essay about spanish colonization

Colonization of the Spanish Empire

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The early 15th century marked a pivotal era in history known as the Age of Exploration, during which Europeans ventured beyond their borders to embark on hazardous journeys to uncharted territories. This period of exploration was fueled by a combination of religious, economic, and political motives, as explorers sought to expand their empires and influence. Spanish examples of this era include the endeavors of Christopher Columbus, Hernan Cortes, and Bartolome de Las Casas, who played significant roles in the Spanish colonization of the New World. Need a custom essay on the same topic? Give us your paper requirements, choose a writer and we’ll deliver the highest-quality essay! Order now

• 1 Motivations of Columbus
• 2 Cortes and Conquest
• 3 Conclusion

Motivations of Columbus

Christopher Columbus, one of the most renowned explorers of this era, embarked on his journey from Spain with the primary goal of discovering a faster trade route to Asia. However, his voyage led to the unexpected discovery of the New World, including the island later known as Hispaniola. Columbus's exploration was driven by several key motives, including the spread of Christianity and the accumulation of wealth.

Cortes and Conquest

Hernan Cortes, another prominent Spanish explorer, embarked on his expedition in 1519, leading an army from Cuba to the city of Tenochtitlan. Unlike Columbus, Cortes's motives were primarily centered on conquest and political dominance. Upon arriving in Tenochtitlan, Cortes observed the city's advanced infrastructure, including large buildings, bridges, and a sophisticated water supply system. However, his focus quickly shifted to the religious practices of the indigenous people.

The Age of Exploration, characterized by the endeavors of explorers like Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortes, had a profound impact on the New World and its native peoples. These explorers were driven by a combination of religious, economic, and political motives, each seeking to expand Spanish influence and power. While Columbus focused on religious conversion and wealth accumulation, Cortes pursued conquest and political dominance. Their interactions with indigenous peoples were marked by exploitation and transformation, leaving a lasting legacy on the lands they encountered.

In summary, the Spanish examples of Columbus and Cortes highlight the multifaceted motives behind the Age of Exploration. Their journeys were not merely about discovery but also about spreading Christianity, accumulating wealth, and asserting political control. This era reshaped the world, setting the stage for centuries of European colonization and global transformation.

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Spanish Exploration and Colonization

Beginning in 1492 with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus (1451?-1506), Spanish explorers and conquistadors built a colonial empire that turned Spain into one of the great European powers. Spanish fleets returned from the New World with holds full of gold, silver, and precious gemstones while Spanish priests traveled the world to convert and save the souls of the native populations. However, Spain's time of dominance was to be relatively short-lived; only two centuries later, Spain's European power was in decline, and a century after that, virtually all her colonies were in open revolt. Much of the reason for this sequence of events, and for the subsequent history of former Spanish territories can be traced back to the reasons for and the nature of Spanish imperialism.

For almost 800 years, Arabs occupied and ruled the Iberian Peninsula . For over a century, a succession of Spanish rulers fought the Moors, gradually pushing them back and reestablishing Spain as a Christian nation. This goal was finally achieved in 1492, when the Moorish bastion of Granada finally surrendered after a decade of siege. In that same year, Spain expelled thousands of Jews, a Spaniard was elected Pope, and another Spaniard published the first formal grammar of any European language. And Genoan navigator Christopher Columbus sailed on a voyage of discovery to find a more direct route to the Orient. All of these factors turned out to have great importance for the next 300 years of Spanish history, and for all subsequent Latin American history.

Columbus returned to Spain, convinced he had succeeded in finding the Orient and not realizing his discovery was, instead, much greater. He was quickly followed by others: Francisco Pizzaro (1475-1541), Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475-1519), Hernan Cortés (1485-1547), and others. Within a few decades, Spain had explored most of South and Central America , and had found the Americas to be rich with precious metals and stones. Meanwhile, Spanish priests discovered a new continent full of, in their opinion, savages whose souls needed to be saved. So Spain descended on the Americas with a cross in one hand and a gun in the other, determined to convert the natives while stripping their lands to fill the Spanish treasury.

While this description may sound unnecessarily harsh, Spain's actions are understandable to some degree. Spain had just emerged from centuries of domination by a foreign power and (by their lights) heathen religion. They earned their liberty by force of arms and, they believed, divine help. This belief seemed vindicated when a Spaniard became Pope in the very year the last Moors were defeated, cementing in the national consciousness the link between religion and military power. This, plus Spain's late emergence from medieval feudalism, helped mold the national character that was to have such a profound influence in Spain's management of her overseas possessions.

