Understanding the economic and political motives of Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is fundamental to understanding its conquest of the Americas. The Spanish motive is a primary concern for historians of Latin America, because the question of god or gold has been increasingly instrumental in debates as to why the Spanish had such a consuming interest in the continent. In the early centuries that succeeded the conquests, historians mainly subscribed to the viewpoint that the Spanish efforts were spiritually focused, and simply wished to spread Catholicism globally; this was due to the most prominent accounts being written by conquistadors like Hernan Cortés who wished to portray a positive future legacy for themselves. However, this notion of a religious mission has been thoroughly confuted with the recent work by historians such as Hugh Thomas and Miguel Leon-Portilla, who have established that the economic lure of gold may have been Spain’s primary motive. Thus, the aim of this essay is to highlight the paradoxes within the traditional Spanish narrative of the conquests, and contest the claim that the motive of evangelisation best accounts for Spain’s mission. This will be achieved by focussing on three factors: Christopher Columbus’ reports from the New World which lured the Spanish economically, the personal motivations of conquistadors like Hernan Cortés to show their desire to climb the post-Reconquista hierarchy, and finally the Aztec viewpoint of Spanish behaviour, to argue that the Spanish obsession with gold greatly exceeded their focus on the evangelisation mission, and that this desire to spread Catholicism was merely an afterthought used to justify the economic exploitation of a continent.
On August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus departed the Spanish mainland after a lengthy courting of the King and Queen of Spain to finance his pioneering voyage to the New World. This journey was the inception of systematic Spanish exploitation of the Americas, for it led to Columbus sending reports back to Spain detailing the gold that the Crown could attain from the native populations. Columbus’ voyages ‘had opened up a new outlet for Spanish interest and activity’, and ‘all were justified as expeditions that extended the sovereignty of the Spanish crown and the truth of the Roman Catholic faith.’ Historians Symcox and Sullivan maintain that ‘what had been conceived as a commercial enterprise was radically reconfigured: the religious impulse behind it, hitherto latent, was now brought to the fore…’ This encapsulates the fact that the religious motive was merely a means of justifying the exploitation of the natives, and shows that the Spanish motive was purely economic, due to its desire for gold. It also strengthens the notion that reasoning of evangelisation was an afterthought for the Spaniards. In Columbus’ first letter, he states that ‘…their conversion to Christ; for which, indeed, so far as I could understand, they are very ready and prone.’ However, his golden lust is far more salient than the religious mission, declaring ‘…there are many wide rivers of which the majority contain gold…there are many spices, and great mines of gold and other metals…’ Columbus’ motivation for gold was consistently reinforced throughout the outset of his expedition, as there were visible pieces of gold in rivers, and he was presented a golden mask by a local Indian chief; without the enticement of these small pieces, Columbus may have simply returned back to Spain, therefore his saintly motivation was simply secondary to his focus on gold.
When the Italian established a settlement at La Isabela on the north coast of Hispaniola, he chose the location because it was where gold had originally been discovered, and he spent time exploring the island’s interior for it. Columbus established a system of exploitation, in which all Cicaoan indigenous residents above the age of fourteen were required to give a quota of gold every three months, and anyone found not complying would have their hands cut off and die of blood loss. Historian Hugh Thomas advocates that ‘had no gold at all been produced, or had no ornaments been made from it, the Spanish interest in the Indies would have evaporated.’ Similarly, Columbus’ great friend Michele Cuneo wrote ‘the pursuit of gold was what had really inspired the journey which Columbus had embarked upon.’ Although the spread of Catholicism does ostensibly appear to be a motivation for the Spanish, there remains far greater discourse about Gold than for God. Historians’ views of Columbus have dramatically changed over time, and its only in the later twentieth century where his great reputation has started to be criticised. Washington Irving’s 1828 hagiography of Columbus created a hyperbolic and heroic saintly aura which surrounded the Italian, but by 1980, Historians like Howard Zinn had significantly changed the public perception of him which began to reveal his true lust for gold. Columbus’ reports ultimately enticed the Spaniards to finance further missions to the Americas in the search for gold, and fuelled the motivations of future conquistadors like Hernan Cortés, who would later arrive on Mesoamerican shores with the burning desire to exploit the Nahuatl’s golden riches.
Thus, the personal motivations of the Spanish conquistadors, such as Hernan Cortés, are also key to understanding why it was gold and not god that motivated the Spaniards. With Cortés, his position on the lower rungs of the post-Reconquista Spanish society indicates why he wanted to use the Americas’ treasures to climb the hierarchy, and his burning desire for gold led to his role in the conquests – not his wish to spread Catholicism. Elliott argues that at the time, Cortés ‘longs for the wealth that will enable him to crash the barriers of the social hierarchy, and bask in the pleasures enjoyed by the titled and the rich…’ and Cortés himself stated that ‘I shall hammer in the nail when I see that there is nothing more to possess’. Historian Howard Zinn maintains that Cortés came to the New World with “one obsessive goal: to find gold”, and the infamous conquistador also told the Aztec populations that ‘I and my companions suffer from a disease of the heart which can be cured only with gold.’ This shows Cortés and his compatriots to be incredibly greedy, with an ambition only fulfilled with the acquisition of vast amounts of gold. Cortés’ discussion about the evangelical mission is in no way matched by his hunger for gold, and the historian Fernández de Oviedo stated that of the conquistadors whom he had known, ‘They are the sort of men who have no intention of converting the Indians…they come only to get some gold or wealth…’ Therefore, the conquistadors didn’t simply arrive in the New World to purify the native populations; their objective was to attain gold, which could be used to ‘finance the monarchical bureaucracies rising in Western Europe’, ‘spur the growth of the new money economy rising out of feudalism’ and increase their own personal wealth and status back in Europe.
