Civilization #44: The Spanish Conquest of the New World

The European conquest of the New World, meaning North and South America, was led by people called the conquistadors, which is Spanish for "conquerors." These were mercenaries, bandits, and lower-class people who had to leave Spain and Portugal to look for new opportunities in South and Central America.

The Global Context of Conquest

To understand this period, we must remember the Islamic Golden Age. The Islamic Empire connected the world in globalized trade, with networks running from Central Asia to China, into Europe, and even into parts of Africa. They created a maritime Silk Road for Chinese porcelain and also had an overland Silk Road. At this point in history, Spain, then called Al-Andalus, was part of the Islamic world and heavily integrated into it, becoming very wealthy and cosmopolitan.

This globalized trade became much more concentrated and rapid during the Mongolian conquest. Because of the Mongolian Empire and the Pax Mongolica, a lot of knowledge and trade was transferred from the East to the West, including paper (first invented in China) and gunpowder. The gunpowder revolution marks a radical change in how the world works.

Historically, we have considered the Vikings to be the first to explore the New World. They made it all the way to present-day Newfoundland and founded a colony called Vinland, but the colony didn't last long. That was the first encounter between Europeans and the native people of North America.

However, the world has always been interconnected in some capacity; it has always been globalized. We can assume that even before the Vikings, there were some encounters between the Old World and the New World. It could have been the Egyptians, the Harappans of the Indus Valley civilization, or the Chinese. Just because we don't have written records or archaeological evidence does not mean there was no contact. We have to assume there was some limited contact between these worlds.

It was only in the 16th century that the Old and New Worlds began to collide violently. The reason is that Spain was eventually reconquered by Europeans and became Christian, and because of that, Spain lost its trade routes in the Islamic world. Also at this time, the Ottoman Empire was rising in power. In 1453, they conquered Constantinople, which was the seat of the Eastern Roman Empire. Now, for Europeans to trade with India, China, and the rest of East Asia, they had to pay a heavy tax to the Ottomans and the Italians. They didn't want to do that.

Their response was to discover their own routes to East Asia. They hired many experienced Italian seamen. Christopher Columbus, from Genoa, was an Italian hired to discover a route to China, and he ended up discovering North America. All the major powers—France, England, Portugal, and Spain—were engaging in maritime exploration.

Starting in the 16th century, the Spanish began to conquer Central and South America, and they did so in less than 30 years. It was a very quick conquest. The Portuguese were the first to establish a maritime empire. The fear was that Portugal and Spain would come into conflict, so the Pope divided the world in two. The Portuguese got Africa, India, China, and the East Indies, while the Spanish got the New World. The Spanish obviously got the better end of this deal.

The Spanish got all of present-day Mexico, Central America, and most of South America. There was a lot of gold and silver in these regions, and as a result, Spain became very wealthy. Eventually, the British and the French got involved. But because South and Central America were already taken, they ended up in North America, which was cold, poor, and inhabited by many aggressive and violent natives. In the long run, this would prove to be more beneficial for the British, but at the time, the Spanish had accumulated all the wealth in the New World.

The Columbian Exchange: A Two-Way Street

Because the Old World and the New World collided, this marked a revolution in European agriculture. Europeans could now import extremely nutritious and easy-to-produce vegetables.

Corn was invented by the native people of Central America. Corn is not naturally produced; you have to scientifically invent it by crossbreeding different crops. It's a very long process, and corn allowed for the Mayan civilization to flourish. Corn is an extremely important nutrient that's easy to produce, cheap, and very nutritious. So is the potato, which over time would become the staple food of Europeans. So are peanuts, squash, and the tomato. All these foods that we take for granted were first domesticated in the New World and then transported to the Old World.

Because of these very nutritious foods, which are far more nutritious than wheat, you have a population explosion in Europe. The potato and corn led to a population explosion in Europe.

And what did the natives get? They got a lot of diseases. They got measles and smallpox.

The Standard Explanation for the Conquest

How did a few thousand conquistadors conquer millions of indigenous people?

How were a few thousand Spanish mercenaries able to conquer millions of indigenous people in South America? There were three main civilizations at this time: the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas. The Spanish were able to conquer all three in less than 30 years. How?

