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= = ====The Spanish empire in the 16th century witch was not all Spaniards. The first man to the term is applied was Bethencourt, a Norman who conquered some of the Canary Islands starting in 1402. The navigators made it l possible forthe Genoese Columbus, the Florentine Vespuccio, the Portuguese Magellan, and the Englishman Cabot. Among the less successful conquistadores were a group of forlorn Germans in today's Venezuela.====

====But most were from the frontier provinces Andalusia and Extremadura and all were in the service of Their Most Catholic Majesties Ferdinand and Isabella and successors, with the twin objectives of Christianizing the heathen and providing specie to pay for European wars against the Muslims, rival Catholic powers, and Protestant heretics. The whole phenomenon was a continuation of the centuries-long politico-religious Reconquista of the Iberian peninsula, during which Spanish society became thoroughly militarized. The fall of the last Moorish kingdom in 1492 created a surplus of men proficient at war and very little else, and ‘the Indies’ provided an outlet for the boldest. Fiercely loyal to the crusading Spanish crown in the abstract, their attitude to its practical authority was captured by the phrase ‘I obey but do not comply’.====

====Nor were all the conquistadores soldiers. Quesada was a lawyer who led a nightmarish expedition up the Magadalena river, arriving in the valley of Bogotá with fewer than 200 sick and starving men, no gun power, and no horses. Using mainly diplomatic skills, he achieved dominance over much of the area today known as Colombia. The priest La Gasca prevented what is now Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia from slipping out of his emperor's control. Starting with no more than a royal warrant, he won over the lieutenants of the fearsome Gonzalo Pizarro, while others came from as far away as Chile and the Plate river to pay homage. In Guatemala, the Dominican friar Las Casas succeeded where force had failed and pacified an area known to this day as Vera Paz (‘True Peace’). The Jesuits were later to achieve the same result with the previously irreconcilable Guaraní of Paraguay, reminding us that the conquest was as much religious as political, if indeed the two can usefully be considered separately.====

====Conquistadores have long been tarred with the ‘black legend’, a device whereby the Creole élites of the independent nations of Hispanic America sought to distance themselves from the cruelty of Spanish occupation. In parallel, English-speaking historians also dwelt on the horrors of Spanish rule, charitably overlooking the fact that a much larger proportion of the Amerindian population survived south of the Rio Grande than the remnant in northern reservations. Today we appreciate that disease conquered the Americas. Battle dogs and horses, gunpowder, steel weapons and armour were indeed all unilateral Spanish advantages, but the Amerindians had no antibodies to the plagues that the Europeans brought with them. Not only did these exterminate whole populations, they also destroyed native faith in their rulers, culture, and gods.====

====It was a holocaust, but in fairness to the Spanish they placed a market value on Amerindians conspicuously absent from Anglo-American calculations. They needed a healthy population to work their mines and estates for them, so to accuse them of a deliberate policy of extermination is absurd. Nonetheless, they tortured and killed mercilessly and were brutally exploitative of the survivors. It is a multifaceted paradox that the forced immigration of African slaves was born of the saintly Las Casas's concern that the remaining natives should not be worked to death. Instead, the Africans brought new diseases that nearly finished the Amerindians off.====

====It is notable that the limits of Spanish conquest tended to be where they encountered tenacious resistance. Without the possibility of a population that could be reduced to docility, land alone was of no great interest to men who on many occasions proved they would rather die than work with their hands. The frontier of effective Spanish dominion throughout the colonial period was not very different to the extent of the native empires they took over, a fair indication that the areas outside were probably not worth the trouble and expense of conquest to either the Amerindian imperialists or their Hispanic successors. There were exceptions on both sides, but this and the no less significant factor of interracial breeding (mestizaje) provided the sharpest difference between Hispanic and much later Anglo-American settlement.====

====Additionally, the Amerindian peoples were constantly at war with each other, enabling the conquistadores to form tactical alliances and to divide and rule. Given the Spanish penchant for treachery and fighting among themselves, this may have been a less significant factor than is generally supposed. Overall, they prevailed because of their remorseless common will and audacity, in the face of which the Amerindians were disconcerted and inclined to believe they were battling demigods. This was crucial in the collapse of the two largest native empires, aided by the fact that the Aztec aim in battle was to take captives for ritual sacrifice and that the Inca system was more administrative than military.====

