How did the Spanish subdue the Caribbean and Americas while outnumbered

But they used firearms?

>>1921542
They didn't. Firearms of that period were awkward, expensive, and largely unavailable.

From what I read so far, the conquests were done by horseback and melee engagements. Horses were not used in the Americas and the natives didn't have the knowledge of how to combat cavalry.

Plague

>>1921540
Disease. Always disease

>>1921540

What happened in Hispaniola (what is now Dominican Republic+Haiti)

Is this

-Spaniards arrive
-natives werent very advanced, therefore not a very high population density
-spaniards fuck the women creating mestizos
-they subdue the natives, make them work for them, search for gold
-they die due to european diseases like smallpow, and from labor conditions
-very shortly afterwards there are no more natives in the whole big island, although there exists many spanish-native mixed people from spanish men who fucked many native women.
-decades later much of the population emmigrates to the continent when Mexico and Peru are conquered, since it was a much more promising territory, it is not like the Spaniards were going to work in sugar plantations.

The Spanish had basicaly 3 kinds of territories.
The important ones for the wealth in metals (Mexico, Peru and Bolivia) the important ones because they were strategic, like Panama, and the rest, which they owned only to protect the important territories, like most of central America or Argentina.
They owned those lands, only to prevent the English, Portuguese or French from getting close to the territories that were really important for them.

The most important thing in the caribbean for Spain was Panama, the silver and gold from Peru + Bolivia was shipped there, they crossed the few kilometers of land, and was shipped back to Spain.

This is a generalization, but that it how things worked during most of the Spanish Empire, till the 1770s more or less.

>>1921542
Spaniards were infamously bad at shooting, in fact many that did have firearms were usually other Europeans accompanying the conquistadors. Even the Aztecs figured out how to counter firearms.

>>1921596

When Argentina became a viceroyalty to stop the Portuguese from advancing to what is now Uruguay, the silver of Bolivia was shipped from Buenos Aires instead of Panama, that was a much better route, shorter, safer, faster.

Cuba became important only after the British conquered it (I think it was the 7 years war, they returned it to Spain when the war was over), and administered it for a while like a plantation with free trade.
That made Spain, which was using Cuba and future Dominican Republic realize that using those islands for sugar plantations could make them a lot of money, and not rely only on the silver mines.
Before that, those islands were just stops for the Spanish fleet, and the inhabitants were ranchers.
They could never do that in Dominican Republic because they were invaded or at war with independent Haiti for decades.

>>1921596
>>1921615
That's interesting and thanks for commenting.

What strategical benefit did Panama offer Spain? The Panama canal was not constructed until the early 1900s.

>>1921723
they used mule trains for cargo

>>1921723
not him, but even without the canal it was only a short journey overland, and still quicker than sailing all the way around south america.

>>1921723

It's still the narrowest land mass between the Pacific and the Atlantic

>>1921723
>>1921731


There were pirates back then. So the transport of the Spanish treasure fleet was a complicated and important that required a huge army to defend the treasure ships.

The Silver from Bolivia and Peru was sent to Panama, and from there they went to Cuba, where they would meet the treasure ships coming from Mexico, and they would sail together to Spain in a huge convoy.

Free trade, or treasure ships sailing alone, could have been victims of pirates, and were not practical in the 1500s and 1600s.

Panama allowed the Peruvian and Bolivian silver/gold to meet the Mexican silver/gold.

Also, Lima was a very powerful city, the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, and Panama was what connected them to Spain. They wanted that route to continue that way and lobbied for that, even though the most economically efficient thing was to send the Bolivian silver from Buenos Aires to Spain, which is what finally happened in the late 1700s.

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>>1921768

complicated and important operation, sorry

wikimedia map and article

The Philippines were ruled from Mexico. The connection of the Philippines with Spain was Cadiz in Spain - Veracruz in Mexico - Acapulco in Mexico - Manila in the Philippines.
There was only one galleon per year going from Acapulco to Manila and back, but it was huge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_treasure_fleet

Simply put, they got lucky. Disease is thought to have killed off most of them in a short span, the remainder where a shell of the former self and easy to beat on horseback and with superior weapons

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>>1921790

this is true but relative, as in, the very populated regions that had empires were easier to conquer than many of the less civilized regions.

In Chile and Argentina they were at war till the XIX century with natives who had learn how to ride horses and used European weapons, like the Sioux in the USA.
They behaved like the horse riders of the Asian steppe who lived from raiding settlements.

>>1921790
Disease resulted in the destruction among Native Americans but not the Indigenous parts of the Caribbean and South Americans. It certainly played a part, but I think their success was more due to the technology gap and most of the populace was fighting amongst each other.

>>1921596
>natives werent very advanced

False, They were more advanced than North American ones, They were agricultarists and sea farers

>Not a very high P density

False, there were like 200,000 people in hispabiola or more at the time which isn't low considerinf They hadnt large cities

>>1922612
I agree but I think he was commenting more on their military technology. They were very advanced in astronomy, agriculture, and religious customs.

