The+Conquistadors

toc This page has been created by Verónica González, Javier Rodríguez, Saray Gutierrez, Adrián Rodriguez and Pablo de Miguel, students of 2ºESO bilingual section of the IES Parque de Lisboa.

If you want to know about conquistadors, first you have to know a little about colonizations and explorations' of America. I think you have heard about it but I think it's better to help you with some pieces of information we are going to give you now.

The Spanish Conquistadors wiki page

What is colonization?
Colonization was a process wich taked a lot of time. Europeans went to new territories wich did not appear in any maps discovering new lands and cities wich changed their point of view respect the world between the 16th and the 20th century. The first two countries that started to colonize America were Spain and Portugal but later more countries as Britain, France and Holand followed their stepts and started their colonizations. What do you think was the main reason to this colonizations? Of course, money. This was the main reason. Another reasons were that they wanted some porducts they didn't have in their countries or they wanted to open new trading routes. The posesion of new terrioties was also an important reason because this make the country wich had this territories stronger in politics.

Now, you already know what colonization is, but we have to be more accurate in the topic and talk about another thing, Spanish colonizations. Do you want to know about it? Continue reading :) This map shows us the colonized territories of America.

Spanish colonizations
Now that you know what colonizations were it will be easy to explain spanish colonizations. The first settlement was in an Island 'La Española'. After this, the colonization of central Ameriza started. Hernan Cortes with his soldiers conquered the Aztec Empire. When the Aztec and the Maya empires were destroyed in central America, the colonos founded the Vicerroyalty of Nueva España the 12th of October of 1535, its territories involved central America, Mexico and the south part of what now is USA. After this, the colonization of south America started. Now, what do you think that happened here? The same as in Central America. The Inca empire was destroyed and the Incas were somited to a lot of hard works. In this way three new viceroyalties were created: Peru's vicerroyalty, New Granada's vicerroyalty and Río de la Plata's vicerroyalty. Spanish domain of this territories was extended until the begginig oh the 19th century. During this 300 years, America a rich territorie wtih a lot of natural sources became provider of rew materials and important metals to Spain and to the rest of Europe. This materials allowed to finance a lot of battles in the european continent. Altought the main objective in America was the evangelization of the natives, the colones subjected them to all types of abuses, harassment and humiliations. Can you believe it? Their objective was to help the indians but they did the opposite. But that's not all. Continue reading and you'll see. Because of that, all the population had to work as slaves to stablish the demand of important metals and raw materials. So, the natives were abused but they also were used as slaves. What do you think they did? They attended a lot of rebelions agaisnt the colones, some rebelions as Tupac Amarú and Tupac Katari. This rebelions will brought some uprisings for independence. Now you know about Spanish colonizations.

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Who were the Conquistadors?
There were many conquistadors but one of the most important were: Hernan Cortes, Francisco Orellana , Francisco Pizarro and Cabeza de Vaca. They were spanish soldiers and explorers who, after the discovering of America by [|Christopher Columbus] in 1492, went to the new world to conquer the new territories.They had to pay their horses and weapons because the governements they belonged didn´t support them. Only one cosquitador, Hernán Cortés, was supported by his country, Spain. They lasted to conquer until the 19th century. In 1573 [|Philip II] made a degree where the Spanish conquest was forbidden.After this, the conquering acts will be denominated as pacifist acts.

Characteristics of the Conquistadors
The conquistadors were modern men, who changed with the events that happened.They were from Andalucia, Castille and Extramadura and were nobleman,craftments, farmworkers or merchants. Most of the colonization was based on the war, but most of the conquistador were not soldiers or did´t have experiencie in war. The acts that they did in amercia were motivated by three things:the esteem for the gold, the glory and the expreding of the Christian religion. These acts,at that time, were normal things that happened normaly en Europe.Now, they violate the human rigths in most of the cases.

What did the conquistadors look for in America?
Mos of the conquistadors went to America looking for prestige,gold(because the indigenous people didn´t considerate the gold as something important), territories (because most of the land was not governed) , power and wealth.

How did conquistadors conquered America?
The conquistadors defeated the native empires thanks to two reasons:

Military:
Spanish conqusitadors had new technological advances, such as firearms, and steel, that native people didn´t know.Also horse were important because indigenous people didn´t know they exist,so they were afraid of them, and conquistadors attacked and moved fasters than native soldiers. The indigenous nations knew how to work metals, but only two cultures,the Quechuas and P´urhépecha used them to weapons.The other civilizations used the metals to make religious and arctistic figuresso they only figthted with weapons of wood, flint and obsidian. Also cosquistadors used the enmity between empires to form alliances and have good armies.The army with which Hernán Cortés attacked [|Tenochtitlan] (capital of the [|Aztec Empire] ) was composed of 200,000 soldiers, of which fewer than 1% were Spanishs.In some cultures, they believed that new people from foreing worlds will come to their territories, so, when they saw the spanish people, they believed the leyend and considerated them as divinities.

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