Impressions each side had of each other
Historical context:1492
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 Spain was recently united with the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabelle
 Reconquista: reconquest of Spain, Jews and Moors(Muslims) were either kicked out
or forced to convert to Spain’s Catholic Faith
 Spain and Portugal’s (Iberia) windfall of wealth and information along with the
Ottoman Empire’s control over the Eastern Mediterranean (along with Italian citystates) led those nations to look volta da mar ( to the Atlantic)
 Motives of God, Gold and Glory help to understand religious, economic and political
reasons for exploration, discovery and conquest
 Gold and silver was the basis for European currency
 The Protestant Reformation was creating was, disunity and conflict between various
Christian faiths (Spain and Portugal were Roman Catholic countries)
 Native Americans (i.e Tainos, Aztecs, Incas) had no contact with the “old world”
peoples and lacked large draft animals, guns and swords, and large sailing vessels
 Native Americans varied in their beliefs, ways of life and perceptions of these new
“visitors” during the “encounter”
Doc #1
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 Christopher Columbus uses biblical passages to
justify his 4th Ocean voyage co-opting noted heroes
of biblical lore like the Israelites or David to perhaps
give a cultural or political justification for his actions
of claiming territories in Hispaniola on both his
behalf as well as for King and Queen of Spain
Doc#2Juan gines de Sdepulveda (1490-1575), a Spanish
aristocrat, from "The Just War
Against the Indians"
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 “If you are familiar with the character and morals of the two peoples, that it is perfectly
right that the Spaniards exercise their dominion over those barbarians in the New World
and its adjacent lands. For in prudence, talent, and every kind of virtue they are as inferior
to the Spanish as children to adults, or women to men, or the cruel and inhumane to the
gentle…
 A clearly ethnocentric perspective of Spanish
superiority of the native inhabitants of the Americas
and a justification for the exploitation of the land (
natural resources) labor ( of natives) and capital ( use
of the local markets for their own profits)
Document # 3
Indian Account of Cortes' Conquest, 1530s

 The mention of Montecezuma suggests its an Aztec perspective
“bodies are completely covered, so as only their faces can be seen.
Their skin is white, as if it were made of lime. They have yellow
hair, though some have black and their beards are long and yellow.
Their dogs are enormous, with flat ears and long dangling tongues.
The color of their eyes is a burning yellow; their eyes flash fire and
shoot off sparks. They bound here and there, panting, with their
tongues hanging out”
 Suggests that the appearance of the Spaniards were quite different and
odd to the native inhabitants from their dress (much more in covering)
and their coloring and beards ( natives could not grow beards) This
could be grouped under culturally or a moderate to negative
perspective
Document #4
Columbus's Journals. October 12, 1492, first voyage,
referring to Taino Indians

 This was Columbus’ first encounter ( much different than later encounters by
other Spaniards). “They do not carry arms nor are they acquainted with them,
because I showed them swords and they took them by the edge and through
ignorance cut themselves. They have no iron… They should be good and
intelligent servants, for I see that they saw very quickly everything that is said
to them and I believe that they would become Christians very easily, for it
seemed to me that they had no religion” Tis perspective suggests the peaceful
nature of the Tainos not knowing swords anf a cultural perspective that they do
not have religion ( well, at least not Columbus’ religion), This can be grouped
culturally or a positive perspective of the natives
 Note: this transmission follows up with “with 50 men we can subjugate them
and make them do whatever we want” which strongly suggests the intent of a
Native slave trade
Document # 5
Aztec Poetry
"Flowers and Songs of Sorrow"
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 The title alone suggests a negative interaction and
perspectives with the Spaniards:” There is nothing
but grief and suffering In Mexico and
Tlatelolco,Have you grown weary of your
servants?Are you angry with your servants,O Giver
of Life?
 A negative or perhaps cultural perspective of the
tragedies which befell the Aztec civilization either
from bloodshed, diseases or loss of culture. This
sounds like a prayer through poetry to one of the
polytheistic deities in the Aztec civiliazation.
Document # 6
Cortez pretends he can control thunder. From Jill Lepore,
Encounters in the New World", 1999

 The thunder being discussed here are clearly the cannons and guns
(boomsticks) which seem to be utilized to keep the Aztecs under Spanish
control, This can be grouped either politically, technological differences or a
negative interaction between the Spanish and Aztecs,
 “order was secretly given to put a match to the cannon which had been loaded,
and it went off with such a thunderclap as was wanted, and the ball went
buzzing over the hills, and it made a great noise, and the Caciques [chiefs] were
terrified on hearing it. As they had never seen anything like it they believed
what Cortes had told them was true”
 This suggest both the damage and psychological impact the Spanish technology
had on the Aztecs,
Document # 7 The Spread of Disease..Alfred Crosby, "The First New World
Pandemic and the Fall of the Great Indian Empires", 1967

 From the man from the University of Chicago whose book “The Columbian
Exchange” became the most studied event(s) in world history ( he coined the phrase)
 “The fatal diseases of the Old World killed more effectively in the New and the
comparatively benign diseases of the Old World turned killer in the New. There is
little exaggeration in the statement of a German missionary in 1699 that "the Indians
die so easily that the bare look and smell of a Spaniard causes them to give up the
ghost." The most spectacular period of mortality among the American Indians
occurred during the first hundred years of contact with The Europeans and Africans.
Almost all of the contemporary historians of the early settlements, from Bartolome
de las Casas to William Bradford of Plymouth Plantation, were awed by the ravages
of epidemic disease among the native populations of the Americas”
 This passage cites historical sources as to the continual ravages that diseases like
smallpox, measles, mumps and influenza had on the myriad populations (this can be
grouped culturally or demographically or as negative as to the impact of what
historians refer to as “the great dying”
Document # 8
Dutch artist, Theodore de Bry, 16th century, depicting Spanish
cruelty in the New World


This picture of natives being hung in honor of Christ and his twelve disciples suggests the
cruelty of the Spaniards in their conquest of the Americas, Bartolome De Las Casas
discusses about Columbus’ gold quota which, if not made, the Tainos would e treated like
this picture
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It might be important to not Las Casas was trying
To stop the practice of enslaving Natives and the Dutch
Artist ( a Protestant region) may be pointing out
Cruelties in the name of Roman Catholicism to point
Out savageries when the Chistian faith was dividing
Document # 9
Drawings by Guaman poma de Ayala, a Peruvian Indian who traced his lineage to the Inca. He
was a Christian and hoped his reports would reach King Philip III of Spain, who might end
Spanish abuses- (early 1600's)

This illustration signifies the economic imperative
The Spaniards had for the conquest of the Inca
Population. This can be grouped as either economic
Or moderate in terms of the interaction betweeen
The two cultures.
Thesis

 The interactions between the Spanish and native inhabitants of
the Americas was a clash between civilizations (worlds)
because the Spanish desire for glory came in the political
conquest through superior weaponry (doc #6)( and masscre of
population, the economic driving desire for gold and resources
they could utilize as well as markets though could exploit and
the religious desire to convert the natives to their Catholic faith
even though the “scourge” of God was striking them down. In
reality it was the diseases( doc #7) which led to the highest
percentage of deaths. A document estimating the baptismal
rates of native Americans would provide a strong
understanding just as to how many native converted to this
faith the Spanish appeared to be strongly attempting to convert
them to.