Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
In the late 1400s and early 1500s, Spain was a global superpower. Fearlessly led by the
Catholic Kings, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the country was the wealthiest and most
powerful in all the land. Throughout their reign, they funded multiple expeditions to find new
trade routes, one of which accidently discovered a “new” continent, and began to exploit its
inhabitants for their own, personal gain. Two of the people who were absolutely essential for
this mass abuse of entire civilizations were Christopher Columbus and Hernando Cortez.
Columbus began his journey in 1492, landing in the present-day Caribbean. In 1520, after the
colonization of the land and the mass genocide of the natives by Columbus, Cortez sailed north
to present-day Mexico City where he continued Columbus’ vision, taking every ounce of gold
the natives possessed while murdering countless people along the way. Both of these men,
righteous and holy as they were, were doing all of their work in the name of God, and for His
holy country, Spain. While both Columbus and Cortez are the epitome Spanish Identity, due to
differences in using Divine Providence to justify violence, and the differences in success in
finding gold and increasing their wealth and power, Hernando Cortez is a better representation
The myth of Spanish identity is rooted in being Catholic and pure, and it all started with
the 700 year battle between the Catholics and the Moors (Muslims) for the Iberian Peninsula.
This battle, known as the Reconquista for the Catholic re-conquest of Spain, was begun by a
man named Pelayo. Pelayo was the king of a northern tribe on the Peninsula, and although he
was solely fighting for more territory and power, the story morphed to turn him into the hero
that began the quest for a new, Catholic Spain. When the Catholic Kings wed, they were able to
use this story to unite all of the Visigoth tribes of the peninsula to fight with each other to
remove the Moors from the land. Fortunately, there were many signs from the Lord to inspire
the freedom fighters and remind them that they are doing His will. The bones of Santiago, one
of the twelve apostles of Jesus, were discovered in Spain during the war. They acted as a
physical symbol that God wanted the united Catholic tribes to continue fighting. Legend tells
that Santiago, also known as the Moor Slayer, descended from the sky on a white horse to help
the Spanish win one of the battles of the Reconquista, slaying 5000 Moors along the way.
Religious military institutions began to arise in Santiago’s name with the purpose on protecting
Christendom and remove the Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula. By removing all of the
Muslims, Spain was able to become a pure, Catholic nation. This was the will of God, and they
had multiple signs and reasons to show it. By the end of the war, the idea of being pure and
Catholic was so embedded in their identities that they believed that all of their actions were
truly justified by God. They had the Divine Providence to do whatever they pleased because
they were God’s people and they were doing it all for them. These are the same principles that
Columbus and Cortez use to justify the abuse and extermination of large civilizations of people
Through the mass murder and disease epidemics that ran rampant in the New World
upon the arrival of the Spaniards, it is easy to say that violence is a key theme throughout both
the Columbus and Cortez narrative. However, all of their actions are justified through the Divine
Providence set forth by their pure Catholicism, an essential theme to Spanish Identity that
justified all of the actions of the Reconquista, Inquisition, and explorations of the New World.
Columbus shows his Divine Providence through the quote “(the natives) should be good
servants and intelligent, for I observed that they quickly took in what was said to them, and I
believe that they would easily be made Christians, as it appeared to me that they had no
religion” (Columbus, 3). Because it appears that these people do not have a religion, they are
not truly people. Columbus fully believes, because he is Christian and they are not, that he has
full dominion of them to do whatever he pleases. He states that they are intelligent creatures,
capable of learning things quickly, making them perfect slaves. He believes that he has the right
to tie seven of them up and take them back to Spain to show the world, unless the king wants
them all to be imprisoned in their own land. Just as the Catholics in Spain had the right to kick
out the Muslims and Jews from the Iberian Peninsula for the sole reason of not being Catholic,
the natives had no rights in the presence of the Spaniards. Columbus used his power through
Although Columbus is using the his Divine Providence to justify the enslavement of the
kidnapping, and possible murder, of the native’s king. “Trusting in the greatness of God, I
proposed to go and see him (Montezuma) wherever he might be…I assured your Highness that
he should be taken either dead or alive, or become a subject to the royal throne of your
Majesty” (Cortez, 1). This quote is an example of the extreme lengths that Cortez is will to go to
while justifying his actions in the church. He is telling the king that he trusts God and he thinks
that Montezuma should be killed or made a slave to the throne of Spain. How could the king
possibly refute this? Cortez is using the power of the church to justifying his actions to the king,
knowing that if the king were to disagree he would be going against God’s orders. (This is an
exceptionally powerful argument because the Spaniards treat their king like he is God. By
disagreeing with Cortez, he is essentially going against his own will.) He is using his Divine
Providence to justify his plans for Montezuma, when his true motives are completely different.
