Spanish Exploration and Conquest (Summary Notes)

Motives and outfitting: Columbus promised the Crown wealth in the form of $17$ ships and $1000$ men for a return voyage; he stated that $50$ men could subdue the natives.
Initial expedition and promises: Columbus sought to reward Isabella and Ferdinand; after initial wealth failed to materialize, Spain pressed a vicious extraction campaign.
Enslavement and depopulation: The Spaniards decimated the Arawaks; Las Casas described brutal acts of violence against indigenous people.
Encomiendas and labor exploitation: Encomienda linked land to a set number of natives; replaced in 1542 by the repartimiento, which continued similar abuses.
Population collapse: Pre-contact Hispaniola population estimated between $1{,}000{,}000$ and $8{,}000{,}000$ ; Las Casas estimated $3{,}000{,}000$ ; within a few generations the island was deeply depopulated and many people exterminated.
Epidemics and biology: Europeans brought deadly diseases (smallpox, typhus, influenza, diphtheria, measles, hepatitis); Native Americans lacked immunity; some scholars estimate up to $90\%$ of the population in the Americas perished within the first century and a half of contact.
Native responses: Despite devastation, Native Americans forged middle grounds, resisted, adapted, and continued shaping colonial patterns for centuries; Europeans kept coming.

Wealth and empire motives: News of conquest drew wealth-hungry Spaniards; a new empire spread from the Caribbean foothold.
Motive quote: soldiers summarized motives as “we came here to serve God and the king, and also to get rich.”
Encomienda system: Crown granted land and a native labor force; brutal labor relations under encomenderos.
Abolition and replacement: Encomienda abolished in $1542$ and replaced with repartimiento; though intended as milder, it reproduced many abuses and sustained exploitation.

Maya civilization: Large, sophisticated civilization with writing, mathematics, and calendars; likely declined due to drought and agriculture issues; did not simply disappear.
Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico: Militaristic rise, largest empire in the New World; capital at Tenochtitlán, built on lake islands connected by causeways.
Tenochtitlán details: 70,000 buildings; population $200{,}000$ – $250{,}000$ ; chinampas (artificial island farming); Templo Mayor at center.
Spaniards’ impressions: Bernal Díaz del Castillo marveled at the city’s scale and engineering; awe at cities built on water.
Aztec tribute and control: Decentralized network of subject peoples paying regular tribute and providing troops; internal tensions contributed to vulnerabilities.

Cortés and invasion: $Hernán Cortés$ arrived in 1519 with $600$ men, horses, and cannon; relied on Doña Marina (La Malinche) as translator and ally.
Alliance-building: Used indigenous divisions, forged alliances, and captured Montezuma to gain control of the empire’s wealth.
Fall of Tenochtitlán: Aztec revolt and la noche triste (night of sorrows); Montezuma killed; Cortés regrouped with Native allies and reinforcements.
Siege and disease: 85-day siege; smallpox devastated the city; thousands died as Spaniards captured the city and sacked it.
Aftermath: A million-person empire toppled by disease, dissent, and European conquest.

Inca Empire: Quechua-speaking, located along the Andes; capital at Cuzco; built terraces and an extensive road network linking roughly twelve million people.
Vulnerability: Internal tensions and civil strife, aided by European diseases, weakened the empire before decisive conquest.
Smallpox and conquest: Smallpox arrived by $1525$ ; population collapse preceded the arrival of Pizarro’s forces.
Pizarro’s conquest: With $168$ men, he captured Cuzco in $1533$ ; disease, conquest, and slavery destroyed remnants of the Inca state.
Administrative rules and population movement: Spain established a new empire with royal appointees overseeing vast estates and extractive labor.
Demographics of migration: During the $16th$ century, $225{,}000$ Spaniards migrated; total immigration over three centuries reached $750{,}000$ .
Racial hierarchy: Sistema de Castas classified people by “purity of blood”; Peninsulares (Iberian-born Spaniards) held top admin roles and land; Criollos (New World-born Spaniards) vied for wealth; Mestizos (mixed Spanish and Indigenous heritage) formed a key social category.