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US History Lecture 5 — Transcript

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0:00Welcome to a new lecture. Today we're
0:02going to be chatting about the Spanish
0:04conquest of Mexico.
0:07So after spending a few years conquering
0:09just about everything that there is to
0:11conquer in the Caribbeans, the Spaniards
0:14moved on to the mainland. Specifically,
0:16the one spot that will really
0:20cement Spanish colonization in on the
0:23mainland of the Americas will be the
0:26conquest of Mexico. It will happen
0:28between 1519 and 1521
0:32when a soldier/adventurer
0:36kind of starts a mutiny. I don't want to
0:38give you too many details, so I'll try
0:40to keep the story simple. I've actually,
0:42in case you're interested in this tale,
0:44I've explored it in a series of
0:45podcasts. I think there's like eight
0:47hours worth of stuff over the conquest
0:49of Mexico that I recorded in the past in
0:52my podcast called History on Fire. But
0:55to keep to give you the quick version of
0:58this,
0:59what happens is a group of Spaniards
1:02arrive on the southern coast of Mexico
1:05in 1519.
1:07In Mexico at this time, there's one of
1:10the biggest native societies ever to
1:13develop in the Americas, the Meshika
1:16or more commonly known as the Aztecs.
1:20The Mishika Empire is a true empire. I
1:23mean this is not like villages or
1:26smallcale farmers. These guys have you
1:29know tenotitan their capital which is
1:33where today Mexico cities
1:35was one of the biggest cities in the
1:37world at the time. Over 200,000 people
1:40living there monumental architecture.
1:42These guys had pyramids. They had um
1:46very complicated uh neighborhood
1:49patterns. This was an amazing I mean all
1:51the Spaniards who saw it testify that it
1:53was one of the most beautiful cities
1:56that ever seen anywhere. Of course
1:58that's before they burned it down but
2:00the I don't want to get ahead of our
2:03story.
2:04In any case the Mishika were
2:07kind of a reminiscent of just about
2:09every largecale empire that you find
2:12around the world at this time.
2:15heavy into farming, heavy into military
2:18conquest.
2:20They
2:22much like just about any empire, extreme
2:24social stratification where they have
2:26royalties and they had slaves and
2:29everything in between.
2:32One peculiar
2:34aspect of Mesoamerican culture of which
2:37the Mashika were part was human
2:39sacrifice.
2:42Some of these guys believed that in
2:43order for the sun to rise each day, it
2:47needed to be fed with the vital essence
2:50of human beings. So they took something
2:54that was practiced in Mesame America,
2:56which was the sacrifice of blood to the
2:58gods to a whole new level by sacrificing
3:02many many many people among their
3:04enemies um to the gods. So needless to
3:08say, the combination of human sacrifice
3:12with conquering a whole bunch of other
3:16native nations didn't make them
3:18incredibly popular with these other
3:19native peoples. So when the Spaniard
3:22show up, they get really lucky for in a
3:27couple of different ways. For one, they
3:30ran into a Spaniard who went shipwrecked
3:33earlier on and was able to translate.
3:37This is a huge advantage because it will
3:39allow Cortez and this man to find out
3:41what life is like, what conditions are
3:43like in Mexico quickly.
3:47Uh, by the way, there's a side tail that
3:49I'm just going to go on a one minute
3:51tangent to tell you because it's just a
3:52cool story.
3:54The one guy that Cortez found was
3:57thrilled to be rescued by the Spaniards
4:00after eight years of living among the
4:02Maya in southern Mexico. But there was
4:05apparently another Spanish guy who had
4:07survived the same experience was just
4:10living in a village a little further.
4:12And so the first Spanish guy said, "You
4:14know, we should really go save my
4:16friend. I haven't seen him in a while,
4:18but I know he's still alive and he's
4:20just a few miles away."
4:22And by the time they show up to quote
4:24unquote rescue this other guy,
4:27this man was named Gonzalo Guerrero. And
4:30when they find him and they're like,
4:31"Brother Guerrero, come. We are here to
4:34rescue." They find him covered in tribal
4:37tattoos from head to toe. He's married
4:40to a Maya woman. He has three kids. And
4:42his approach is like, "Yeah, you know,
4:46thanks for showing up. It's fun to see
4:48you guys, but I'm pretty happier. So say
4:51hello to Spain for me because I'm more
4:53than happy to keep living here. And as
4:56it turns out in the years to come, he
4:58will actually lead the native resistance
5:00against Spanish invasion. So this is a
5:04rare case. You know, much of the history
5:06of Central America is a story of
5:10a new ethnicity essentially being
5:12created by the mixing of Spaniards with
5:14native people. But most of the is done
5:17by force. Most of this is done with
5:19Spanish conquerors taking over
5:23land, enslaving people and then having
5:25kids with enslaved Indian women. The
5:28Gonzalo Guerrero story is a actually a
5:30cool archetype for mystiso identity
5:34because it's a willing union between a
5:36Maya woman and the Spaniard. So in any
5:39case uh back to our main story,
5:43Cortez find out two things that he likes
5:47a whole lot. He finds out that the
5:51Mashik are very powerful and they
5:54already have set up this system to
5:57extract tribute from all the defeated
5:59people, which means there's a lot of
6:02wealth to be made here. If Cortez is
6:05able to knock out the Mashika, he can
6:07then put himself at the top of a power
6:09structure designed to extract wealth
6:12from defeated people.