The standard explanation is threefold. When you talk to scholars, there are three explanations for how this happened. It was a perfect storm of three factors:

1. Disease: The native people were not in contact with Europeans, so the Europeans brought diseases that the native people had no immunity against. The four major ones are smallpox, measles, typhus, and cholera. This wiped out about 80% of the population in North and South America. It was basically a genocide.
2. Internal Conflicts: There were internal conflicts and tribal warfare among the native people, and the Europeans exploited this. They used a divide and conquer strategy. You first unite with a tribe that hated the Aztecs, you conquer the Aztecs together, and then you enslave the other tribes.
3. Superior Technology: The Europeans had superior weapons and technology. They had armor, cannons, and horses. The natives didn't have access to any of this.

That's the three-fold explanation. But if you asked the Spanish at that time how they did it, they would say it was because God willed it; it was a divine mission. Second, they would say they were so powerful that the natives bowed before them and saw them as gods. Because this is clearly a very racist attitude—"We're superior, we're white, we're here to civilize you"—scholars have rejected this explanation.

However, I want to argue today that the original Spanish argument actually has much more evidence and makes much more logical and coherent sense than the current scholarly interpretation.

My Thesis: The religious beliefs and practices of the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans made them vulnerable to Spanish conquest. The ultimate weakness of these people was their religion.

You're not allowed to say this today in a university because it's politically incorrect, but I want to make that argument because I think this is what makes the most academic, logical, and coherent sense.

The Rise and Fall of the Mayans

Civilizations arise because of three factors, with geography being the main one. You want to be in a temperate climate, you need rivers, and you need natural boundaries like mountains to protect yourself from invaders. That's why the five earliest civilizations are all in a similar latitude.

They are China, the Indus Valley civilization (the Harappans), Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Mayan civilization. What's amazing is that when you analyze all five, you discover a lot of similarities and common characteristics.

The Mayan civilization was an astounding civilization. They had millions of people spread all across Central America. They had science, astronomy, mathematics, and a written language. They built pyramids and temples to worship their gods. They had the Mayan calendar, an astonishing achievement because they used 365 days. The Egyptians were the first to use a solar calendar, but the Mayans independently created their own. It's a very sophisticated, nuanced, and extremely scientific instrument they used for agriculture.

The most astonishing achievement of the Mayans was agriculture, which is no different from science. They were the first to invent corn. It's important to remember that corn is not produced naturally; the Mayans invented it. This allowed them to feed a large population with very limited agriculture. Not only that, but they figured out the most efficient way to use farmland, called the three sisters planting. They would grow corn, beans, and squash together in a symbiotic relationship.

• The corn provides the structure for the beans to climb to reach sunlight.
• The beans fertilize the corn and squash by releasing nitrogen into the soil.
• The squash prevents weeds and insects from invading the ecosystem.

It's a perfect symbiotic relationship that we still use today. Because of this breakthrough, the Mayans were able to build a civilization of millions.

The Decline of Civilizations

All civilizations rise and fall; it's a natural cycle. The same process happened with the Mayans. Because of their breakthroughs in agriculture, they reached a population peak around the year 780 AD, but after that, there was a huge decline. Scientists have looked at the reasons for this decline and discovered ecological collapse. The huge increase in population led to deforestation and soil erosion. Basically, they were no longer able to grow food, and that's why their civilization collapsed.

But is this correlation or causation? Scholars will tell you this is causation. Because they had an overpopulation, they were using too much land, which led to deforestation and soil erosion. But some other scholars argue it is correlation, because the Mayans were famous for their ecological management; they were masters at managing their environment.

So then, what's the causation? If we look at all civilizations, there are three factors that lead to decline. If a civilization is prosperous, stable, and peaceful, three things always happen:

1. Elite Overproduction: This is Peter Turchin's argument. Over time, you have too many nobles and elites who compete for status.
2. "Rat Utopia": Old people live too long, and as such, young people are not able to inherit status. This leads to a malfunctioning society because young people feel they have no opportunities. We see the same thing happening today with "quiet quitting" in America and "lying flat" in China.
3. Financialization and Debt Slavery: In a prosperous society, it's hard to get people to work because they don't really want material goods. All they want is enough food to feed their family. If you pay them more, they actually work less. The only way to get them to work more is to get them into debt—to enslave them. That's what every civilization has done since the dawn of time: debt slavery.

