Conquest_of_New_Spain_(-Bernal_Diaz)

Conquest of New Spain (-Bernal Diaz) The intentions of the Spanish were to both acquire wealth in the form of gold, as well as convert the Aztec people to the Christian faith during their conquest of Mexico. However, the Spaniards became engulfed in their own greed, and in the end gold became their main obsession. Being the highly religious people that the Spaniards were, converting the Indians into Christians in order to ‘save their souls’ was important to them, thinking the Indians’ polytheistic religion was inferior to their own. After victory in the wars that usually ensued while trying to forcefully convert the natives, the Spaniards became accustomed to receiving many gifts as peace offerings from the Caciques of the tribes. This was a major factor in lighting a fire under the Spaniards’ ever-increasing greed for more gold. Based on these facts and events, along with others that I will discuss, the lust for gold was clearly of more importance to the Conquistadors than was the converting of the Indians to Christianity. To begin, the only reason Diego Velazquez originally sends Cortes’ expedition to New Spain is because previous trips, such as the one by Francisco Hernandez, had returned a great deal gold, spaniards, cortes, much, indians, treasure, soldiers, people, out, mexico, land, however, guatemoc, greed, gifts, cortes’, came, battle, wealth, very, return, poor, place, order, one, natives, great, finding, events, ended, each, during, converting, convert, christianity, christian, became, aztecs, almost, about, without, while, wanted, victory, tribes, torture, thinking, take, spanish, spain