PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
On a rainy day, 500 years ago, a small troop of Spanish soldiers conquered the city of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire, after two long months of siege. The city did not fall due to the superiority that Guns, Germs and Steel afforded the Europeans; Cortés owed his victory to the massive support the Spaniards enjoyed among native tribes, all of which had soldiers (and motives) in abundance to end Aztec rule.
Since the Cortés’ arrival to Veracruz had occurred two years prior, in 1519, it is safe to assume that by 1521 every faction had had a chance to size up the others. Trade-offs had been calculated, and alliances had been built accordingly. The outcome must have not been a surprise for the participants, Spanish or Indian. In the subsequent centuries, the floating city would become Mexico City, the capital of the blossoming Viceroyalty of New Spain.
The Viceroyalty of New Spain was added to the Hispanic Monarchy through the Crown of Castile, and as such became the King’s private property. It was governed as a massive private estate, with the Viceroy as deputy manager. This means it was emphatically not a colony based on indirect rule, as per the French and British custom.
The people living in American possessions were subjects to the Crown, and more or less as miserable as their European counterparts – who were often quite miserable themselves. After all, 16th century Europe could be quite unpleasant for the commoner. Madrid or Seville were dirty, violent places to live in, while the countryside was poor and overpopulated, and the coasts faced constant raids by Moorish pirates and Ottoman-sponsored slavers.
This article reminds me of an interesting question. The percentage of people with native ancestry (both in percentage and raw numbers) is much higher in former Spanish colonies than in English part of America and yet the history teaches us that the Spaniards were the most bloodthirsty conquerors between Genghis Khan (Timurlane? Never heard of him) and Adolf Hitler. However there were also centuries of focused anti-Spanish propaganda by England and Netherlands, which greatly influenced how the world sees the Spanish conquest of America, compared to how it sees English/American conquest of North America. Of course it should be noted that Spanish were quite uneven in their approach to various regions, given the nature of how these endeavors were undertaken.