The Americas in transition — conquest and indigenous peoples

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Hernán Cortés, 1519-1521, capturing the capital Tenochtitlan with help from Tlaxcalan allies.

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Francisco Pizarro, 1532-1533, exploiting an Inca civil war between Atahualpa and Huáscar.

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A Spanish grant giving a colonist the right to indigenous labour and tribute in exchange for supposed protection and religious conversion.

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A rotational forced-labour draft used in Spanish Peru, adapted from an earlier Inca system, notably to work the silver mines of Potosí.

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Old World diseases like smallpox, to which indigenous peoples had no immunity, killed the majority of the population — worsened by brutal forced labour conditions.

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Fell from roughly 20-25 million before 1519 to under 2 million within about a century — a demographic collapse of over 90 percent.

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The blending of two belief systems into one new mixed practice, such as indigenous traditions merging with Catholic Christianity in the Americas.

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A reported 1531 apparition to Juan Diego that fused Catholic and indigenous imagery, becoming a lasting symbol of religious syncretism in Mexico.

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The transfer of plants, animals, people and diseases between the Americas and the rest of the world after 1492, reshaping economies and diets on both sides.

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A Dominican friar and former encomendero who became the leading critic of Spanish treatment of indigenous peoples, arguing they had natural rights.

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A formal debate where las Casas argued indigenous peoples were rational humans with rights, against Sepúlveda, who called them natural slaves; helped pressure reform.

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Spanish America: transition driven by external conquest and mass death. Japan: transition driven by internal control (sankin-kotai, sakoku) without foreign conquest or comparable depopulation.