All three things are correlated, symbiotic, and spell the end of civilization. This is true for Rome, the Mayans, and China throughout its history.

As the Mayan civilization collapsed, people diffused all over Central and South America, bringing with them the Mayan culture, which was the dominant culture of that time. Over time, different tribes fought to inherit the Mayan legacy. The nation that eventually won out in Central America was the Aztecs.

The Aztec Empire: A Society Built on War

The Aztecs are very similar to the Romans. The main similarity is that both were societies based on war. All they wanted to do was fight. The Aztecs were originally from the southern United States. Because of climate change, they had to migrate to Central America for food. The problem was that Central America was already overpopulated. They started to hire themselves out as mercenaries to other tribes and eventually came into conflict with them, becoming isolated in a place called Tenochtitlan.

This was basically swampland, very hard to grow food in. Today, Tenochtitlan is Mexico City. Back then, it was all swampland. Something miraculous happened: the Aztecs adapted. They turned swampland into farmland, which allowed their population to increase and prosper. Swampland is bad for crops, but it's good because it's defensible. They were able to very quickly expand their population.

So what did they do? They started to conquer other territories. This was a heavily militarized society focused on war. Their religion was to defeat enemies and then sacrifice them to their god, who maintained his vitality through blood sacrifice. The Aztecs were known for the most grotesque forms of human sacrifice. They would sacrifice thousands of people at once. They would also sacrifice you while you were alive, cutting out your heart. The entire point was terror—to terrorize your enemies and unite your people.

It's important to remember that all war societies, including the Romans, the Vikings, and the Aztecs, practice a form of human sacrifice. The Romans practiced it at the end of every major military campaign in a parade called a triumph. They would parade war captives across Rome to the Temple of Jupiter, where they would be strangled to death. That's human sacrifice. But the Romans would say, "No, we don't do human sacrifice because we're more civilized," and they never explained why strangulation was not human sacrifice.

Over time, because the Aztecs were such a violent, aggressive people, they, like the Romans, were able to take over the entire territory of Central America. They did so with allies as part of the Triple Alliance. The Aztec civilization was, like the Romans, extremely advanced. They had a hierarchy, priests, and universal schooling, so every child could learn to read and write. They had a system of courts, judges, a strict legal code, and a vibrant economy. Their city, Tenochtitlan, grew very large. When the Spanish first came, they were amazed by its extreme wealth, size, and prosperity. It made them salivate.

Eventually, the Aztecs were conquered by one man with a few hundred soldiers: Hernán Cortés. He was an adventurer, a soldier of fortune, who did not have permission from Spain to conquer the Aztecs. He just did it because he wanted to.

When he first arrived, the Aztecs treated him very well. He was a novelty. He had weapons, but there were only a few hundred of them, whereas the Aztecs had millions of soldiers. Their king at this time, Moctezuma, welcomed him with open arms. Moctezuma probably wanted to co-opt him, seeing Cortés as an opportunity to use against his enemies, both external and internal. Cortés just wanted gold.

But there was a misunderstanding between two very different civilizations. During a religious ceremony, Cortés's men saw the Aztecs gearing up and perceived it as a threat. They started to massacre the Aztec soldiers. We don't know exactly what happened because the Spanish destroyed all the written records of the Aztecs. What probably happened is that the Spanish captured Moctezuma and held him captive for ransom. They couldn't get the ransom, so they killed him. Shortly after, they were expelled from the city, but then the disease of smallpox hit the population. They all fell sick, which gave the Spanish time to recuperate and eventually conquer the city with their native allies.

The Incan Empire: Divine Rulers and Endless Expansion

The Incas also had a huge empire throughout South America, in the Andes mountains of modern-day Peru. They were in the highlands and also had a very advanced civilization.

