Conquest Explained

A conquest in its basic essence is the complete and utter destruction of a civilization by another. According to this definition, the Spanish did not successfully "conquer" Latin America. If it were so, all of Latin America today would be virtually different. The unifying Spanish flag would fly over all these nations, culture and traditions would be shared, and all of the native inhabitants would be of one skin color-white.

Today, on the contrary this is not so. Latin American countries today are move divided then ever, culture varies from country to country and one can find that those Indians that were supposedly conquered long ago, still remain in large numbers in the form of their descendants (dark skinned mestizos and natives). This has caused tremendous problems in countries where descendants of the white skinned Spaniards clash with the descendants of the Indian natives, oftentimes escalating to violence. So, no, there was no successful conquest, but rather a partial conquest that would have great consequences in the future.

However, I do believe that the word, "conquest" is applicable to what the Spanish did or rather tried to do in Latin America. It is a loose term however, as "conquest" implies that the Spanish actually wished to expand their empire in terms of watching their colonies grow and prosper. Yet their actions actively disprove this. As explained in Restall's "Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest", their colonies served as merely stepping stones for more conquests. Unlike the British Conquest of North America, where colonies actively tried to prosper and serve as future permanent towns and localizations before attempting to advance.

I do commend the Spanish however on following the established rules of conquest to the letter, and I believe that they did indeed have the opportunity to fully "conquer" Latin America. Yet they did not, instead focusing on pillaging and individual acts of glory that led to a partial conquest. Nothing was designed to be permanent. They did not completely subjugate the natives, or destroy their cultures. All they did was place a Spanish Flag over the defeated corpses of the Natives proclaiming, "we conquered you" took their gold and left. Though they would of course leave Governors and such to rule over these colonies it would make little difference in the long run as years later, the defeated natives would go on to take advantage of Spanish misfortunes in Europe and successfully fight for their independence. The Spanish truly wasted a golden opportunity (pun intended) and through this failed in their conquests.