Table of Contents
What happened when the Spanish arrived in America?
Beginning with Columbus in 1492 and continuing for nearly 350 years, Spain conquered and settled most of South America, the Caribbean, and the American Southwest. To add insult to smallpox, the Spanish explorers enslaved the Native Americans who weren’t killed and then took their natural resources.
What was life like in Spanish America?
Daily life was a complex combination of compliance and rebellion, order and disorder, affluence and poverty. On the one hand, Spaniards relied on Native Americans for labor, tribute, and assistance in governing the many Native American towns.
What was the main reasons Spanish came to America?
Motivations for colonization: Spain’s colonization goals were to extract gold and silver from the Americas, to stimulate the Spanish economy and make Spain a more powerful country. Spain also aimed to convert Native Americans to Christianity.
What was the Spanish looking for in America?
The Spanish conquistadors invaded areas of Central and South America looking for riches, ultimately destroying the powerful Aztec and Inca cultures.
How has Spanish influenced the world?
This included everything from complex municipal and regional government, vast projects for Christianizing (i.e. Europeanization), and protection of even the most savage aborigines, to encouragement and successful establishment of all kinds of schools and universities, hospitals, and the production of scholars and a …
Why did Spanish explorers go to North America?
After hearing from slave traders about a territory in North America that contained a large native population, he petitioned the Spanish crown for permission to explore and settle the area in hopes of enslaving the native population to grow cash crops such as sugar cane.
What did the Spanish find in the New World?
Spanish Discovery and Colonization. The Spanish explorers encountered three major civilizations in the New World: the Incas in present-day Peru and the Mayans and Aztecs in Mexico and Central America. The conquistadors were truly amazed by what they found — immense wealth in gold and silver, complex cities rivaling or surpassing those in Europe,…
Why did the Spanish want to colonize North America?
Missions became the engine of colonization in North America. Missionaries, most of whom were members of the Franciscan religious order, provided Spain with an advance guard in North America. Catholicism had always justified Spanish conquest, and colonization always carried religious imperatives.
What was the result of the Spanish American War?
The bloody struggle for independence in the Philippines resumed in 1899, the U.S. having replaced Spain as the colonial power. Spanish-American War, (1898), conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America.
Why are the Spanish missions in North America important?
In most cases, emerging Western Hemispheric nations granted citizenship to native groups, kept them as wards of the state, or treated them as social outcasts. Spanish colonial missions in North America are significant because so many were established and they had lasting effects on the cultural landscape.