One thing that made the Incas different from the Aztecs is they practiced an extreme form of ancestor worship. The emperor is divine, which means he's immortal. So even though the emperor dies, he's mummified and is therefore still alive. If he's still alive, he keeps all his lands and wealth. The new emperor who comes into power now has to conquer new lands to establish his own divinity. The Incas were eternally expansionist; they had no choice.

If you think about it, this is a good strategy to reduce internal conflict because it reduces the problem of elite overproduction. The old emperor's family and loyal soldiers keep their land, and the new emperor has to go conquer new territory. This resolves the issue of elite overproduction, but it also makes your society extremely unstable because it's too spread out and has too many enemies.

When the Incas conquered other people, their gods were incorporated into a pantheon of gods. Like the Romans, the Incas were extremely tolerant. You could worship any god you wanted as long as you acknowledged the supremacy of their god. The Incas also had a very advanced bureaucratic system with a census, tribute and tax collection, a legal code, and a court system. What's interesting is they didn't have a writing system, but they had beads (quipu) with numerals, which allowed them to create a knowledge system—basically a very primitive computer or calculator.

The Incas were conquered by another conquistador named Francisco Pizarro. The emperor he defeated was Atahualpa. Atahualpa had just fought a civil war and was now the divine emperor. The legend is that Pizarro fought a battle with Atahualpa, who had 40,000 soldiers, while Pizarro had 200. Pizarro won and captured Atahualpa as a hostage. This story is probably not true. What probably happened was that the emperor greeted the Spanish with open arms to negotiate, and the Spanish captured him. In this society, the emperor is divine and untouchable. It was beyond his imagination that the Spanish would capture him.

Pizarro said to the emperor, "We'll let you go if you can fill this room with gold." The emperor issued a command, and a few days later, the entire room was filled with gold. What did the Spanish do? They killed him. That's why you should not pay ransoms to pirates. Pizarro himself was astonished that there was so much gold. He likely thought, "If I can just ask for gold and they'll give it to me, why don't I just take this entire territory?" And that's what he did.

The Religious Worldview of the Americas

How was it possible that the Aztecs and Incas were defeated by just a few hundred conquistadors so quickly? To understand this, we need to look at the religious practice and belief system of the Mayans, which then influenced the Aztecs and the Incas.

In these societies, religion was spread through oral tradition from priests to people. Fortunately, around the year 1700, a Dominican priest, Francisco Ximénez, made it his mission to write down this oral tradition. This book is called the Popol Vuh, translated as "The Book of the Community." It's a literary form of the oral religious tradition of the Mayan people. We're going to look at a few passages to figure out their underlying belief system.

The Heroic Twins and the Nature of Sacrifice

This is the story of the Heroic Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, whom the Mayans worshiped as the saviors of humanity. The twins' fathers were captured and killed by demons in the underworld, Xibalba. This is very similar to the Egyptian myth of Osiris. The brothers want vengeance, so they befriend the demons and make themselves immortal—when they die, they come back to life. They play a trick on the demons, saying, "Hey, look at us. We can play this game where we kill ourselves, cut out our hearts, and come back alive." The demons want to play this game as well and end up killing themselves.

"Sacrifice him in the same way!" said One and Seven Death to Hunahpu and Xbalanque."Very well. Surely you will be revived. Are you not death? For we are here to gladden you, O lords, along with your vassals and your servants," they said then to the lords.The first one they sacrificed was the very head of all the lords, One Death by name, the lord of Xibalba. When he was dead, this One Death, next they grabbed Seven Death. But they did not revive them.Thus the Xibalbans took to their heels when they saw that their lords had died. Their hearts were now taken from their chests.

"Their hearts were now taken from their chests" is very important because this is how the Aztecs practiced their sacrifice. With their rituals, they were trying to bring this mythology to life, which is what the Vikings did as well.

The Creation of Humanity

The Mayans believed the gods made different attempts to create humanity. The first attempt was making them out of mud, but they fell apart. Then they tried wood, which didn't work either. Finally, they tried corn maize, and that worked. That's why the Mayans considered themselves the "children of the corn" and worshiped it as something divine.

