151CHAPTER 4 MESOAMERICA AND SPAIN: THE CONQUEST
For three centuries, the Mesoamericans were part of a vast colonial empire ruled by
Spain. Spanish domination profoundly altered the culture and history of Mesoamer-
ica’s indigenous peoples. Old World infectious diseases, combined with violence and
exploitation, killed millions of people; new technologies and new plants and ani-
mals had a deep impact on local economic and ecological adaptations; and new so-
cial and religious customs were imposed. Spanish rule also introduced new categories
of people into the social scene: Spaniards and other Europeans; the Africans they
brought as slaves; and people whose heritage mixed Indian, European, and African
ancestry in every possible combination. The native people who survived these up-
heavals found themselves at the bottom end of a new social hierarchy, with power con-
centrated in the hands of the foreigners and their descendants.
In this chapter we present a historical overview of the Spanish invasion, in order
to explain how this small European nation came to rule over the densely populated,
socially complex, and highly militarized Mesoamerican world described in the pre-
ceding chapters (Figure 4.1). Particular attention is given to the beliefs and motiva-
tions of the actors on both sides of the conflict. We begin by examining events in
Spain’s history that led up to the country’s colonial enterprise and affected its course
in many ways.THE ORIGINS OF SPANISH IMPERIALISM
Spanish imperialism grew out of the Christian “reconquest,” or reconquista,of Spain
from the Moors. The Moors were Muslims of North African descent, whose Arab and
Berber ancestors had conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula between A.D. 711 and- The Moorish rulers in Spain presided over a cosmopolitan, multiethnic society
in which Jews and Christians were tolerated and permitted to practice their religions.
Many Spanish Christians, however, found rule by these foreign “infidels” unacceptable,
Unit 2: COLONIALMESOAMERICA