Conquistadors

Conquistadors Spanish Conquistadors In one of his speeches to his men, Cortez spoke of the great rewards that will come to them for their services. Without disguising it at all Cortez tells his men that they will be “the richest of all men who have crossed the seas,” “engaging in a … war which will bring [them] fame,” and “Almighty God, in whose name and faith [war] will be waged.” All in the same speech, Cortez has his men, as well as all scholars to come, understand their reasoning for being in the Americas. Gold, Glory and God. Not a century after Columbus’ voyage to “Indies,” the Spaniards were left without any exotic spices, flowers, etc. So they made the best of the situation and used the virgin New World to catapult their wealth, create a name for themselves and spread the word of the Catholic Church. The way in which they carried out these goals directly contributed to the reaction they had with the natives. Possibly simultaneously the best and worst aspects of Spanish culture from the Indians standpoint were their intense devotion to the Catholic Church and the inability to comprehend the idea that the Indians didn’t understand Spanish. However that men, indians, spanish, cortez, said, didn’t, gold, wealth, stop, riches, people, one, king, god, fame, church, world, word, without, way, voyage, understand, though, themselves, take, spread, speech, silver, shall, sepulveda, receive, really, part, name