Conquest and Empire in the Americas
Small bands of Spanish conquistadors, with huge numbers of Indigenous allies, topple the Aztec and Inca empires and build the largest empire of its age.
- Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830 — J. H. Elliott, Yale University Press (2006)
- Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763 — Henry Kamen, HarperCollins (2003)
- Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest — Matthew Restall, Oxford University Press (2003)
- Imperial Spain 1469–1716 — J. H. Elliott, Penguin (1963)
Within a generation of Columbus, Spaniards had settled the Caribbean islands, where the Taíno population collapsed under forced labour and disease. In 1519 Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico. With a few hundred Spaniards and tens of thousands of Tlaxcalan and other Indigenous allies who hated Aztec rule, and with a smallpox epidemic raging through the city, he took the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, in August 1521. From 1532 Francisco Pizarro exploited a civil war within the Inca empire to seize the emperor Atahualpa, take a vast ransom and then execute him. Resistance went on for decades; the last Inca stronghold, Vilcabamba, fell in 1572.
- Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest — Matthew Restall, Oxford University Press (2003)
- Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830 — J. H. Elliott, Yale University Press (2006)
- Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763 — Henry Kamen, HarperCollins (2003)
An empire on which the sun never set
Under Charles V (king from 1516, Holy Roman Emperor from 1519) and his son Philip II, the Spanish monarchy became the first global empire, stretching from the Americas to the Philippines (named after Philip), along with territories in Italy and the Low Countries. Silver from Potosí in present-day Bolivia and from Mexico flowed through Seville and paid for Spain’s wars across Europe. This was also Spain’s Siglo de Oro, its Golden Age of Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Velázquez and the mystic Teresa of Ávila.
- Imperial Spain 1469–1716 — J. H. Elliott, Penguin (1963)
- Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763 — Henry Kamen, HarperCollins (2003)
The cost and the debate
For the peoples of the Americas the conquest was a catastrophe. Epidemics of smallpox, measles and other diseases to which they had no immunity, combined with war, forced labour and dislocation, caused a population collapse: central Mexico may have lost as much as 90% of its people within a century, though estimates of pre-conquest numbers vary enormously. Indigenous people were forced to work in mines and estates, and from the sixteenth century enslaved Africans were shipped in to replace them.
- Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830 — J. H. Elliott, Yale University Press (2006)
- Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest — Matthew Restall, Oxford University Press (2003)
Spain was also the only empire of its time to argue openly about the justice of conquest. The Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas denounced the abuses, and the New Laws of 1542 tried to limit forced labour; at Valladolid in 1550–51 theologians debated whether Indigenous people could rightly be conquered at all. The laws were often ignored on the ground. Las Casas’s writings, translated and illustrated by Spain’s Protestant enemies, also fed the “Black Legend” of uniquely Spanish cruelty.
- Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830 — J. H. Elliott, Yale University Press (2006)
- Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763 — Henry Kamen, HarperCollins (2003)
Then and now
Most of the mainland colonies won independence between 1810 and 1825. The result is a family of nations bound by language, faith, migration and many shared surnames, and an argument that has never been settled. Spain’s 12 October national day was once called the Día de la Raza and is still also known as the Day of Hispanidad; in parts of Latin America the same date is now marked as a day of Indigenous resistance. In March 2019 Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote to King Felipe VI asking Spain to apologise for the conquest; the Spanish government rejected the request, saying the events of 500 years ago could not be judged by today’s standards.
- Mexico president asks Spain to apologise for conquest — BBC News, BBC (2019)
- Spanish Identity in the Age of Nations — José Álvarez Junco, Manchester University Press (2011)
A civilising and evangelising mission that created a Spanish-speaking, Catholic family of nations; Spain also debated the rights of Indigenous peoples and passed laws to protect them, which other empires did not.
- Spanish Identity in the Age of Nations — José Álvarez Junco, Manchester University Press (2011)
- Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763 — Henry Kamen, HarperCollins (2003)
An invasion that destroyed civilisations, enslaved peoples and took their land and silver; the inequality it left still shapes the Americas, and an apology is owed.
- Mexico president asks Spain to apologise for conquest — BBC News, BBC (2019)
- Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest — Matthew Restall, Oxford University Press (2003)
Both the heroic and the "Black Legend" versions are myths. The conquest depended on Indigenous allies and on epidemic disease as much as Spanish arms; its violence was real, and so were Spain's internal debates about it.
- Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest — Matthew Restall, Oxford University Press (2003)
- Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830 — J. H. Elliott, Yale University Press (2006)
Why it matters today
Spain's ties to Latin America are deep and familial: a shared language spoken by some 600 million people, migration in both directions, and a national day on 12 October. But the conquest is a sore point. When Mexico's president asked Spain to apologise in 2019, Madrid refused, and many Spaniards still bristle at the "Black Legend" while others argue Spain has never reckoned honestly with its empire.