6:14And the other thing that he finds out is
6:17that lots of different tribes hate the
6:20Mashika
6:21and are more than happy to look for a
6:24chance to overthrow them. So what
6:28Cortesh will do is create
6:30um an alliance. You know, in some
6:33history books you read, how was it
6:35possible for only like 1500 Spaniard to
6:38defeat this huge native empire?
6:42And the subtext of that question is
6:44usually to imply, you know, Europeans
6:46were clearly so superior to natives.
6:48That's really not so not what's going on
6:50at all. The Spaniards were able to
6:53defeat this empire thanks to two main
6:57things. One was diseases, which we've
6:59already discussed. You know the the
7:01Aztecs while they will be fighting the
7:03Spaniards will be dealing with massive
7:06die offs because of small pox. At one
7:09point half of the population of the
7:10noitan die in the matter of weeks
7:14because of small pox epidemic
7:17and the other thing will be Cortez is
7:20able to he has yeah his relatively few
7:23Spaniards with him but he's able to
7:25recruit hundreds of thousands of native
7:27people to his side.
7:29So the war for Mexico is really a war
7:32between natives against other natives
7:34with Spaniards at the head of one of the
7:36two groups which kind of changes the
7:39dynamics here a little bit.
7:42In any case, the war is an absolute
7:45mess. It's uh there are there's a moment
7:49where Cortez is facing a mutiny and he
7:52has to kind of take some pretty harsh
7:55measures to stop the mutiny among his
7:57own men.
7:59At one point the Spaniards lose so badly
8:02that it looks like most bunch of them
8:04got killed and it looks like everything
8:06may be lost but they are rescued by some
8:09of their native allies and then they are
8:11able to mount a comeback and finally by
8:141521 they conquer the Mishika. They take
8:18over Tanitan
8:20and they become the new bosses in town.
8:24Now this whole thing was not
8:29this whole thing I mean all the natives
8:31who joined with the Spaniards they
8:33thought they were making a good move and
8:36you could see why they did it because
8:38clearly living under the Mashika yoke
8:40was no fun but they end up paying an
8:43even heavier price because the native
8:45population of Mexico will almost
8:48disappear. They go from being somewhere
8:50in the neighborhood of 25 million to
8:52barely over 1 million. That's a 96%
8:55mortality rate
8:58and they find out that the Spaniards are
9:00not any kinder masters than the Mashika
9:03were. So turns out not to be a good deal
9:06for them.
9:09In the meantime, we have a repeat of the
9:11same story for Ders.
9:14A conquistador by the name of Pizarro
9:16lead an expedition into what's modern
9:19day Peru and conquers the next major
9:22native empire in the Americas which was
9:24the Inca Empire in the 1530s.
9:28Now those were the two big native
9:31societies. Okay, there are no more after
9:33this. There's nothing on the size of the
9:36Inca and the Mashika left. But the
9:39Spaniards don't know it. So they send
9:41expeditions all over the Americas,
9:43North, Central, South America to try to
9:46find what they hope to be the next big
9:48Indian empire.
9:50This is where the myth of Il Dorado
9:52comes in. This idea that there was this
9:54uh super wealthy native empire where
9:57even the streets were made of gold. Now
10:00none of these really exist. It only
10:02exists in the Spanish imagination.
10:05So in any case that's will this will
10:08mean that the Spaniards will go
10:10exploring everywhere but they are not
10:12going to find another big native empire.
10:16As part of these explorations they begin
10:19to explore North America that this auto
10:22expedition under this one particular
10:25conquistador took place between 1539
10:29and 1543.
10:31And
10:33it will be a colossal failure for
10:35everybody involved because the Spaniards
10:37land in Florida and they will make their
10:39way all the way to Texas. There's a map
10:42in the PowerPoint highlighting
10:45um the Sto's journey.
10:48And it's a bad deal for the Spaniards
10:50because a bunch of them will die either
10:52because of diseases or because of
10:53fighting with natives. The Sto himself
10:56will not make it out alive. And it's an
10:59even worse disease for natives since
11:01they will be exposed to Spanish diseases
11:03that will just demolish some of the
11:06societies in what's today southeastern
11:08United States. So the the south
11:11expedition is the first step to trying
11:13to kind of empty out these lands of
11:15native peoples.
