says that explorers believed the Fountain of Youth was in Florida. The real story was that Spanish explorers such as Ponce de Leon claimed Florida for Spain so they could secure a safe return passage to Europe and prevent French explorers from setting up their own colonies and blocking off navigational lanes. The first permanent European settlement in Florida (and in the United States) was in St. Augustine (south of Jacksonville) in 1565, years before the English colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth in the early 1600s.
More and more Europeans came to the New World to search for opportunities. By the late 1500s, possibly 250,000 Spanish explorers had come to the New World, and nearly two million Spanish settlers would follow by the early 1800s. As in the United States, these settlers came to stay. They established new towns and centers of trading, and these grew into large cities. Today, some of these settler cities are among the most important cities in the region. So, these explorers helped build modern-day Central and South America. Here is a map of territories occupied by the Spanish and the Portuguese in the early years.
I am amazed that colonization of South America happened so early in the 1500s and so quickly after Columbus's discovery. I believe this shows that the Age of Exploration was a bustling time of travel and movement, and it changes my perception of the past as "the good old days" when things moved "slower."
Unfortunately, Spanish explorers also caused a lot of destruction and devastation. Mexico, Peru, Brazil, and other territories already had existing communities such as the Inca and the Aztec that were hundreds of years old. These communities had their own leaders, citizens, system of governance, religious ceremonies, trade and agriculture, and established way of life. Some of these communities cooperated with European settlers and became their trading partners, but some of them were treated as hostile enemies and were colonized, enslaved, or killed.
European conquistadors had many advantages over native populations. They had stronger and more deadly weapons, especially swords, guns, and metal armor, while the Aztec and Inca were using wooden spears and clubs (such as the wooden club with embedded sharp obsidian rock in the picture below), shields made of wood and animal hide, and bows and arrows. In a very famous history book named Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond describes how much of a difference the natural resources and the weapons made between European and American empires.
European conquistadors could also communicate quickly because they used horses and they could sail across vast distances. This broad movement allowed Europeans to transport supplies, create partnerships with others, and move ahead or around the enemy. Their communication was also done in writing, so they could transmit a lot of information and in a lot of specific detail. In contrast, native populations communicated orally, they didn't sail across the seas, they weren't able to form alliances against the Spanish, and they didn't use horses for movement and transportation. (The biggest land animal in South America is probably the alpaca or the lama, and these weren't powerful and domesticated "work" animals like the horse.)
The Spanish also had a long heritage of combat knowledge that had been handed down and refined since the ancient Greek and Roman periods. As a result, the Spanish were able to use time-tested military strategy, better supply logistics, better communication and movement, alliances with warring tribes, and the best military technology to conquer existing communities.
But, most importantly, Europeans brought human diseases, such as smallpox, chicken pox, typhoid fever, measles, and the flu. Waves of pandemics spread very quickly from the 1530s to the 1560s, and they devastated entire populations. For example, an epidemic in 1545-1548 killed 5-15 million (up to 80%) of the native population. Another epidemic in 1576-1578 killed more than two million people, which was about 50% of the population at that time.
Many historians believe that diseases killed 95% of the native population in the Americas. During this time, 90% of the Inca Empire died because of epidemics, and the native population of Mexico fell from 25 million to less than one million in the 1500s. That's a 96% mortality rate. In contrast, Covid had a death rate of only about 1% or 2%, yet the whole modern world shut down in 2020-2021. Here is an Aztec drawing and a graph from this Wikipedia page.
The conquest of Central and South America happened primarily because of disease. Whole communities were wiped out, and native populations that survived were too weak and devastated to defend themselves, or they were overcome through superior weapons, military strategy, and alliances against them. In the next section, I want to describe the two biggest examples of conquest.
Hernan Cortes and the Fall of the Aztec in Mexico
Hernan Cortes was a Spanish conquistador who conquered the Aztec Empire and became the governor of Mexico until his death in 1547.
Cortes first arrived in the island of Haiti and the Dominican Republic in 1504 at the age of 18. He was given a plot of land, and he worked in a colony. A few years later, he joined a conquering expedition to Cuba, and he became a clerk, secretary, and administrative leader. In 1519, Cortes gathered a small army of men, and they attacked small towns along the Mexican coastline; eventually, his victories added up, and his army and influence in the area grew.
Cortes's big moment came in Fall 1519 when he marched on Tenochtitlan. He had a Spanish army of about 600 soldiers plus another 1000 tribal warriors who had joined him from other Mexican towns. Cortes met with Moctezuma, the ruler of the Aztec empire, on friendly terms at first, and he even boasted to King Charles of Spain that the Aztec considered Cortez a mythical god. Cortes eventually took Moctezuma hostage in the hope that Moctezuma could keep the peace and lead Cortes to their treasure. Here is the route Cortez took to Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) from the Gulf of Mexico on the east coast.
