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Civilization #44: The Spanish Conquest of the New World

2025-04-08 People & Blogs
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Predictive History
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Description

How did a few thousand Spanish Conquistadors subdue and conquer millions of Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans. Most scholars believe it's a combination of superior Spanish military technology, spreading of deadly infectious diseases, and internal tribal conflict that led to the demise of once powerful empires. In this talk to his Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin argues that it was the religious practices and beliefs of the native peoples of Central and South America that made them vulnerable to invasion and conquest. The natives had a strict religious hierarchy that established priest-kings as divine beings. When the Spanish executed their priest-kings, they broke the ultimate taboo. This left many Aztecs and Incas helpless and hopeless. Reference: The Mayans' Popol Vuh ("Book of the Community") can be read for free here: https://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PopolVuh.pdf

Top Comments (10)

@realdeal139 2025-10-23

Professor can you do a lesson on the history of native Americans and link to Asia? It is a pretty fascinating topic

40 5 replies
@alexvkcr 2025-10-11

28:13 Moctezuma's reign was considered continuous, and is represented in the royal palaces of Spain. His direct descendants fought alongside Cervantes in the Mediterranean and founded in Spain the current police service Guardia Civil

26 3 replies
@karandeepsingh1656 2025-10-11

I even got a Spanish ad in the beginning of this video

10
@francozb 2026-01-02

pineapple (abacaxi) was breed near where i live... amazing fruit

7
@Acoran 2025-11-26

you forgot a mayor pinnacle on this process, the conquest of Canary Islands, that tooks to european 100 years (from 1402 to 1496) where they develop the technology to conquer america, as modern colonial cities (no walls like in europe and straight streets layouts), the conversion of natives peoples or the light infantry equipment. Also Canary Islands playes a mayor role introducing new products into Europe, the potatoe for example, adapted first to Canary Islands weather and then those seeds were introduced into the Netherlands and Europe.

5
@danielmontes4670 2025-09-30

I like your videos are so interesting, You talk about so difficult topics that if you are wrong in anything you can learn something because of the complexity and importance

5
@TJ-Judge 2025-10-10

This is so fascinating

2
@michaelcaldwell5786 2025-10-09

I love listening to this man❤

2
@patrickkenney2259 2025-12-24

Thank you for these videos! Very informative - regardless of how controversial some of the topics may be. Free lectures of good quality are always welcome in my life.

1
@juanotamendi8913 2025-11-07

Love what you do brother ❤❤❤.

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