The Great Voyages of Exploration and Early Colonization (^) ‹ 77
• In 1519, Hernán Cortés landed at what is today Veracruz in Mexico and began the
conquest of the Aztec Empire; this would be the beginning of more than 300 years of
Spanish domination in the New World. Also in 1519, a Spanish expedition led by the
Portuguese sailor Ferdinand Magellan sailed west in search of a new route to the Spice
Islands of the East. Rounding the tip of South America in 1520, the expedition sailed
into the Pacific Ocean and arrived at the Spice Islands in 1521. In 1522, the expedition
completed the first circumnavigation of the globe, returning to Spain without Magellan,
who had been killed in the Philippines.
Exploration and colonization were made possible in no small way thanks to technological
advances. Until the Portuguese development of the caravel (1450s), ships used for explora-
tion and trade were primarily a kind of barge that was difficult to control and limited in
navigational prowess. The caravel incorporated more masts, used lateen sails to increase
maneuverability, and made speed and power the elements by which the Spaniards and
Portuguese were able to carry out trade and exploratory missions. The use of guns and
horses in warfare, while not precisely new, gave European colonizers of the New World a
decided and obvious advantage over cultures that had neither.
The Spanish Empire in the New World
Spain led the way in exploiting the economic opportunities of the New World. The process
of exploitation got under way in 1519, when Hernán Cortés landed on the coast of what
is now Mexico with 600 troops. Soon thereafter, Cortés marched on the Aztec capital of
Tenochtitlán and imprisoned their leader, Montezuma. By 1521, the Aztecs were defeated,
and the Aztec Empire was proclaimed New Spain.
In 1531, Francisco Pizarro landed on the western coast of South America with 200
well-armed men and proceeded into the highlands of what is now Peru to encounter and
conquer the Inca civilization. By 1533, the Incas were subdued. Internal divisions within
the conquering force initially made conquest difficult, but by the late 1560s, effective
control by the Spanish Crown was established.
The major economic components of the Spanish Empire in the New World, based on
the ideas espoused in mercantilism, included the following:
• Mining, primarily silver from Peru and northern Mexico that was exported to Spain
• Agriculture, through large landed estates called haciendas, which produced food and
leather goods for the mining areas and urban centers of the New World, and plantations
in the West Indies, which produced sugar for export
In both the mining and the agriculture sectors, ownership was in the hands of Spanish-
born or -descended overlords, while labor was coerced from the native population. Native
populations could not, however, be enslaved unless taken as captives in a “just war”; this in
turn led to the importation of African (black) workers, who could be enslaved, especially
in plantation economies.
The establishment of an exploitative foreign empire in the New World had several last-
ing results on the civilizations of the New World, particularly in Central and South America:
• The establishment of Roman Catholicism in the New World
• The establishment of economic dependence between the New World and Europe
• The establishment of a European-style hierarchical social structure in the cultures of the
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