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Y205: Exploration, Encounters and Empire 1445–1570

Encounters and conquest: Spanish Conquests, gains and losses for individual explorers

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 2

Overview

Recall questions on Spanish Conquests: the Caribbean, Mexico, Panama and Peru, reasons for success, gains and losses for individual explorers and their patrons.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Evaluation

Give three reasons for Spanish success against far larger empires.

Evaluation

Why did Panama matter to the Spanish advance?

Key term

Describe what happened at Cajamarca in November 1532.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Outline the pattern of Spanish encounters in the Caribbean.

    Model answer

    Settlement began on Hispaniola, spreading to Puerto Rico and Cuba, with a search for gold, the parcelling out of native communities to settlers, and the rapid destruction of the Taíno population, after which the islands became the springboard for expeditions to the mainland.

  2. 2

    How did Cortés secure his position after landing on the Mexican coast in 1519?

    Model answer

    He founded Veracruz and had its council appoint him, so freeing himself from the governor of Cuba, destroyed his own ships to prevent retreat, and made allies of the Tlaxcalans and other peoples resentful of Aztec tribute.

  3. 3

    What happened when Cortés reached Tenochtitlán?

    Model answer

    He was received by Moctezuma II in November 1519, then seized him as a hostage and ruled through him, until Spanish violence provoked a rising in which Moctezuma died and the Spanish were driven out with heavy losses in the retreat of the Noche Triste.

  4. 4

    How was the Aztec capital finally taken?

    Model answer

    Cortés rebuilt his forces with Tlaxcalan allies and brigantines on the lake, cut the causeways and water supply, and after a siege of some three months Tenochtitlán fell in August 1521 to a defence already devastated by smallpox.

  5. 5

    Why did Panama matter to the Spanish advance?

    Model answer

    The isthmus was the shortest crossing to the Pacific after Balboa's sighting, and the founding of Panama City in 1519 gave the Spanish a base from which expeditions could probe the coast southwards towards Peru.

  6. 6

    What was the state of the Inca empire when Pizarro arrived in 1532?

    Model answer

    It was exhausted by a civil war between Atahualpa and his half-brother Huáscar following an epidemic that had killed the previous ruler, so its armies were divided and many subject peoples were disaffected.

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