HIST174 – History of Mexico
Here Come the Spanish
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The Conquest of Mexico

I. Precursors

A. The Conquest of the Caribbean

- Hispaniola (1496-98)
- Cuba (1511)
- encomienda/encomendero
- expeditions to Yucatán 1517, 1518

B. Who Were the Conquistadors?

- Spaniards

Fernando/Hernando/Hernán Cortés
Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España

- Africans
- Natives

Tlaxcala
Cholula
Huejotzinco
Texcoco
Xochimilco (Chinampa towns)

II. The Conquest of Tenochtitlan

A. 1519

1. April - July

- Yucatán + Gulf Coast

pochteca
Jerónimo de Aguilar, "Gonzalo Guerrero"
Malitzin (Doña Marina, La Malinche)

- founding of Veracruz
- Cempoala, the "Fat Cacique"

2. August-September

- battle and alliance with Tlaxcala
- Cholula massacre

3. November-December

- entry into Tenochtitlan
- seizure of Moctezuma

B. 1520

1. April

- Pánfilo de Narváez

2. May-June

- Pedro de Alvarado
- massacre of lords during Feast of Toxcatl
- La Noche Triste

C. 1521

1. January-May

- smallpox in Tenochtitlan
- brigantines
- Cuauhtemoc

2. May-August

- siege
- death of Cuauhtemoc
- fall of Tenochtitlan

III. The Columbian Exchange

A. Epidemic disease, in Central Mexico:

1519- 25 million
1568 - 2.5 million
1630 - .7 million

- Smallpox, measles, typhus, pneumonia, influenza, scarlet fever, pleurisy
- genetic isolation of American populations

B. Plants and Animals

- many are Mesoamerican!
- reception in and impact on Europe
- reception in and impact on Mexico

The 'Spiritual Conquest'

I. From Santiago Matamoros to Mataindios:

- reconquista/reconquest
- convivencia
- 1391, massacres of Jews
- 1469, marriage of Catholic kings
- 1478, Inquisition authorized to seek out conversos
- 1492, defeat of Muslim Granada, expulsion of Jews
- 1499, conversion or expulsion of Muslims

 

II. The “Golden Age” of the Indian Church in Mexico, 1520s-1560s:

A. The Friars

- secular clergy
- regular clergy=mendicant orders/friars
- doctrinas= rural parish
- Franciscans, 1524 (The Twelve)

millennialism
apocalypse
Joachim de Fiore (d. 1202)
three epochs of the church: layman's, priest's, friar's
Spirituals and Observants
San Gabriel, Estremadura
Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros
The Twelve (led by Fr. Martín de Valencia)

- Dominicans, 1526,
- Augustinians, 1533

B. Methods of conversion

- destruction of temples

Fr. Juan de Zumárraga

- construction of churches

open-air atriums

- translation and composition of Christian works in Nahuatl
- education of nobility's children:

Colegio de Santa Cruz Tlatelolco, 1536-1580s
Martín de la Cruz, Libellus de medicinalibus indorum herbis
Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl
Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca

III. The End of an Era: 1580s

- demographic collapse (1575-77)
- idolatry trials
- Virgen de Guadalupe (1531)
- syncretism