However, it was not just Cortés’ accounts which depicted the true motivations of the Spaniards; Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún stated that the Spaniards “…were looking for gold; they cared nothing for green-stone, precious feathers, or turquoise” and Bernal Díaz expressed that in discussions with the natives, ‘Cortés also asked them where they procured their gold and jewels…’ These sources, from key figures who were integral in the conquest, portray Cortés and his Spanish compatriots to be greedy and with an unbridled ambition for riches. Cortés epitomises the typical motivation of the conquistador; a young man, feeling frustrated by the lack of action in his small Spanish town, hears tales of potential riches and mysterious unexplored lands, and subsequently decides to leave Spain for the New World in search of fame and fortune. For men like Cortés, social advancement through the possession of gold was far more important than the evangelical mission expounded by the Spanish crown, and ultimately shows that the motive of gold was far more important for the conquistadors’ actions than of god. The example of Cortés also highlights how historians’ depictions of the Spaniards has progressively altered; early historians of the conquest portrayed Cortés as a devoted Christian who simply wanted the people of Mesoamerica to feel the wonder of Christianity, but increasingly over time Cortés has become the embodiment of Spanish cruelty and economic exploitation within the Americas.
Within the last few decades, scholarly attention has focused on the perspective of the Aztecs within the conquest, as their accounts are integral to understanding the motivations of the Spanish. This viewpoint is important as it explains what truly motivated the Spaniards, and the Aztec’s accounts of greed and lust for gold clearly shows that it was financial gain. A prominent Aztec account states that ‘The Spaniards burst into smiles…they hungered like pigs for that gold…’ whilst another says that ‘when…given these presents…their eyes shone with pleasure; they were delighted…They picked up the gold and fingered it like monkeys…they longed and lusted for gold. Their bodies swelled with greed, and their hunger was ravenous…’ These Aztec accounts of Spanish greed contrast heavily with the narrative expounded by Bernal Díaz in The True History of the Conquest of New Spain; in his book, he states that ‘through the holy sermons preached, the Holy Gospel is firmly planted in their hearts, and they go to Confession every year…’ The native accounts thoroughly discredits Díaz ’s pious narrative, as they detail the plain obsessions that the conquistadors had with the pursuit of gold.
The works of the Aztecs also highlight the contradictions between the apparent ethos and the reality of the conquests; the Spanish prided themselves on being supposedly superior to the natives in every manner, mentally or physically. Fundamentally, the Spaniards arrived with a sense of social superiority due to the sophistication of things such as the encomienda labour system. However, it is evident within the Aztec accounts that the Spanish were just as animalistic when it came to gold as the supposed ‘savages’ that they came to civilise. These Spanish paradoxes were thoroughly argued between Dominican Friar Bartolome de las Casas, and humanist scholar Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda in the Valladolid debate of 1550-1551. This was a moral debate about the colonisation of the Americas and its justification for the conversion to Catholicism, with las Casas arguing that the natives were freemen who deserved the same considerations as the Spanish. Although both sides claimed victory, las Casas’ arguments led to the passing of the New Laws of 1542, which further limited the encomienda system. This showed that even as early as 1542, the Spanish Crown had already become aware at how exploitative the encomenderos had been towards the indigenous population and needed to take measures to restrict their power, and therefore thoroughly discredits how purely religious the Spanish conquest of the Americas was.
Thus, the discourse surrounding the primary motivation of the Spanish remains a debatable question amongst historians of Latin America. However, when Columbus’ exploits on arrival in the New World are investigated, it becomes apparent that even though he may have been sent by the Spanish Crown with principally religious intentions, the reality of the conquest was in fact much different. The young Spanish men involved in this journey of discovery primarily sought a single goal: the riches that would allow them to return home to Spain and climb the post-Reconquista social hierarchy with their new-found glory. This notion is encapsulated in the prime example of the infamous conquistador Hernan Cortés, whose sole aim was to acquire enough wealth through exploitation, and which could be justified through the rationale of a religious conversion. Furthermore, when the Aztec accounts of the conquest are juxtaposed with those of the Spanish, it becomes apparent that the Spaniards’ pious narrative of conversion is simply false, and was simply used to justify economic oppression. Therefore, it is evident that the Spanish notion and narrative of spreading Catholicism was simply an afterthought, and that their primary motivation within the conquest was unequivocally gold and not god.