Conquest was never just about flags and crosses. Spain and its rivals crossed the Atlantic because the Americas offered something Europe desperately wanted: wealth. Once Tenochtitlan and Cuzco fell (covered in the previous micro), the conquerors turned quickly to squeezing value out of the land and its people.
- Exploitation of resources — once military conquest was complete, Spain reorganised whole regions around extracting value for the crown, not developing the colony for its own sake.
- Gold and silver — the richest prize. Huge silver deposits were found at Potosí (in modern Bolivia, 1545) and Zacatecas (in Mexico, 1546). Silver became the backbone of Spain's American economy.
- The *mita* system — Spain adapted an existing Inca labour-tax system, forcing indigenous communities to send workers to the mines. Conditions at Potosí were brutal; death rates were high.
- Fur trade — further north, French and British colonists built their economies around trading with indigenous nations for beaver pelts, which were hugely profitable in Europe (used for felt hats).
- Tobacco trade — English colonists, especially in Virginia, discovered that tobacco grown in American soil sold well in Europe, making it the colony's first profitable export crop.
The Columbian Exchange: The Columbian Exchange was the single biggest consequence of contact. Europe gained crops like maize, potatoes, and tomatoes — which later fed population growth back home. The Americas gained horses, cattle, wheat, and sugar cane. But the exchange also carried disease: smallpox, measles, and influenza, to which indigenous peoples had no immunity, killing an estimated 80-90% of some populations within a century of contact.
Notice the pattern: every economic gain for Europe (silver shipped home, furs sold at a profit, new crops feeding cities) came paired with a devastating cost for indigenous America — forced labour, land seizure, and catastrophic disease. Paper 3 examiners reward students who can hold both sides of that balance sheet at once.
Link economics to conquest causes: Don't treat this as a separate topic from the conquests themselves. A strong essay on 'reasons for Spanish success' can bring in the promise of gold and silver as a motive; a strong essay on effects of conquest should use gold, silver, fur, and tobacco as concrete evidence of impact.
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Spain's treatment of indigenous peoples was inconsistent — brutal in practice, but debated fiercely in law. This tension between exploitation and (partial) reform is one of the richest essay topics in this section.
The encomienda problem and early reform
Under the *encomienda* system, the crown granted conquistadors the right to demand labour and tribute from indigenous communities, supposedly in exchange for protection and Christian instruction. In practice it was close to slavery, and mortality from overwork was severe.
- Laws of Burgos (1512) — the first Spanish attempt to regulate the treatment of indigenous peoples; banned outright cruelty and set limits on labour demands, but was poorly enforced by colonists who depended on forced labour for profit.
- Bartolomé de las Casas — a former encomendero turned Dominican friar who became the loudest critic of Spanish cruelty. His writings, such as A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552), argued indigenous peoples were rational humans with natural rights, and pressured the crown to act.
- New Laws of the Indies (1542) — pushed through partly due to las Casas's lobbying; aimed to phase out the encomienda and end the inheritance of indigenous labour grants. Colonial elites resisted so fiercely (including a rebellion in Peru) that the crown had to water the laws down.
Reform on paper, resistance in practice: This is a classic IB Paper 3 pattern: royal policy versus colonial reality. The Spanish crown, far away in Madrid, could pass humane-sounding laws. Settlers on the ground, whose wealth depended on forced labour, often ignored or diluted them. Always ask: did a law actually change behaviour, or just change the paperwork?
How indigenous societies were reshaped
- Assimilation — indigenous peoples were pressured to convert to Catholicism, adopt Spanish customs, and speak Spanish, especially through mission settlements.
- Eradication — in some regions, disease, warfare, and brutal labour conditions wiped out entire communities; the Caribbean's Taíno population collapsed within a few decades of Columbus's arrival.
- Social stratification — a rigid casta system developed, with Spanish-born peninsulares at the top, American-born Spaniards (creoles) below them, then mixed-race groups, then indigenous and enslaved African peoples at the bottom.
- Use of indigenous labour — beyond the encomienda, systems like forced mine labour (the mita) and tribute demands kept indigenous communities economically dependent on and subordinate to colonial authorities.
- Women — indigenous women faced a double burden of forced labour and sexual exploitation; unions (forced or otherwise) between Spanish men and indigenous women produced a growing mestizo population.
- Multiracial issues — the mixing of European, indigenous, and (later) African peoples created complex new social categories that Spanish authorities tried to rank and control through the casta system, but which blurred over time.
Worked example — using this in an essay: Question angle: 'Discuss the impact of European conquest on indigenous societies in the Americas.' A strong paragraph would name the Laws of Burgos (1512) as an early, weak attempt at protection, contrast it with las Casas's moral campaign, then show the New Laws (1542) as a stronger but resisted reform — before pivoting to the deeper social outcome: a new racial hierarchy (the casta system) that outlasted any single law.
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Spain was not alone in the Americas, and it did not have an uncontested claim even to the lands it already controlled. European monarchies raced to divide, and then fought to redivide, the new territories.
Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)
After Columbus's voyages, Spain and Portugal — the two dominant Atlantic powers of the 1490s — turned to the Pope to settle who owned what. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) drew an imaginary north-south line roughly 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands: lands to the west belonged to Spain, lands to the east (including what became Brazil) belonged to Portugal.
Why it happened
Spain and Portugal both had exploration ambitions and wanted to avoid war between themselves over new lands; a papal-brokered line offered a peaceful (for them) solution.
What it ignored
The treaty carved up land neither side had seen, based on guesswork about geography, and completely ignored the existence and sovereignty of indigenous peoples already living there.
Why it didn't hold
Other European powers — France, England, and later the Dutch — never signed it and simply rejected its authority, since it was a deal between only two Catholic crowns.
One line, two crowns, and everyone else ignored it.
- Conflicting land claims based on exploration — European powers argued that simply being first to explore or plant a flag in a region gave them a legal claim, even where no settlement existed, leading to overlapping and disputed claims across North America especially.
- Impact of conflicting claims — rival claims fed decades of colonial tension and conflict, feeding into later wars such as Anglo-French rivalry in North America (developed further in the following topic on colonial government).
Rivalry did not end at Tordesillas: Tordesillas only ever bound Spain and Portugal to each other. France explored the St Lawrence (Jacques Cartier, 1530s) and Britain explored the North Atlantic coast (John Cabot, 1497) with no regard for the treaty line at all — because they were never party to it. This is why 'European rivalries' remains an open sore right through the colonial period, not something settled in 1494.
Common mistake: Do not write that Tordesillas 'divided the Americas between Europe.' It only divided claims between Spain and Portugal — and even that division was contested and redrawn later (e.g. the Treaty of Madrid, 1750, adjusted the line to reflect Portuguese expansion into Brazil's interior).