The gods created man to serve them—to be their slaves.

Then the Framer and the Shaper asked them, "What is the nature of your existence? Do you know it? Do you not look and listen? Are not your speech and your walk good? Behold now, therefore, and see that which is beneath the sky. Are not the mountains clear? Do you not see the valleys? Try, then," they were told.Thus their vision of everything beneath the sky was completed. Then they gave thanks to the Framer and the Shaper."Truly we thank you doubly, triply that we were created, that we were given our mouths and our faces. We are able to speak and to listen. We are able to ponder and to move about. We know much, for we have learned that which is far and near. We have seen the great and the small, all that exists in the sky and on the earth. We thank you, therefore, that we were created, that we were given frame and shape. We became because of you, our grandmother, and you, our grandfather," they said when they gave thanks for their frame and shape.Their knowledge of everything that they saw was complete.

We humans are paying our thanks to the gods. But this did not sound good to the Framer and the Shaper.

"It is not good what they have said, they that we have framed and shaped," they said. "We have learned everything, great and small."

The gods don't want our gratitude; they want our subservience and obedience. This becomes the basis of these religions, where we have to believe the gods created us to serve them. We are slaves to the gods. This is very similar to the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth where the god Marduk creates humans so that gods wouldn't have to work anymore. It is also similar to the Catholic Church, which believes we are slaves to God because God freed us from the devil.

The Unquestionable Power of the Gods

Tohil is the Mayan fire god. They believed Tohil demanded that they sacrifice their enemies to him so that the blood would rejuvenate him. He is a god of fire and sacrifice and is always hungry. The Mayans believed they always had to go to war to capture slaves to be sacrificed.

There's a lot of mythology around this god who always demanded human sacrifice. The humans decided to rebel against him. They tried many tricks, but they all failed because he was smarter. Eventually, the humans decided to get together and fight him, but they all got killed.

Thus only a portion of them were able to return. Those who rebelled, only a few were left alive. Only a few people from the nations were able to escape from Tohil. At first they tried to flee. When they were caught, they were finished off. They were killed. It was not just a few of the people who died. And of those that did not die, the insects came upon them and tormented their hearts. They were no longer able to wage war. The gods had destroyed their capacity to ever challenge them, to ever rebel. They did not take up their arrows or their shields again.Thus all the nations were humiliated and begged humbly before the faces of Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Acab, and Mahucutah. "Pity! Do not kill us!" they said."Very well, then. Certainly you shall become obedient. You shall be servants as long as there are sun and light," they were told.

We can never challenge the gods because when we tried, we were all killed. The gods showed mercy, so from now on, we must obey them. But how do you obey the gods? What do they require? We obey the gods through their priests, who understand them.

They knew if there would be war. Why? Because the gods told them. They could see the future. They talked with the gods. It was clear before their faces. They saw if there would be death, if there would be hunger. They surely knew if there would be strife. There is an instrument of sight. There was a book. Popol Vuh was their name for it.

Everything written down here is sacred because it was written by those who speak directly with the gods. All these words are the direct words from the gods themselves.

But it was not only because of this that they were lords. They were great in their essence. Great as well were their fasts. In order to venerate their temples and venerate their sovereignty, they fasted for long periods of time and sacrificed before the faces of their gods.

Not only do the gods favor them, but they themselves made many sacrifices to win the favor of the gods. They are worthy. Therefore, we must submit ourselves before them. That's how we worship the gods.

The logic is very clear. The Mayans created a civilization that was extremely religious and hierarchical. Millions of people must worship their priest-king because the priest-king is a direct representative of God. But when you do that, you create the condition for the Spanish to come, kill that priest-king, and become the new priest-king. That's what happened. The Mayans created this religion to enslave everyone around them, and that provided the perfect opportunity for the Spanish to come and take over that role. In history, you may have learned that the Spanish were extremely cruel to the natives—but not more so than their previous overlords.

Game Theory and the Ultimate Taboo

The idea of game theory is that all human interaction is playing a game. We may forget we're playing a game, but we're still playing one. If you want to understand how people behave, you first have to figure out how the game works.

