The Spanish conquest of America is a morally complex topic. Like any conquest, it involved brutality and violence. But this is not the whole story: to understand the conquest, one has to understand the logic of the conquerors’ world and their situation. The Spanish, having developed a Christian zeal in the long Reconquista, juxtaposed themselves into an already complex network in the Americas, won out with cunning and luck, and integrated both the Spanish and indigenous cultures while practicing benevolence simultaneously with brutality towards the conquered.
The Spanish had developed a Christian and warrior zeal through the Reconquista. In 711, the Moors conquered much of Spain. For the next 700 years there would be both cultural exchanges and wars between the Moors and the Spaniards. The Spanish believed that Santiago de Compostela housed the tomb of Saint James the Apostle, who was depicted as a knight slaying Moors. The knightly values of the Christian nobility like combat prowess, leisure and ostentatiousness became prominent. Because the Spanish continually annexed new territory with non-Christian inhabitants, they founded cities as power centers and, using a type of feudal system, recruited individual warlords to Christianize groups of defeated Moors, getting tribute and service from their subjects in return. This formula would be repeated in America. After the fall of Granada in 1492, Queen Isabel sponsored Columbus’ voyage not just to gain wealth and bypass a Venetian-Arab monopoly on Asian trade, but also to spread Christianity.[1] The Spaniards found solace in their Christian faith. The knights would have played a strong leadership role, making their values prominent. The Spaniards had the wealth, resources and desire to invest in voyaging to faraway lands and reaping their wealth. Worldly desires such as gain went hand in hand with a desire to spread the Christian faith.
The Spaniards arrived in a continent with already complex issues. Hernan Cortes, a leader of the conquistadors, found the Aztec Empire in Mesoamerica in 1519. The Aztecs thought the Spaniards were supernatural. The Spanish had many indigenous allies, like the Tlaxcalans, who were upset because of the Aztecs imposing harsh taxes and a tribute of sacrificial victims from them. The Aztecs’ state religion justified their imperial expansion. Cortes and his expedition feigned friendship with the Aztecs and were welcomed into Tenochtitlan, but later turned against them. The Spanish killed 10 times their number at Cholula. Later, they attacked the Aztec festival of Toxcatl, which they had been invited to. The Aztecs were shocked at the sharp effectiveness of the Spanish blades. Smallpox also contributed to the Spanish victory. The Spanish conquest in Peru was similar but involved more fighting. A smallpox epidemic killed many Incas and ravaged the Inca ruling family, resulting in a succession crisis and a civil war between the brothers Atahualpa and Huascar. Francisco Pizarro only had 168 men, but also had indigenous allies. Pizarro invited the Inca leader Atahualpa to a square where he had hidden cannons, which then fired at the Incas before Spanish knights charged. Thousands of Incas were killed and maimed and Atahualpa was captured. No Spaniards died. Pizarro ignored offers of ransom and executed Atahualpa.[2] In the Americas there were other native peoples with understandable grudges against the Aztecs and Incas, who were imperialist powers themselves and capable of significant violence. These rebellious polities were all too eager to ally with the Spaniards, who they saw as less harsh. Peoples like the Aztecs feared the Spaniards, who they had never seen before. While the Spaniards had better technology, they still had to use cunning strategies to defeat their enemies in a continent where they were absolutely outnumbered. Tactical leaders like Cortes and Pizarro were perfect for executing these strategies, which they craftily combined with their advanced technology. They also played both sides against the other and thus beat the indigenous empires. But they could have never known about the smallpox epidemic which may have struck the greatest blow and won them the final victory. Through both luck and genius tactics, the Spaniards won the Americas.
The Spaniards combined their own culture with the various indigenous ones in their new territories and practiced some benevolence in conjunction with brutality to the conquered. To establish their territory, the Spaniards brought the encomienda system, and conquistadors lived off serf-like indigenous labor.[3] The Spanish evangelized and built churches in areas already sacred to native deities, like Mexico City’s cathedral over the Aztec Great Temple.[4] The Spaniards simply became the next rulers of the indigenous people. They kept and used many aspects of the existing imperial system. They had also brought their Spanish-style government and feudal system to the Americas. The baptized indigenous people repurposed their new faith with deities that were already familiar to them, like the Virgen de Guadalupe integrated with the earth mother Tonantzin. The Codex Osuna from 1565 had legal illustrations and included a complaint by indigenous communities about excessive and uncompensated labor demands.[5] This document shows that while the Spanish were at the top of the hierarchy and could be harsh with their subjects, there were at least legal recourses through practices like the vista for indigenous subjects to voice their complaints, and their Spanish overlords did listen to them. The use of both Nahuatl and Spanish also made communication possible. Churchmen were strong advocates for indigenous rights. Franciscans carefully recorded Aztec ethnography, and Bernardino de Sahagun compiled this information in the Florentine Codex. Bartolomeo de las Casas started off as a conquistador but then became an advocate for natives. His efforts inspired the Pope to proclaim the full humanity of indigenous people in 1537. In 1542 the Spanish crown passed the New Laws to limit and eventually end encomiendas, though it was not fully followed in the colonies. In 1550-51 Las Casas debated the morality of the conquest in Valladolid and denied that indigenous people were inferior, making a strong case.[6] This shows that there was self-criticism among the Spaniards for their brutal actions, and a desire for some justice. The Spaniards had at least some respect for their conquered subjects and practiced cultural preservation with their valuable ethnographic descriptions. Many of these humanist currents came from the Church, as this institution would have had different interests and desires to the conquistadors. While the conquistadors could be greedy, Church friars could be more disciplined and instructed in the Christian faith. They could be an important check on the secular authorities, and it is notable that Las Casas was able to get both the highest secular and church authorities to listen to him. His writings had a wide readership, helping him gain a large audience, and he could move people. Spanish colonies and rule had a dual nature.
In conclusion, the Spanish had developed a strong Christian and warrior zeal that they brought with them to the Americas. There, both their crafty tactics and smallpox allowed them to conquer large empires. There was mixing with the indigenous people and simultaneous benevolence and brutality. Rather than justified, the conquerors of the Americas were morally complex individuals in morally complex situations who cannot be defined as wholly good or bad. This is the case for much of history: if you look at many conquests and conquerors across the planet, you can find plenty of brutality and violence, but you can also find morality, cultural exchange and moral actions. It makes little sense to make absolute moral judgements as people who are centuries detached from those situations.
[1] John Charles Chasteen, Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America 4th Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), 23-28.
[2] Ibid, 39-43
[3] Ibid, 43-44.
[4] Ibid, 47.
[5] William B. Taylor, “Two Images from the Codex Osuna, Mexico City, (1565),” in Colonial Spanish America: a documentary history (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1998), 144.
[6] Chasteen, Blood and Fire, 50-52
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