Name: ______________________________ Date: _____________ Per: _______
AP World History II
Chapter 19: Conquest Notes
Early Latin America
Part I
Spanish and Portuguese from Reconquest to Conquest
 Main ideas
 What follows are a series of quotes from the Stearns textbook
 Read each quote carefully
 Analyze its meaning
 List facts that support the legitimacy of these quotes
“Many commoners who came to America as conquerors sought to recreate
themselves as a new nobility, with native peoples as their serfs.”
“The period from 1492 to about 1570 witnessed a remarkable spurt of human
destruction and creation.”
“The Caribbean experience secured Spain as a model for its actions elsewhere in
the Americas.”
“The conquest was not a unified movement, but rather a series of individual
initiatives that usually operated with government approval.”
We crushed to the ground,
We lie in ruins.
There is nothing but grief and suffering
in Mexico and Tlateloco,
Where once we saw beauty and valor.
“The Spanish captains led by force of will and personal power. ‘God in the sky,
the king in Spain, and me here’ was the motto of one captian, and sometimes
absolute power could lead to Tyranny.”
“…Sepulveda, a noted Spanish scholar,… published a book claiming the conquest
was fully justified. The Spanish had come to free the Indians from their unjust
lords and to bring the light of Salvation. Most importantly, he argued, the Indians
were not fully human, and that some peoples were ‘born to serve.’ ”
“Father Bartolome de las Casas… argued that ‘the Indians are our brothers and
Christ has given his life for them.’”
“One of the last surviving conquerors of Peru, Mancio Sierra de Legizanian, as he
lay dying in 1589, wrote in his will that he was ashamed of what the Spaniards had
destroyed. … For the peace of his conscience and that of his king, he asked that the
abuses and bad examples be ended and that the Indians be treated fairly. This was
not a popular view.”