Chapter 3

The Conquest of America

The following material is designed to help you sort out the major themes and important information in our textbook Benjamin Keen, A History of Latin America, 5^th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996). You will be quizzed over this material in class. Also use this information as a study guide to prepare for the exam.

Learning Objectives

After you have read and studied Chapter 3, you should be able to:

1. Discuss the conditions in Europe that led to the discovery and conquest of America.
2. Objectively assess the consequences of the conquest for the native peoples of America and the Europeans.
3. Discuss the motives, mindset, and social backgrounds of the Spanish conquistadors.
4. Explain the relative ease with which a small number of Spaniards conquered great and populous Indian empires.

Chapter Summary

The chapter opens with a discussion of the major motive for the great European voyages of discovery (the need to break the Muslim and Venetian monopoly over trade with the Far East) and the reasons for Portuguese leadership in the process. The two plans for reaching the land of spices are then described--the Portuguese plan for rounding Africa and the Toscanelli--Columbus project for reaching the East by sailing west. Then follows a brief account of Columbus's four voyages and an assessment of the consequences of his discovery for Indian America and Europe. After a discussion of Balboa's discovery of the Pacific and Magellan's great voyage of circumnavigation of the globe, the chapter describes the key conquests of the Aztec and Inca empires and the frantic quest for El Dorado that they inspired. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the motives and mindset of the conquistador host, the bitter divisions between the haves and the have-nots among the conquistadors (illustrated by the story of Lope de Aguirre), and an analysis of the reasons for the relative ease of the Spanish conquest of the great Indian empires.

Identification Terms

Be sure that you are able to identify and explain the historical significance of each of each of these terms from this chapter.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. This material is presented as a study guide exclusively for the use of students in Latin American History at Illinois State University. Please direct any questions to Marc Becker at mbecker@ilstu.edu.