Spain's religious fervor was no less understandable than was her elevation of the military to a position of prominence in society. Spain's recent emergence from seven centuries of Moorish rule had only served to emphasize to her the importance of the Christian Church (this was before the Protestant Reformation), and religious belief was an important fact of daily life. Then, in 1517, Martin Luther (1483-1546) tacked his famous 95 theses to the door of a church in Germany, launching the Reformation, which was to subject Europe to centuries of religious bloodshed as Protestants and Catholics battled for supremacy. Against this backdrop, Spain's desire to spread the Catholic Church overseas is entirely understandable, especially given Protestant England's later colonization of North America .

The Spanish did not treat their New World possessions kindly. The conquistadors came to conquer new territories for power and riches. They overthrew the Inca and the Aztecs, plus a host of less-advanced civilizations. Spanish settlers came to make a fortune and return to Spain, not to stay in a new home. They felt that many chores were beneath their dignity, so they employed or enslaved the native populations to till the land, mine precious metals, and do the other menial work of empire. In this, they were a microcosm of the Spanish government, and their colonial style was to have significant ramifications for both the Spanish colonies and for Spain herself.

During the Age of Exploration and subsequent years, there were five major colonial powers: England, Spain, France, Portugal, and Holland. Each of these nations had a different motivation for establishing overseas colonies, and each treated her colonies differently. Most of their former colonies still bear an unmistakable imprint of their colonial heritage, made of equal parts of the motivations of their parent country in establishing colonies and the manner in which they were treated before independence.

In general, the Dutch came to trade, the Portuguese to explore and to trade, the English to expand, the French to counter English maneuvers, and the Spanish to get rich. Another generalization is that the English and French settlers came looking for freedom and opportunity in a new home, the Portuguese and Dutch settlers came to work what was, in effect, an "overseas assignment" before returning home again, and the Spanish came to take what they could to advance themselves, their families, their religion, and their nation.

During their centuries of domination, the Spanish colonies returned an incredible amount of wealth to Spain, making Spain one of the most powerful and most feared nations in Europe. However, this money was not used wisely, in part because Spain was not expecting it and her government was not ready for it, similar to how a child is not ready to inherit and manage a million dollars. So Spain spent her wealth building up a large army and larger navy, waging wars, subduing a continent, and defending her colonies against opportunistic attack. At the same time, Spain's European ambitions led to her dominating large sections of Europe, only to lose them in later years through war or political maneuvering.

Because she spent her money unwisely, Spain almost immediately went into debt, if that can be believed. She began borrowing against future treasure, primarily from foreign governments because Spain's Catholics were not permitted to lend money, and she had expelled her Jews, who had no Biblical injunction against lending money. So most of Spain's New World revenues passed through Spain and ended up in France, Switzerland, and the other nations of Europe while the Spanish economy and people benefited little. In effect, Spain's mismanagement of her great wealth drove her into bankruptcy, and Spanish power began to decline. In 1588 the seemingly invincible Spanish Armada failed to defeat the English navy, while at the same time, her New World possessions had been repeatedly attacked by English ships led, more often than not, by Sir Francis Drake (1540?-1596). Although Spanish power would continue to be feared for more than a century longer, by the start of the seventeenth century it was already apparent that Spanish power would not last forever.

Spain's colonies were perhaps most dramatically influenced by Spanish practices. As noted above, they were settled largely by men who came to the New World simply to conquer, convert, or become rich. This was a direct outgrowth of the period in which Spain found herself at that time. By the time of the Latin American revolutions in the last part of the eighteenth century and the first part of the nineteenth, these characteristics were deeply ingrained into the national psyches of virtually all Latin American nations, and they remain visible today. Most Latin American nations are devoutly Roman Catholic. The military has a prominence in most of them that is almost unique among the world's democracies, and Latin American politics and government are still strongly reminiscent of the Spanish feudal heritage, in which a strong leader dominated the nation's political machinery. This was seen in Chile and Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s, also in Panama, Nicaragua, and El Salvador during this same time frame, and continues to be the case in Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, and other nations today. Some of these nations, in particular Venezuela and Mexico, continued their progenitor's profligate ways with national wealth; in both cases, vast amounts of revenue from petroleum and mineral deposits has been either squandered or vanished.

Although Spain's power was broken in the wake of the Armada's defeat, she remained a power to be reckoned with until her defeat in the Spanish-American War in 1898-99. During this time, she continued to play a role in European politics and wars, including the Napoleonic Wars , though usually in a supporting role.

It is also noteworthy that the treasure brought back from the New World, while it did not often benefit Spain, did benefit Spain's European lenders. In spite of the incredible imported wealth, Spain defaulted on loans several times in the late 1500s and early 1600s, and some of her military defeats were due to army mutinies over lack of pay. In particular, the Dutch, the Swiss, and the French held Spanish loans, but the Spanish borrowed from just about any government with which they were not actively at war. This money, in turn, was often put to good use by the recipient nations, helping to build their economies.

