The Religious Excuse for Spanish Domination

Nothing particularly interesting about this piece. Just some observations on how religion was used to legitimize the conquer of the Mexican people when Spain made it to the new world. Interesting bit but requires some reading into to fully understand.

Thanks to the rediscovery of the new world by Christopher Columbus, the European empires began to see the newly discovered lands as a means of finding new wealth, power, territory, and people to subject. While the European powers each reacted differently in regards of what to do with the new lands, the Spaniards saw this as an opportunity primarily to find much sought after gold and to introduce the religion of Christianity to these people. For Bernal Diaz, one of the first explorers of Mexico, it seemed that he thought these people practiced many interesting and unique ways of life but like other fellow travelers, he thought of them as needing salvation more than anything else. This type of reasoning later was used as an excuse for the eventual conquest of the Americas both militarily and spiritually.
To many Spaniards, the various groups of people they met in the new world were barbaric pagans who practiced idol worship and human sacrifice on a massive scale. To them these people needed to be saved from their wretched lives of idolatry and only through Jesus Christ could this be done with aid from European Christian Missionaries. "Thus, the first Franciscans who journeyed to Mexico - the famous twelve of 1524 - saw themselves as epigones of the Apostles, engaged on a mighty task of global conversion (Alan Knight, p. 32)." For the many Spaniards traveling to the new world from Spain, there were only two main reasons to go. Spaniards either sought riches or hoped to come home with much gold or they wished to show these new people their religion in the hopes that they would be "saved" from what was commonly viewed as worshiping the devil.
For Diaz and the rest of his company serving under Cortes while traveling through modern day Mexico, the people they met at first were extremely volatile despite the Spaniards wishing to avoid any initial bloodshed. Diaz describes this well when speaking of how, despite their reassurances of coming in a peaceful nature, the Spaniards were still threatened to leave or die by the Calachones people. "Aguilar spoke to them again and asked them to keep the peace, and allow us to take water and barter our good with them for food... but they still persisted in saying that if we advanced beyond the palm trees they would kill us (Bernal Diaz, p. 48)." These situations alongside instances where they were not given any warning and were attacked without provocation, made the Spaniards hostile and constantly ready for battle should the need arise.
This type of hostility that the Spaniards saw more frequently than lack thereof could constitute a basis as for why the Spaniards eventually forced the conversion of many people to Christianity. Alongside this, Diaz and his companions frequently came across human sacrifice and cannibalism. So much so that Diaz makes it a note to stop speaking about it in his notes! Because of such actions done in the name of pleasing their gods, it made Spaniards of later years after the conquest suspect that the practice was still carried out even though many Indians now claimed that they had converted to Christianity. Because of this, the church quickly sought out to destroy any remnants of the past Indian religions. Soon though they were faced with little support from their fellow Spaniards in helping to destroy these remaining temples and thus the friars and other religious clergymen began to do it themselves. "And attentive to this, the friars agreed to begin destroying the temples, and not to stop until they were all burned to the ground, and the idols likewise destroyed and eradicated, even though in doing this they would place themselves in mortal danger (Glibert M. Joseph, p. 118)." This sort of logic and justification is a main reason why Indian culture in the Americas is so difficult to learn about.
Even though the Spaniards came to the Americas with the justification that these people needed to be converted to Christianity, violence and greed played a role in their goals as well. Even the church, who at first received much support from the Indians because of their humility and humble appearance, soon began losing its reputation among the people for their growing interest in material goods and appearance. "The friars, whose simple poverty had won the praises of Cortes and - as late as 1550 - of Viceroy Velasco, increasingly acquired goods and land and thus approximated to the Spanish norm; by the seventeenth century there were complaints of friars riding in carriages, wearing 'beaver hats...and silken hose'(Alan Knight, p. 49)." Needless to say, if even the church was capable of abusing their privileges, then the regular Spaniards could do so as well. Even when Cortes was first in the land and faced hostility from all around him, he was quick to make his point clear to his fellow Spaniards that even allies had to quit their religious ways and follow Christianity. "How can we ever accomplish anything worth doing if for the honour of God we do not first abolish these sacrifices made to idols? And he told us to be all ready to fight should the Indians try to prevent us; but even if it cost us our lives the idols must come to the ground that very day (Bernal Diaz, p. 103)." Because of a number of reasons but mainly due to the military prowess of the Spaniards, many Indians were forced to succumb to Christianity. Even with this almost blind zeal towards religion, the Spanish conquistadors searched with constant greed for gold and repeatedly asked the Indians they met to trade their goods for such trifle objects as little beads. And even after the success of the conquests and the eventual conversion of Indians, these "fellow Christians" were still exploited in the desire for more material wealth.
The conquest of the Americas by Spain is wrought with both controversy and hypocrisy. On one side the Spaniards wished to end such violent practices as human sacrifice and to trade amongst the Indian population for gold. Cortes himself makes it a point at the start of the expedition to avoid any violence so as to win the Indians over. However, things do not turn out as planned and in the end many suffered due to Spain. On the other end the Indians failed to handle the Spaniards properly and the constant violence against the Europeans that Diaz speaks of in his writings could lead many to conclude that the actions done were justified. Indeed while they faced much hostility, the Spaniards also came across many people who saw their arrival as an advantage and used them to help crush their enemies. While this did lead to their eventual downfall and suffering as well, it is not something they could have apprehended at the time.
It cannot be denied that the conquistadors were just the start of untold suffering faced by the Indians for years to come. However, the Spaniards were able to end human sacrificing which brutally killed many, maintained control over the population which seemed unsteady because of warring city states, and achieved unity over most of the Americas. From the accounts of Diaz, it would seem apparent that their conquest over the Aztecs was justified because of all that had happened that would make them wary of the Indians and many other Indians even welcomed the Aztec defeat. Nobody at the time could have predicted what would happen later on under Spanish rule either. Despite much being lost, Diaz and Cortes only did what they thought was in their best interests based on their experiences and few could argue against such logic.