Categories: History

How Did the Spanish Conquer the New World so Easily?

Long before “the sun never set on the British Isles,” the Spanish controlled a vast territory in the New World. Within a few years, Spanish conquistadors managed to utterly destroy the most powerful American empires and replace those empires with lucrative plantations and gold and silver mines. Why did the mighty Aztec and Inca empires collapse before the invading Spanish armies? At least four factors contributed to the Aztec defeat. Some of these factors played an important role in the first conflicts between the Spanish and Native Americans while other factors simply ensured that, in the end, Spanish colonies in the New World would remain viable.

First, the Spanish had much better technology than the natives did. Whereas the Inca and Aztecs were armed with bows and spears, the Spanish were armed with muskets and cannons. To people who had never seen horses, never seen metal army, and had never seen gunpowder, the Spanish army must have been quite a fearful sight. Not only were the Spanish weapons more effective than the native weapons, but they terrified the native population. Understandably, some of the Incas and Aztecs thought they were fighting gods or demons. This technological and psychological advantage helped make up for what the Spanish lacked in numbers.

The Spanish also brought with them diseases that decimated the Native population. Whereas the Spanish had gained some immunity to smallpox and plague after centuries of exposure, the Native Americans had never experienced those diseases before. Therefore, they had no immunity to them. This made it much more likely that they would catch these diseases and even more likely that these diseases would be fatal. Though the Europeans never meant to wage biological warfare on the Native Americans, the diseases the Europeans happened to bring with them to the New World killed millions.

Another advantage the Spanish had was the fact that many of the smaller tribes were willing to ally with the Spanish against the larger tribes. These alliances were particularly useful against the Aztecs. Because the Aztecs had ruthlessly suppressed their neighbors, it did not take much convincing to get those neighbors to work with the Spanish to destroy the Aztec Empire.

Once the Spanish had conquered the New World, however, they needed to be able to hang on to it. To do this, they needed to make their colonies profitable and worthy of investment. Thankfully, the lands they encountered were rich in gold and silver or in land for raising cash crops like sugar cane. Since the Spanish knew that they could make a profit off these colonies, they were willing to invest the money and manpower they needed to protect those colonies.

Against their European rivals for the territory, Spain had the advantage of being first in the New World and possessing one of the best navies in the world at the time. This made it difficult for anyone else, with the exception of the Portuguese, to establish any major colonies south of Mexico. Thus, other European countries with colonial ambitions, like Britain, France, and the Netherlands, were forced to look to the Northern part of the New World for land for colonies.