The Sumerians were one of the earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia. They developed different city-states along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and all these city-states had their own city god. Over time, these cities came into conflict over trade and land. This became a competition, a game. The first rule of this game was: we do not attack each other's cities. Why? Because the city is a physical manifestation of God on earth. You can kill the enemy's army on the field, but you don't attack the city, which was also protected by walls.

This game established an equilibrium. They fought all the time, but no one could conquer the other cities because they were protected by the gods. This reached a form of peace and stability. But then one king, Lugalzagesi, said, "Screw this. I'm going to come and kill your god." He sacked a city, stealing from the temple where all the valuables were. Even his own soldiers were afraid the gods would smite him, but nothing happened. So he did it again and again, becoming more and more powerful. He was breaking the rules of the game. He hacked the game. He figured out what the ultimate taboo was, and he broke it. When you break it, you become God yourself.

A taboo is what humans must not violate. Only gods are allowed to break this taboo. Only gods are allowed to kill each other. We humans must not try to kill each other's gods by ransacking their temples. Once this rule was broken, it allowed a society called the Akkadians to come in and conquer everyone because they were the most warlike.

How is it possible for a different people, who are much fewer and poorer, to conquer an entire empire? As we discussed with the Mongols, when you are severely limited in your resources, you have to use psychological warfare. The three forms are:

1. Escalation Dominance: You will do more than anyone else to win the war.
2. Terror: The Mongols killed people randomly to instill terror.
3. Aura of Inevitability and Invincibility: You want people to think you are a demon or the gods themselves.

The Mongols perfected this strategy. The Akkadians also used it. Sargon of Akkad perfected siege warfare to break down city walls, which was previously thought impossible. This created escalation dominance, terror, and an aura of inevitability.

When societies are in competition, they establish an equilibrium held together by an ultimate taboo. But then someone comes along and breaks this taboo, which opens up the game. Whoever is now able to master psychological warfare will win.

Applying the Theory to the Conquest

Let's apply this to the Aztecs. The Aztecs had escalation dominance, they had terror (human sacrifice), and they had the aura of inevitability and invincibility. This is how they were able to control millions of people with a limited population. They employed the same strategies as the Mongols. The Incas also used these three strategies. The Aztecs proved that their god was superior to every other god.

The problem was that the Spanish came in and didn't know how the game was played. They rejected all the rules. They rejected the idea that God cannot be killed. They killed God—they killed Moctezuma, who was the god of the Aztecs, and they killed the Inca emperor as well. When you do that, when you break the taboo, you leave people completely helpless.

Let me use an analogy. In today's world, there is an ultimate taboo among societies. China and the United States can engage in economic warfare. Russia and Ukraine can engage in military warfare. The ultimate taboo is that no one is allowed to use nuclear weapons. If anyone used them, the world would end. There have been a couple of instances where we were very close to nuclear war, like the Cuban Missile Crisis. But there was a chain of command. Maybe one person would issue the command, but ten other people would have to say yes, and there would always be one person who didn't want to be the one who ended the world.

But let's imagine ten aliens come to Earth. Just ten of them. They are not inhibited by this taboo. All they do is use one nuclear weapon against us. What would happen? We would all surrender.

The same thing happened with the Aztecs and Incas. Because the Spanish were able to kill their god, everyone was left thinking, "What do we do now? We exist to serve God. God is invincible. But the Spanish killed him." Which means what? It means the Spanish are now gods.

This is what happened. It's game theory. If you can figure out the ultimate taboo and use it against the local people, you win. You don't need that many soldiers or that much technology. You can just use the ultimate taboo against them.

A worldview, which is basically religion, is the basis of who we are. It is our operating system. A computer cannot run without an operating system, and we cannot run without a worldview and a religion. If you destroy the worldview, it's like cutting off someone's brain. You turn people into zombies and slaves.

The implication of this is that whenever a society has an extremely strict hierarchy where the majority is forced to worship a minority, it makes that society extremely vulnerable to invasion and conquest. It doesn't matter how many people you have or how many weapons you have. As long as you have a strict hierarchy, it becomes the ultimate weakness of a society. You become vulnerable to an outside invasion.