1. Invasion & Occupation of Mesoamerica, 1480-1821
The Spanish

2. Background to Spanish Conquest
Muslims of North Africa, 711
Moors
Northern Kingdoms resist
La Reconquista
Marriage of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, 1479
Conquest of Granada, 1492

3. Contact - Columbus Spain and Christopher Columbus, 1492 Arawaks
Enslavement of Indians
Columbian Exchange
Transfer of Disease

4. “Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides…the ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them…Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation…In this way husbands died in the mine, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk…and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile…was depopulated…My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write…”
- Bartolome de las Casas

5. Contact – The Portuguese
Portugal
Earliest slave traders
Arrival in the Americas,

6. Spanish Explorations Led Europeans in exploration & conquest
Wealth, National Glory, Catholicism
Conquistadores

7. Spain - Mexico Center of New Spain Hernan Cortez, 1519
Defeat of Tabasco
Marina/Malinche
Smallpox Epidemic

8. Images of Effects of Smallpox Epidemic

9. Tenochtitlan Nahuatl Moctezuma Cuahtemoc Conflict with the Spanish
The Tlaxcalans

10. Spanish Colonies Political Organization Social Organization
Spanish born Governors
Cooperation of Indian nobility
Social Organization
Elaborate Caste System
Peninsulares
Criollos
Mestizos

11. Spanish Colonies - Economic Organization
Encomienda & Hacienda
African Slavery, 16th century

12. - Bartolome de las Casas
“The Indians were totally deprived of their freedom and were put in the harshest, fiercest, most horrible servitude and captivity which no one who has not seen it can understand. Even beasts enjoy more freedom when they are allowed to graze in the fields.”
- Bartolome de las Casas
Consequences: Spanish “Black Legend”

13. Catholicism & Religious Organization

14. Tonantzin Mother Earth/Corn Mother Mount Tepeyec Mexican Catholicism
Syncretism of culture

15. Women in Colonial Mesoamerica
Patriarchal society
Marriage and family changes
Machismo
Spanish & Indigenous men
Teachers of culture
Laborers

16. Invasion and Occupation of Mesoamerica
Key terms: La Reconquista, Malinche, Tenochtitlan,
Cuahtemoc, Bartolome de las Casas, Mestizo, Tonantzin,
Virgin de Guadalupe, Machismo