Conquistador

the capital of Tenochtitlan, which housed over 30,000 people, was clean and relatively crime free. Punishments such as fines or fees were imposed on minor law breakers. The fall of the Aztec empire was caused by famine, and disease when European conquistador Hernan Cortes conquered and ruined the Aztec Capital in 1521 and built Mexico City on top of the…

The Spanish were among the first countries to begin to venture out into this area and claimed much of the region. The Spanish empire’s first phase in the New World was called the age of discovery and exploration. One of the very first Spanish conquistadors, Hernando Cortès, arrived in America in search of gold and along the way had enslaved and killed a majority of the Native Americans through warfare and contamination. Another important phase that followed swiftly afterward was called the age…

been recorded as present and severely impacting populations during the Crusades, the discovery of the West Indies and the colonization of the Americas (Riedel, 2005). Smallpox was otherwise unknown in the Americas until Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors arrived, which contributed to Cortez being victorious in battle in 1520 due to Smallpox eradicating 25% of the Aztec population. A notable Spanish priest recorded that mortality rates in the Americas at the time were 60-90% with 1000 people a…

The societies that Cook recognizes as civilizations are some of the greatest of their time, and in some cases they are among the greatest civilizations ever on earth. However, the strict guidelines he has in place for the societies he discusses to be considered civilizations end up ‘disqualifying’ many accomplished would-be civilizations as less than. Cook’s initial argument was that to be a civilization people needed to be “sufficiently large and specialized that… different kinds of people did…

In Biography of a Mexican Crucifix, Jennifer Hughes takes us on a journey through Mexican history with the people of Totolapan to help us understand their devotion to their patron saint, the Cristo Aparecido. For the devotees of the Cristo, the crucifix is the cornerstone of their religion, but the missionaries of Mexico used it as an opportunity to create a new, syncretic Christianity for the Indians. In this paper I will look at the conflicting implications between the crucifix as art and…

Meaning of the Title, “When Worlds Collide” In the first chapter of US History, the title, “When Worlds Collide” is given to describe this chapter. This represents that the Europeans and Natives had different cultures, diseases, plants, animals, and technology, as if they were in 2 completely different worlds, then met up with each other once Columbus set foot in the Americas. These worlds collided when Columbus, rather than sailing to India, accidentally sailed to the Americas in 1492,…

James Cook: Captain James Cook was an English explorer in the 1700s who was in search of the “Southern Continent” which he didn’t believe really existed. He went on three big expeditions; the first was from 1768 to 1771, when he sailed from Plymouth, England to Brazil, around Cape Horn, Africa, and to Tahiti where he stayed for a while, then to New Zealand, Australia, and Java to prove they weren’t part of a larger southern continent. His second expedition took him to Antarctica and many of…

division in the Catholic Church combined with an increase in monarchal authority temporarily decreased the church’s influence. Circa 1500, the Age of Exploration transmitted material goods as well as cultural and spiritual ideals. The Spanish conquistadors who conquered regions of Latin America instilled upon…

In the past, there have been many cultural changing events that have helped contribute to today's society. Globalization has increased the spread of culture and the thought of one culture being superior to another has caused and will probably continue to cause problems worldwide. When one group starts to develop more power, sometimes they use it to try to kill other cultures. This could include changing people and trying to assimilate them like the First Nations, or physically killing everyone…

Akhil Kemburu Short Essay #1, Feb. 8th, Section D The Fall of the Natives’ Civilizations: Were the Spanish at Fault? Christopher Columbusis proclaimed as a hero and an explorer because if it were not were his voyage in 1492, the New World may not have been discovered until much later. His proposal to sail to India by traveling west is what led him to the New World, and the Europeans’ encounter with the Native Americans. Although Columbus is heavily praised today, the consequences of his…