In the beginning, Spain had no interest in settling the Americas. That is, those who came over were explorers and adventurers; they weren’t families looking for a new home. The intention was to come to America, make their fortune, and return to Spain.

The conquistadores were mercenaries, many of them veterans of the wars with the Moors. They would hire out their services and travel to the Americas (and other regions) to conquer a designated region. If they were successful, the person who contracted them would pay no taxes on that land, and the conquistadores would receive many rights and freedoms back in the homeland.

Though claiming to a high code of honor (think Don Quijote), the conquistadores were treacherous men who would betray one another to get a bigger stake of the loot. Duels were frequent, as were plots and counter-plots.

These men would often father children in the New World, mestizos who were not accepted in either culture. They also brought disease with them, diseases like small pox and measles that had a devastating impact on the native peoples. The battles that were not won through superior technology were won through the spread of fatal diseases.

The Spanish expeditions explored most of North, Central and South America. There was great competition with the Portuguese to see who would control more land and more resources. The resources found in the Americas helped Spanish and Portuguese monarchies hold onto their power long after other nations had democratized. They remained in a feudal system as the rest of Europe industrialized. And the gold and silver they found in America found its way into the coffers of the merchants from other countries who sold them the products of industrialization.

In a future post, I want to talk about the impacts of land distribution on the future of Latin America. But we’ll leave that for another day.