The Discovery And Conquest Of Latin America And The...

Conquering the Americas The discovery and eventually conquest of Latin America and the Caribbean Islands is perhaps one of the single most important encounter of two cultures. In 1492, when the conquistadores first set foot on the New World, not only did they discovered territories previously unknown to them; but also great civilizations who inhabited the lands. As Marshall Eakin describes in his book The History of Latin America, the civilizations of the Americas were â€Å"monarchies led by powerful leaders†¦ they were built in complex social and cultural systems† (Eakin, 65). Nevertheless despite the Native American’s great achievements, these civilizations possessed a great amount of disadvantages compared to their Spanish conquerors. Such disadvantages played a decisive role in the conquest of the New World by the Spaniards. The conquistadores’ main decisive factor in the conquest of the New World was the transferal of old world diseases into the new world, followed by their s uperior weapons, the Indigenous rivalries, native superstitions, and the aid of black slaves. The greatest factor for the Spanish’s conquest of the Americas was the appearance of old world diseases in the new world. In his text First encounters Higman agrees, â€Å"People of the Caribbean suffered heavily when first exposed to diseases endemic in Europe and Africa but unknown in the Americas. 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