However, while Cortes was away, one of his commanders committed a massacre in the Great Temple, and this caused a rebellion and an uprising against the Spanish. Cortes escaped, but many of his soldiers were killed. Afterwards, though, Cortes started a siege of Tenochtitlan, where he cut off supplies, ambushed warriors, and slowly destroyed portions of the city. Cortes finally captured Tenochtitlan in Aug. 1521, and this date marks the end the Aztec Empire in Mexico. King Charles of Spain appointed Cortes the Governor of New Spain. Cortes destroyed Aztec temples and established Mexico City. He travelled a few times to Spain, but he mostly remained in Mexico until his death in 1547 at the age of 62.
Francisco Pizarro and the Destruction of the Inca in Peru
Francisco Pizarro's career began as a sailor with Vasco de Balboa who found a passageway to the Pacific ocean through Panama - more about this next week. Pizarro conspired with other leaders against Vasco de Balboa, and Balboa was beheaded in 1519 for political reasons. Pizarro became the mayor of Panama City.
In the 1520s, Pizarro heard about an expedition Spanish explorers had taken to Peru; this story included the legend of El Dorado, the city of gold. Pizarro partnered with Diego de Almagro and others to explore Peru in 1524, but they had bad weather, supply issues, and fighting with native populations, so they abandoned their first expedition.
During a second expedition in 1526, they captured a boat with textiles, gold, and emeralds. Pizarro and Almagro asked for more resources after this, but they were ordered back to Panama. Pizarro refused to return and 13 men ("the famous thirteen") stayed with him after Pizarro drew a line in the sand and said on one side is Panama and on the other "lies Peru with its riches." During this expedition, they came across a native tribe that had gold and silver, and they returned to prepare for a bigger expedition. Here is a famous painting of Pizarro and his men.
Pizarro gained the support King Charles of Spain for a third expedition that started in 1532. He met with Atahualpa, the Emperor of the Inca, and demanded submission to Spain. Atahualpa refused. Pizarro waged a battle and took Atahualpa captive. Atahualpa gave Pizarro one room of gold and two rooms of silver, and he was executed in Aug. 1533. Some of Pizarro's men, and King Charles himself, disapproved of the execution. Nevertheless, Pizarro continued on and took over the Aztec city of Cuzco; he also founded the city of Lima in Jan. 1535, and he had two sons with Atahualpa's consort/wife.
Inca warriors tried to reclaim Cuzco from Pizarro over the next three years, but they were not able to do so. Pizarro continued to fight against the Inca Empire, and much of the native Inca population became peasants and serfs under a new two-tiered system that promoted Spanish culture and Catholic governance of Peru. Years later, Pizarro and Almagro disagreed with each other over control of Cuzco, and Pizarro executed Almagro after a battle among supporters. In revenge, supporters of Almagro stormed Pizarro's residence and assassinated him in 1541.
Legacy
Spanish colonization and conquest of Central and South America totally devastated the existing communities, especially the Aztec and the Inca empires. They did this through disease and through superior military capability. This conquest totally transformed the population of Central and South America from several indigenous communities to a two-tiered Spanish and European system. Essentially, the conquistadors wiped out the existing communities, and they established a new Spanish and European style of governance, religion, and way of life. In the centuries that followed, other Europeans migrated to these lands and re-repopulated them.
In the early 1800s, many South American countries regained their independence from Spain and Portugal, though they have remained predominantly Spanish and Portuguese speaking with Catholicism and Protestantism as the most popular religions. Then, in the mid-and-late 1900s, South American and African countries initiated a "post-colonial" set of ideas that recognizes the parent country's influence but also starts to develop its own unique culture and aesthetic style.
In literature and the arts, these countries have a lot of "inheritance" and "hybridity," but they also promote resistance, subversion, and a "redrawing" of culture and the self, plus they promote new forms of personal identity and the arts through subversion, a combination of styles, and experimentation. The history of conquest in South America cannot be separated easily when we read literature by influential writers from these countries; they are still responding to this history.
Next Time
In the next weeks, I will describe explorations in the Pacific Ocean and focus on a few famous late explorers such as Lewis and Clark.
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My name is Lirim Neziri, and I am an educator and a writer. I love to read and learn, and this newsletter (which I call Lirim’s Learning Club) lets me share interesting things I am learning. I write about History, Literature, Writing, Education, Technology, Leadership, and Personal Productivity. Please join my learning adventure.