11:18Having said that, let's continue a
11:20little bit more with Spanish
11:22colonization in North America.
11:25One thing I should mention is that I
11:27keep saying Spaniards implying like they
11:29are all the same. We have already seen
11:31from the Gonzalo Guerrero story that not
11:34everybody reacted the same way just
11:36because they have the same ethnicity.
11:37You know, one Spaniard was happy to go
11:39with Cortez. The other one sided with
11:42the Maya. Here to give you another
11:44example of this, there was a whole
11:47debate going on in the 1500s.
11:50adapted two different Spanish priests
11:53regarding what was the proper role of
11:56colonization.
11:58One of these priests by the name of
12:00Barto de Lascazas, he believed that
12:05Spanish colonization was too brutal. He
12:07wanted to convert natives to
12:09Christianity, but he thought that this
12:11should be done by example. and instead
12:13he argue how can we say that we are
12:15bringing them the light of the gospel
12:16when then we are raping them enslaving
12:19them doing horrible things to them. So
12:22he wanted the king of Spain to protect
12:25native rights while still carrying on
12:28colonization.
12:30another priest by the name of Juan
12:32Seulva. He he argued he basically said,
12:37"Just shut up, deascazas. You're a big
12:39whiner. Natives are savages. They
12:42understand no language other than
12:44violence. Just let us do our job and get
12:46out of the way."
12:49So, they are arguing for a kinder versus
12:51a harsher approach to colonization.
12:55The king of Spain decided he wasn't
12:57going to be bothered with any of these.
12:58Didn't really care. So by default this
13:01was a a win for Sepulva's position since
13:04he argued basically business as usual.
13:07Whereas endorsing the Las Kazas would
13:09have required a change of course.
13:12So that's again just to show you that
13:15even among the Spaniards not everybody
13:17was the same.
13:20The way the Spaniards ran colonization
13:23here, you know, each one of the European
13:25powers will be different in their
13:28interaction with natives. The Spanish
13:31approach was to enslave natives, make
13:34them part of their societies. In fact,
13:36you know, all of Latin America is
13:38essentially a mix of Spanish and native
13:40with, you know, just about everybody has
13:43uh both
13:45some Spanish ancestry and some native
13:48ancestry. But this was done in a
13:50hierarchical fashion as I mentioned
13:52earlier usually with Spanish men taking
13:55Indian women as mistresses whether they
13:57feel like it or not that's totally
13:59secondary since they rule over them and
14:01they have and they are essentially slave
14:04owners.
14:06Each Spanish man being handed over a
14:09piece of territory
14:11as well as the people who live on it as
14:13slaves to depending on the rank bigger
14:16or smaller but what was known as the
14:19encoma system which is basically you
14:21know you have a Spanish man in charge of
14:23this land that will be worked by natives
14:28having said that let's mention something
14:31else I did talk about the doto
14:35expedition
14:36in southeastern North America. The other
14:39area where the Spaniards will expand is
14:42the southwest of what's today United
14:44States.
14:46They started out in 1540 coming to
14:50places like modernday New Mexico, modern
14:52day Arizona and conquering some of the
14:55tribes there.
14:57The tribes there were the Spaniards will
14:59refer to them as the Pueblo.
15:02They were probably the descendants of
15:03the Anazi mentioned in an earlier
15:05lecture.
15:07And the Spaniards figure, okay, these
15:09guys are not that wealthy, but they are
15:12a large agricultural society. If we rule
15:14over them, we can uh
15:18it's still not a bad deal because they
15:19can support us through their work and we
15:22can take most of their farming products
15:23and also we can launch further
15:26expeditions into North America from this
15:30place rather than having to carry all
15:31our supplies from deep into Mexico.
15:35So they rule over the Pueblo for quite a
15:37while
15:39and they do so with an iron end. You
15:42know, for example, at in a town called
15:45Akoma Pueblo try to rebel in 1598 to
15:49gain their independence. And when the
15:50Spaniards are able to push down the
15:52rebellion, they grab every surviving
15:55male
15:57off among the rebels and chop off the
15:59right foot just to kind of give them the
16:02message, don't even think about
16:03rebelling against us again.
16:06One of the things that was intolerable
16:09to the natives was the fact that the
16:11Spaniards absolutely prohibited their
16:13religious practices.
16:15And this turns out to be a problem in
16:17the later 1600s because there will be
16:21widespread drought in the southwest at
16:23that time. And Pueblo religious
16:26practices were built on the notion of
16:29establishing relationships with spirits
16:32that bring rain. that you do the
16:35ceremony, you honor them, you do this
16:37and that, and then the spirits show up
16:39and they bring rain. Well, now they
16:42can't practice their ceremony, and
16:43there's drought. In their mind, this is
16:46not a coincidence at all. This is a
16:48logical consequence of not being able to
16:50carry out the ceremonies. And when they
16:52try to do so in secret, the Spaniard
16:55sometime catch them and then burn them
16:57in the public square. You know, really
17:00harsh stuff.