It is probably safe to say that Spanish aims in exploring and colonizing Latin America were not bad, but they turned out badly. Arriving with the near-absolutism of the zealot, Spanish missionaries were determined to convert native populations to Catholicism, in part to combat the spread of Protestantism in Europe. And, recently emerged from a long and bloody religious war against the Moors, Spanish settlers were more than willing to believe in the advantages of a powerful central government, a strong military, and the necessity of military conquest to tame a new continent. In addition, a strongly patriarchal society gave familial lands to the oldest son, leaving younger sons often destitute and eager to spend a few years in the Americas to make their fortune, which they tended to do with the labor of native populations. This almost inevitably led to the establishment of strong central governments presiding over largely Catholic nations and supported by a large, strong military—exactly the pattern seen in many Latin American nations for nearly two centuries. In addition, Spain's mismanagement of her imported wealth led just as inevitably to her economic and military downturn, taking Spain from a prominent position in European power to that of a second-class power within just a few centuries.

P. ANDREW KARAM

Further Reading

Copeland, John, Ralph Kite, and Lynne Sandstedt. Civilización y Cultura. New York : Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1989.

Crow, John. The Epic of Latin America . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York : Random House, 1987.

Manchester, William. A World Lit Only by Fire: Portrait of an Age. Boston: Little, Brown, 1992.

Wood, Peter. The Spanish Main. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1979.

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Spanish Colonization Essay Sample

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Colonization , Colony , Thinking , Spain , Society , Religion , Culture , History

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Published: 02/18/2020

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The colonialism of the Spanish, British, and French allowed for the spread of Christianity. The idea was that by spreading the word of Christ to other cultures and the Natives, this expansion resulted in converting many to Christianity. However, the reality was that many of the natives resented the effort, looking at it as an intrusion into their culture. Of course there were also those that used religion as an excuse to gain more power. Spain obtained their settlements by insisting that it was their duty to convert the native residents to Christianity. With seeing the violence and greed that existed in Spain’s colonies, the idea that their intent was to convert Natives is a bit of a travesty. This controversy only served to cause more tension between religious factions. The integration of Catholicism and national identity into one force prevented secularization from taking place. Dichotomy between rural society and their support of traditional religion with conservative moral, against the urban liberal views had to be considered (White). More competition for religion was also needed. Some worry the Catholicism had a monopoly on Spanish religion, and that for society to embrace secularization they must be free to embrace change and choice. Secularization’s aim is to look at the failure of monopolizing religions (White). Differentiation, rationalization, and worldliness are also all core concepts to secularization theory, and to the Spanish’s idea of colonization. Increasing the differentiation of religion from other social institutions and removing such a wide ranging authority over individuals, organizations, and society is the goal of these theories (White). Those that disapprove of secularization fear that without the influence of religion that discord will occur from the lack of unity. Traditions are hard to break especially when they are so engrained in the national identity. Those in favor of tradition disapprove of making a move towards secularization, feeling that the old ways are still the most moral option. Those in favor of secularization believe that more liberal views will only give Irish citizens a change to choose their own values. They emphasize that they do not wish to erase religion’s influence from society, but merely modernize and allow for choice. The Counter Reformation was a failure to impose Catholicism and only the beginning of the battle (pg. 397, 401). He notes that while the Spanish may have suffered a defeat in the short term they quickly recovered and the events essentially accomplished little is anything. To the people of Spain keeping to Catholicism was in the best interest of Spain, to those in the colonies feel that their religious beliefs had been violated. The conflicts between Spain and other countries was greatly over their desire for colonies. Garrett Mattingly’s book The Armada was a significant in changing the minds of scholars about some of the myths surrounding the conflicts of 1588. Garrett Mattingly used his knowledge of military and political history to give readers an understanding of the forces behind the forces of Spain and England. Mattingly put much thought into writing the book in a way that brings to face the plights of political leaders of the time, most notably Elizabeth I, Henry III, and Philip II. Garrett Mattingly’s theses’ regarding the armada was to provide an in-depth look into the causes and conflicts between Spain and England. Previous works by other authors tended to gloss over and over simplify the factors surrounding these events. Instead of vilifying the Spanish, Mattingly instead commends them on their tactics and sailing skills. Mattingly implies that the reason the Spanish may have lost to the English was due to the fact that the English fought close to their own shores, closer to needed supplies. He speculates throughout the book about whether the outcome would have been different had the battles been fought closer to Spain. Mattingly seems to have great respect for the Spanish’s cunning nature when it came to battle tactics. Many commanders where written in history as foolish or power hungry, however one might also look at this as a desire to improve Spain. Much is open to interpretation regarding how colonization was viewed. For example the reputation of Alonso de Guzman El Bueno, the 7th Duke of Medina. After the wrecking of ships and loss of lives in fleets commanded by the Duke, his reputation was all but ruined in other accounts of the events. Mattingly sought to better explain the actions of Medina Sidonia to give a more accurate portrayal of the circumstances the Duke faced. Mattingly argued that Medina Sidonia was put into command of ships with little food, ammunition, and water, certainly not enough for the battle ahead. Mattingly also argues for those not to judge Medina Sedona for the series of violent storms that ultimately was the cause for destruction of ships and lose of the life on board. Many have felt that this need for colonization was a foolish and misguided attempt on paper, but when one looks at the Spanish perspective, the expansion of the Spanish helped play an important role in the establishment of the cultural influences in many areas of the world. The multi-ethnic and religious beliefs of today was a result of colonization. Spain began their quest for colonization as am attempt at conquering rivals. Achieving power and wealth were the main concerns. Not only were the economies of Spain improved, but also the economies of those under their control. It is often thought that Spain was merely power hungry, but in reality the colonization of Central and South America great improved the economy and provided jobs for the natives. The colonies benefited from the ethnic diversity developed by colonization. Each colony had their own set of skills and cultural influences. Due to the relatively close proximity of colonies these cultural influences spread to neighboring colonies. Likewise the colonists related what they learned back to their native countries. A wealth of information was gained by the discovery of different cultures. However communication between the Spanish and the colonies was often very strained due to cultural misunderstandings. Even methods of communication were vastly different, such as the written word versus the spoken word. This caused disagreement in any attempts at diplomacy. To the Spanish the written word was law, while natives took all promises and negotiations into account and felt betrayed by the methods of the Spaniards. In conclusion, the history of Spanish colonization should be analyzed from many different perspectives, Spanish was looking to improve its economy and spread the influence of Catholicism. The colonists benefits from the multi-cultural setting but may have also struggled with cultural differences. Other countries vilified Spain, feeling that they were power hungry and intruding upon the colonies. History is written from many different perspectives and can influence how to reader feels about a situation. By trying to understand each parties thought process and goals one can gain a better understanding of colonization as a whole.

