Being the highly religious people that the Spaniards were, converting the Indians into Christians in order to ‘save their souls’ was important to them, thinking the Indians’ polytheistic religion was inferior to their own. After victory in the wars that usually ensued while trying to forcefully convert the natives, the Spaniards became accustomed to receiving many gifts as peace offerings from the Caciques of the tribes. This was a major factor in lighting a fire under the Spaniards’ ever-increasing greed for more gold. Based on these facts and events, along with others that I will discuss, the lust for gold was clearly of more importance to the Conquistadors than was the converting of the Indians to Christianity.

To begin, the only reason Diego Velazquez originally sends Cortes’ expedition to New Spain is because previous trips, such as the one by Francisco Hernandez, had returned a great deal of gold to him. This message of a land full

of riches then spread, and soon “…those settlers and soldiers who possessed no Indians were eager and greedy to go” (p. 27). Everyone including the already wealthy citizens who held high positions in the community, to the poorest peasant who could barely support himself wanted very badly to, in some way, be a part of the expedition of Cortes.

Montezuma was interrogated about the location of his treasure, so in an attempt to spare his people any more harm, he gave up the entire Royal family’s accumulated wealth. Although this contained many intricately crafted gold figures and jewelry, the Spaniards were merely interested in the gold’s net worth, so they melted almost all of it down into stamped bars to be sent to the King. In an ensuing battle, many soldiers try to carry so much weight of treasure that they couldn’t fight and drowned while crossing water, costing many of them their lives. From this point on, the Spaniards cared little anymore about convincing the Aztecs to fully commit to Christianity, and focused almost completely on defeating the Mexicans in battle and acquiring as much gold as possible for the return to Cuba and Spain.

After they finally did take the upper hand, all but wiping out the Aztec population, they still felt the need to torture Montezuma’s successor, Guatemoc, in an attempt to gain even more gold that they believed he still possessed. They ended up finding out that Guatemoc did know where additional gold was, being that he and his men had disposed of what remained in order to prevent the Spaniards from finding it. “…They tortured Guatemoc and the lord of Tacuba by burning their feet with oil, and extorted the confession that four days before they had thrown the gold into the lake…” (p. 410). This event did not go without some disapproval however, in that “Cortes and some of the rest of us were very much distressed that they should tortu

Some topics in this essay:
Cuba Spain, Eventually Mexicans, Indians Christians, Cempoalans Diaz, Afterwards Caciques, Francisco Hernandez, Cortes Spaniards, Bernal Diaz, Mexico City, Mexico Spaniards, converting indians, christian faith, return home, cortes spaniards, greed gold, indians christianity,