Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo explores the
Pacific coast.
A Spanish exploration headed by Juan Rodriguez
Cabrillo travels up the coast of the Pacific Ocean
and claims the region for the Spanish crown. Ca-
brillo later writes that the tribes he encounters
have become hostile toward Spaniards after hear-
ing about atrocities committed by the Coronado
expedition (see entry for 1540). The Ipai Indians,
for instance, knew that “men like us were travel-
ing about, bearded, clothed and armed... killing
many native Indians, and... for this reason they
were afraid.”
May 21
Hernando de Soto dies en route to
Spanish territory.
After two years of exploring the American South-
east, the Spanish soldiers under Hernando de Soto
(see entries for 1539 and for 1540) are exhausted
from constant fighting with Indians and disap-
pointed by their inability to find gold and other
riches. De Soto decides to end the expensive ex-
pedition and begins to lead his men back to their
camp on the coast of present-day Florida. As the
Spaniards reach the Mississippi River, de Soto falls
ill and dies. Afraid that Indians will attack them if
they know their leader is dead, the soldiers wrap the
corpse in chains and drop it in the river. Without
de Soto, the men decide to continue their quest for
gold for six more months. With no success, they
take rafts down the Mississippi and along the Gulf
Coast until they reach Spanish settlements in pres-
ent-day Mexico.
1546The Yucatán Maya are defeated by the
Spanish.
In their last united effort to defend themselves from
Spanish soldiers (see entry for 1523), the Maya of
the Yucatán wage a guerrilla war for four months
before being subdued. Their defeat marks the end
of more than 20 years of the Maya’s armed resis-
tance to Spanish rule.1550The humanity of Indians is debated in
Spain.
Following decades of debate, the question of
whether Indians are human beings is argued before
the Spanish court by Juan Gine Sepulveda and Bar-
tolomé de Las Casas (see entries for 1502 and for
1542). Sepulveda supports wars of conquest against
the Indians because they are “inferior” to the Span-
ish “just as children are to adults, women to men,
and, indeed, one may even say, as apes are to men.”
Las Casas, a Dominican missionary, maintains
that Indians have souls and therefore deserve to be
treated humanely while the Spanish try to convert
them to Christianity.
As a result of the discussion, the court, ap-
pearing to accept Las Casas’s point of view, issues a
directive to its subjects calling for better treatment
of Indian peoples. The order will be largely ignored
by the Spaniards in the Americas. The arguments
of Sepulveda and Las Casas, however, will have a
great deal of influence over future colonizers from
England, France, and the Netherlands. They will
help persuade some that Indians are inferior savages
who should be exterminated, and others that they
are human beings, whose liberty must be protected
and whose immortal souls must be saved.1554The Chichimec raid silver from a Spanish
wagon train.
The Chichimec, tribes of roving Indians north of
Mexico City, are infuriated by the increased presence
of Spaniards in their lands. Since the late 1540s, when
the Spanish discovered silver in the area, a constant
traffic of wagon trains has been traveling back and
forth through Chichimec territory. Even more galling
to the Chichimec are Spanish efforts to enslave them