Cortez wants Montezuma out of power so that he can become the ruler of the Aztec
civilization, obtain all of their gold, and finally have the wealth and power that he has been
searching for since abandoning his post months earlier. Although both Columbus and Cortez
demonstrate using Divine Providence to justify their violent actions, Cortez is a better
representation of Spanish Identity because he uses that power for more violence and the
If each of these noble, pure, Catholic Spaniards have their actions justified through
Divine Providence, something has to set them apart from each other. The extreme egocentrism
that the Spaniards possessed caused the possession of wealth and power to be another critical
component of Spanish Identity. Columbus wrote about gold in the following manner: “(Gold) is
worn on the arms and legs; and it must be gold, for they point to some pieces that I can
have...with the help of our Lord, (I can) find out where this gold has its origin” (Columbus, 6).
During Columbus’s time in the New World, he never finds the city of gold that he was searching
for. This quote encompasses him praying to the Lord, hoping he can find the origin of the Gold.
Without it, his expedition would be worth nothing. He may have been given credit for
discovering the New World and given many riches because of it, but gold and wealth is such a
crucial part of Spanish Identity that it is not enough. There is significance in the phrase “and it
must be gold” because Columbus is trying to reassure himself that he is not going crazy.
Expedition after expedition, he is left empty handed. He is trying to convince himself, and the
king, that the city of gold is real and he is going to be the person to find it. It is so prevalent in
their identity, that without it, Columbus is not the true Spaniard and explorer that he could be,
Although Columbus continues his search for gold for as long as he can, he is unable to
find the city of gold and lives out the rest of his life knowing that he missed an opportunity to
rise in the ranks as a leader and a Spaniard due to the immense amounts of gold he would
have. On the contrary, Cortez found more gold than he thought possible. “I requested that…he
would point out to me the mines from which the gold was obtained; to which he consented
with the greatest readiness, saying it would give him great pleasure to do so” (Cortez, 5). There
are two important concepts can be taken from this one sentence: 1) Cortez has found real gold,
and an extreme abundance of it, and 2) He has so much power that the leader of the Aztec
civilization took great pleasure in giving it all to Cortez. He continues on to discuss how they are
able to obtain all of the gold using simple Indian tools, implying how much better the Spanish
would be able to obtain the gold, and giving himself more power over the natives. He has taken
control of Montezuma and the Aztec empire, and the gold that he now possesses increases his
wealth, power, and success back in Spain. Where Columbus found nothing, Cortez found great
wealth. Because of his success, Cortez is a better representation of Spanish Identity than
Columbus.
Two central themes of Spanish Identity are Divine Providence and the Spaniards ability
to use it to justify the actions they make, and building wealth and success as their expand their
rule conquering new lands. Columbus used his Divine Providence to justify the enslavement of
the natives because of their differences, but Cortez used it to capture the Aztec leader and
exploit an entire society of people. While Columbus spend many expeditions search for the gold
that thought was there, Cortez found a vast amount of gold, and used it to propel him to the
top of social hierarchy. In both of these cases, Cortez is a better representation of Spanish
Identity than Columbus. Although each of these events are currently seen as unthinkable, at the
time these two men embodied and encapsulated everything that it meant to be a Spaniard.