1. 2-1: Spain’s Empire in the Americas
The Spanish Conquest of Central and North America

2. Conquistadores (conquerors)
Spanish explorers who sailed to America in the years after Columbus’s voyages in search of gold and silver
Spanish explorers who sailed to America in the years after Columbus’s voyages in search of gold and silver

3. What motivated Spain’s conquest?
Greed- the desire for gold and silver
The desire to spread the Catholic religion
The desire to expand Spanish power and wealth

4. How were the Spanish able to succeed?
The Spanish had superior weapons and military supplies
The Spanish brought diseases (smallpox) to the new world that killed thousands of native people
The Spanish had native allies that helped them to conquer other rival native people

5. Hernado Cortes Conquistador who landed in Mexico in 1519
By 1521, Cortes’s army conquered the Aztecs and took their gold

6. The Spanish continue to seize power
Between followers of Cortes landed in the Mexican regions of the Yucatan and Guatemala where they conquered the Mayan people
In 1531, Francisco Pizarro and his army conquered the wealthy Inca Empire on the western slope of South America

7. Juan Ponce de Leon
Conquistador who explored present-day Florida

8. Spain establishes colonies in the New World
The Spanish wanted to exploit the new colonies for its wealth, resources and goods
The Spanish wanted to keep other European powers from gaining control of the area
The Pope had decreed that the native people should be converted to Catholicism.

9. How did Spain control these colonies?
Spanish settlers lived with the native peoples and imposed Spanish culture on them
They established congregaciones (large communities started by Spanish priests to convert the native peoples to the Catholic religion)
They forced native workers to work under the encomienda system. They made Native Americans farm, ranch, or mine the land.
They used military force

10. Why did the Pueblos rebel against the Spanish?
The Spanish had imposed their religion and culture on the Pueblos
The Spanish made forced laborers of them
The Spanish made the Pueblos pay tribute to them
The Spanish physically abused them

11. The result of the Pueblo Rebellion (1680)
Spanish churches were destroyed
Spanish priests were executed
Spanish settlers were driven out of New Mexico for 14 years