Works Cited:

Mattingly, G. (2005). The armada. (p. 464). Mariner Books. Miller, D. (n.d.). Review: The spanish armada. Retrieved from http://www.boat-links.com/books/reviews/review026.html White, T. (n.d.). Catholicism and nationalism .Department of Political Science and Sociology, Retrieved from http://www.westminster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/20099/004WPCC-Vol4-No1-Timothy_J_White.pdf

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Spanish vs. English Colonization Essay

Introduction.

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In their efforts to colonize the Americas, the Spanish and the British opted for polarly different approaches, with the methods of the latter showing to be more effective and prosperous in the long-run. While the Spanish focused on capturing the wealth offered by the new lands, the English run their colonies as tools for sustaining their living, working, and finding new ways in which they can become a prosperous society.

Since the discovery of the new land by Christopher Columbus, the Spanish came to colonize territories seeking wealth and gold. Hernán Cortés, a Spanish Conquistador, came to the Americas in the hopes to gain hereditary power for his family and initiated the conquest for capturing the lands of the Aztec Empire, the wealth of which astonished the Spanish. Besides the thirst of the Spanish for land and gold, they were adamant about changing over the native population of the Americas to Catholicism, which went against the beliefs of the Indians and Aztecs.

In the vision of colonial society by the Spanish, everyone would know their place, patriarchy would prevail, while Conquistadors would be at the top of the social hierarchy, with the native Americans and Africans beneath them. The majority of ventures undertaken by them were short-term, with the Spanish bringing devastating diseases, which lead to the loss of life among the natives.

The English did not adopt the Spanish model of the colonial rule because their goals of coming to the Americas were different. The majority of colonists from England cam as households in the search for work and avoiding spiritual persecution. Among them were Puritan families who sought life according to the demands of the scripture, “envisioning a new English Israel where reformed Protestantism would grow and thrive, providing a model for the rest of the Christian world and a counter to what they saw as the Catholic menace.”

This led to the English having much larger populations in their colonies compared to the Spanish who run their territories while the majority of their occupants were natives. A larger population in the colonies meant greater opportunities for human power and the subsequent increase in wealth development. The use of indentured servants at tobacco plants in English colonies showed to have a complexly positive impact on economy sustainability – the servants received freedom after their indenture and could become independent tobacco planters themselves.

Both Spanish and English colonists came to the Americas in the search for new opportunities for expansion. Also, both of them placed great importance on religion and the role of social structures. The English, however, were more effective in their efforts to prosper because they brought more people to the new land and facilitated a rapid expansion of the economy, which the Spanish had failed to do.

Corbett, Scott, Janssen, Volker, Lund, John, Pfannestiel, Todd, and Paul Vickery. U.S. History . Houston, TX: Open Stax, 2017.

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