Читать книгу The History of Texas - Robert A. Calvert - Страница 24

Following Columbus’s grand find, Spain proceeded swiftly to transform the “New World,” as the Europeans had dubbed it, into colonies that would provide the Spaniards with the elusive riches they had hoped to reap by finding a shortcut to the Orient. Now a new wave of conquistadores, who in many ways resembled those who had reclaimed the peninsula from the Muslims–having ousted the last of the Moors from Granada in 1492–took the initiative for the acquisition and subordination of new dominions. Characteristics of the traditional conquistador–courage and tenacity, but also callousness, a propensity toward violence, religious zeal, and a desire for gold and glory–typified those who led the conquest of the New World.

Columbus himself played a major part in the takeover of the Caribbean Islands, but the exploration, and exploitation, of the New World proved too vast for one man’s energies. Numerous explorers thus left what had been labeled the “West Indies” for fresh explorations; among them was Vasco Núñez de Balboa. Balboa ultimately crossed the Central American Isthmus, and in 1513, he claimed the Pacific Ocean on behalf of the king of Spain. In the same year, Juan Ponce de León reached Florida, bringing the North American peninsula into the Spanish sphere, though the Spaniards did not succeed in settling the region until the 1560s. The expedition to establish control over modern‐day Mexico was spearheaded by several intriguing war campaigns led by Hernán Cortés, who by 1521 had conquered and plundered Montezuma’s Aztec empire, paving the way for the ruthless domination of the rest of Mexico. In Peru, conquest of the Incas fell to an unlettered conquistador named Francisco Pizarro, who arrived there in 1532, eventually executed the emperor, and despoiled buildings and shrines of their treasures throughout Inca settlements. Blood, rapine, and plunder marked the Spaniards’ path through Peru, as it had their swath through Mexico.