====As a military adventure, the extent, speed, and permanency of the conquest bears comparison only with the Alexandrian empire. The Roman and British empires were won over centuries, while the achievements of such as Ghengis Khan and Timur were ephemeral. The names of Columbus in the Caribbean, Magellan and Cano in the Philippines, Balboa in Panama, Cortés in Mexico, Alvarado from thence to Guatemala, Quesada in Colombia, the Pizarros in Peru and Ecuador, Almagro almost everywhere, and Valdivia in Chile are writ large in the pages of history. The footnotes are populated by less fortunate but no less fearless conquistadores such as Cortés's rival Narváez who died in Florida, Pizarro's lieutenant Soto who was buried in the Mississippi, Orellana of the Amazon, Mendoza of the Plate river, and many others who among them in a generation won the first truly global empire for Spain and for the militant Catholic Church with which her destiny has been so inextricably intertwined.====

Section 1: pp. 74-76, "Setting the Scene" and "Spanish Conquistadors."
= = = = = = = = = = = = =contez defeated the azlee empire in 1521= = =
 * =the 600 soldiers and 16 horses cortes set sailed from mexico in 1519 in search of gold=
 * =on november 8, 1519 cortes marched into tenochtitlan..=

@http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/spanish-conquistadors.htm
 * __ Websites that could be used for your research: __**

@http://www.pbs.org/opb/conquistadors/mexico/adventure2/a1.htm

@http://latinamericanhistory.about.com/od/theconquest/a/09armsconquest.htm

@http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/latinamerica/topics/spanish_conquest.html

@http://kids.britannica.com/

@http://encarta.msn.com/

@http://everything2.com/title/Peninsulares

@http://www.answers.com/

@http://www.about.com/  the native americans treated then badly and they forced them to become roman catholic Included below is an example of researching, cut and pasting important information, paraphrasing the information, citing the website, and posting on your wiki for your group presentation.

Mr. Martin-section 5: pp. 78-80, "Harsh Life for Native Americans." A key point that I found interesting is found on page 79 and how the priest Bartolome de Las Casas tried to intercede on behalf of the Native Americans for better conditions. I used the website: @http://latinamericanhistory.about.com/od/theconquest/a/09armsconquest.htm

In the search box at the top of the page, I typed in "Bartolome de Las Casas," and was given different options of researching this individual and I chose the first option.


 * I found something very interesting in that it showed that Las Casas did more than petition the government for better conditions for the Native Americans, he actually tried to do something about. It also showed me that throughout history, there were always people who were involved with social justice even with the chance of placing themselves in great harm. **

Las Casas convinced Spanish authorities to allow him to try and save the few remaining Caribbean natives by taking them out of slavery and placing them in free towns, but the death of King Ferdinand in 1516 and the resulting chaos over his successor caused these reforms to be delayed. Las Casas also asked for and received a section of the Venezuelan mainland for an experiment: he believed that he could pacify the natives with religion, not weapons. Unfortunately, the region that was selected had been heavily raided by slavers, and the natives’ hostility to the Europeans was too intense to overcome.
 * (From the website) **
 * First Experiments:**

In 1537, Las Casas wanted to try again to show that natives could be controlled peacefully and that violence and conquest were unnecessary. He was able to convince the crown to let him send missionaries to a region in north-central Guatemala where the natives had proved particularly fierce. His experiment worked, and the natives were brought under Spanish control peacefully. The experiment was called Verapaz, or “true peace,” and the region still bears the name. Unfortunately, once the region was brought under control, greedy colonists took the lands and enslaved the natives, undoing almost all of Las Casas’ work.  This is an example of my paraphrasing the above section from the website, citing my source, and how it would look on your expert group wiki: 
 * The Verapaz Experiment**: 

Mr. Martin-section 5: pp. 78-80, "Harsh Life for Native Americans." A key point that I found interesting is found on page 79 and how the priest Bartolome de Las Casas tried to intercede on behalf of the Native Americans for better conditions. I found something that I found very interesting section very interesting because it showed that Bartolome did more than petition the government for better conditions for the Native Americans, he actually tried to do something about. It also showed me that throughout history, there were always people who were involved with social justice even with the chance of placing themselves in great harm.

Las Casas found that even with his interventions on behalf of the Native Americans, he needed to show the government that more needed to be done. He was allowed to take the remaining Caribbean natives to Venezuela to start a free town, but his first attempt failed due to slave traders and hostility from the local natives. His second attempt found him using missionaries in Guatemala to subdue the natives using peaceful means and was successful. That area of Guatemala is still called "true peace." Unfortunately, the greed of the colonists undid Las Casas work as they took native's land and enslaved many of the residents. (Retrieved on November 1, 2009 from [])

I got all my information from http://www.answers.com