17:02So in 1680 the pueblo will organize the
17:06most successful native rebellion to take
17:09place in North America.
17:11They and they learn from previous
17:13experience that if one village rebelss
17:15is no good that they need to do so at
17:18the same time otherwise one village can
17:20be squashed. But if all of their
17:22villages throughout Arizona and New
17:25Mexico and parts of Colorado and parts
17:27of Utah, they all rebel at the same
17:29time, well then that's a different
17:31story. So they are able to do so in 1680
17:35in what become known as the Pueblo
17:37Revolt
17:39and they successfully kill a whole bunch
17:41of Spaniards, send the remainder
17:43packings south and flee into Mexico and
17:47for the next 12 years they will be able
17:49to remain independent.
17:52what eventually the Spaniards will make
17:54a comeback.
17:55However, the
17:59they will do so in a very different way
18:02and this is some in some way the legacy
18:04of the Pueblo revolt and how successful
18:06it was. They will on one end when the
18:11Spaniards manage to conquer again they
18:13will do so with the understanding that
18:14the Pueblo will fight to the death if
18:16you try to squash their culture. So the
18:19Spaniards will change their attitude and
18:21take a more hands-off approach that just
18:24show up to church on Sunday,
18:27pretend they are a good Catholic and
18:29what you do behind closed doors. We
18:30won't look into it too closely. So
18:33thanks to this, the PBLO will be able to
18:35retain their culture to this day. And
18:38the other huge legacy of the PBLO
18:41revolt, probably even more important, is
18:42the fact that for the first time ever,
18:45thousands of Spanish horses had fallen
18:49into the hands of native peoples.
18:52This means that by the time the Spaniard
18:54come back 12 years later, so many horses
18:56has been have been traded to other
18:58tribes.
19:00And this will start a revolution in
19:03American Indian lifestyles.
19:05You know, if from Hollywood movies
19:07you're familiar with the image of native
19:09people on horseback chasing buffalo,
19:11well, that's only possible after the
19:13Quueblo revolt when mass numbers of
19:16horses will be spread to the tribes and
19:20many of them will radically change their
19:22lifestyle and become nomadic buffalo
19:25hunters as a result of acquiring the
19:27horse. So this is a key key moment in
19:30the history of North America and it's
19:33definitely a key moment for the pueblo.
19:35I mean there's a painting up there in
19:37the powerpoints that I put up there.
19:40It's kind of a weird story. What
19:41happened there was in 1976 for the 200
19:45year anniversary of the declaration of
19:47independence
19:49a bunch of art galleries in places like
19:52New Mexico where or Santa Fe and so on.
19:55They were commissioning their favorite
19:58artist some work on the theme of
20:00independence
20:02and they asked this one painter Fred
20:04Capot
20:06to to do something on the topic and they
20:09were thinking 1776 independence you know
20:12US American revolution that kind of
20:15stuff but
20:17the painter they asked was a pueblo man
20:19and so to him independence is 1680
20:22pueblo revolt so his image of freedom
20:25and independence that he turns in his
20:28natives dismantling the church at a
20:31pueblo and hanging a priest on the side
20:35cuz to him that's the symbol of uh
20:38freeing themsel from Spanish domination
20:41which I'm sure is not exactly what the
20:42art galleries were expecting but in any
20:45case
20:47so that's
20:49that's mainly as far as the the Spanish
20:52art will expand in North America
20:55they are not going to be that interested
20:57in pushing further because they have all
21:00the land they want. They don't need any
21:01more land. They want a quick an empire
21:06that they can quickly conquer and make a
21:08whole lot of money. And the fact is in
21:10North America there aren't any. So the
21:13Spaniards will go run around, explore,
21:15but they will not find what they want.
21:18So they will really not care to go too
21:20deep into North America.
21:23At their big Indian empire like the
21:26Aztecs or the Incas, the Spaniards would
21:29have probably conquered it and all of
21:32the Americas including US and Canada
21:34would be Latin America. They wouldn't
21:36have been a British colonization because
21:38the Spaniards would have already been
21:39too entrenched to dislodge.
21:42So in a weird twist of history, the fact
21:44that there is no big Indian empire is
21:47what will make it possible for the
21:49United States and Canada to exist as
21:52English speaking for the US and the
21:54English and French speakaking countries
21:56for Canada. That would have not happened
21:58at their big big native empires over
22:01here.
22:02So with this in mind and wrapping up a
22:05little bit this section on the Spanish
22:07colonization in the Americas, we'll wrap
22:09for this lecture and we'll jump in into
22:12the next one when the British and the
22:15French and the Dutch will start showing
22:17up colonizing parts of North America.

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