>>1921540
by disease and the latin americans were stone age barbarians.

>>1922719
Only the Mayans and nahuans had advanced astronomy (and the Nahua were a lot cruder than the complex Mayan one), the Tainos were agriculturist and very chill, they weren't very good at war and were the literal warehouse of the caribs, than raided and eated them.

>>1921540
What the F.R.C.A?

What happened in what is today my country was this (Costa Rica):

- The Spaniards arrive
- They literally got BTFO by one Native Nation, the Huetares, which was already prepared to fight them
- They try years later but this time not by war and with an actually smart leader
- He talks the different Huetares leaders in to joining them, never by force, but by alliances against their enemies and by telling them about the pros of being part of the Spanish Empire
- All of the Hueaters become part of the Spanish Empire
- Because of the ignorance of the Spaniards they make them move from their territories in the Caribbean to the Center of the country
- Because of different reasons there are never migration movementes from Spaniards to what is today CR during the colony, only the Sephards who came here for refugee and some random Spaniard who came here from what is today Colombia and Venezuela
- The Encomiendas were mainly owned by different Amerindians, mainly the descendants of the Hueatars leaders
- The Huetares couldnt be forced to work or subjugated, so the only Encomiendas in the territory were made up by Bri Bris and Cabecar Amerindians (hard as fuck to get) who were by all means literally Slaves
- Some Spaniards try to take hold of the Encomiendas and territories from the Amerindians, arguing that an Encomienda could be divided and that "new Chrisitians" were not allowed to have an Encomienda anyway
- Years of legal debate that ends with Spain abolishing the Encomienda system in Costa Rica
- This somehow fucks the relations between the Hueaters and the Spaniards but nothing really bad

>>1925608
- Because of the little difference between "classes" (being an Hidalgo or an Adelantado meant literally shit) and because of the Caste system never being imposed in the colony there is a lot of Mixing between the Spaniards, the Sephards, the Huetares and the Free Blacks (Slavery was legal here but because of different reasons it never worked and almost nobody could afford to own or mainting a Slave).
- The North, South, the High Lands and the Caribbean was never conquered by any European power.
- The Caribbean and the High Lands had a strong relations with the British, they traded with a plant we call here Zarza, turtle shells, meat and the such (something very interesting but very few studied this)
- The Spaniards always failed to conquer the North, be it by missions led from Venezuela, Nicaragua or Cartago, they, the Malekus, literally survived by killing anything that wasnt a Maleku at sight
- The tribes of the South had trade with the Spaniards, nobody ever messed with them

Most of the colonial period of the country was very mild if you ask me, some British battle here and there, but because of the economic restrictions imposed on us by Spain, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the Kingdom of Guatemala and the Viceroyalty of New Granada (for being near to them) made us a territory of little economic and political importance, this allowed us to be calm, stable and away of conflict, also, it helped to have social equality and avoid the racial conflicts between different racial groups.

But yeah, the Spaniards got BTFO every time they tried to fight the Amerindians or the Brits here, the only battle they "won" was a battle againts the Cabecars of the South, and they were helping a Hueater King/Prince, Quepo, who told Vazquez de Coronado that he would join the Spaniard if he help him to take some land from the Cabecars.

>Im leaving the Nicoya peninsula out of this because that was a completely different deal

>>1925608
I learned a different version of your history...

>Spanish peasant soldiers explore your country and conquer your country with ~100 men
>~100 spanish men stood against vast armies numbering in the thousands
>used calvary, firearms, and artillery to kill a few of your people and the rest viewed the spanish as gods
>afterwards, they killed your men or forced them into slave labor where the mortality rate was extremely high
>raped your women in the name of Christianizing them
>bred your populace with African slaves because they needed more manpower
>colony is extremely unsucessful

That was what I learned in my American school but we also tended to conflate all of latin america as one. How accurate is this interpretation of history?

>>1925635
Very little, desu

Catholicism was actually very accepted by the Hueaters, you see, only the "royalty" to put it in one way and their slaves were able to go to some kind of heaven, the later to serve them of course. Then, this guys comes and tells you everybody goes to heaven by the grace of God and his Son, even woman, yada yada yada, the Caciques and Ibuxes were not magic, yada yada yada, curses are not real.

If you read about the Vazquez of Coronado "conquest" (not even him liked that definition) of Nueva Cartago, it was very mild, he did it by alliances and the such. Of course, he was a hippie opposed to Slavery, imposition of the Catholic faith by force and the such. After that, the economic restrictions made the territory not very attractive for any of that to happen. Why would you go and kill/rape Amerindians for their land if the Crown didnt let you do anything with said land?

>>1921552
they had small cannons. Probably used them like big shotguns.

>>1921542
Most of the combat in Central Americas was hand to hand combat. Cannons were used but rarely, their psychological effect was greater than practical one.

You have to remember Spanish didn't send big conventional armies to Americas but expeditionary forces small in size, very poorly supplied and cut off logistically from the capital, in the humid areas of Central America. So firearms weren't as useful as good old sword & buckler and lance on horseback

>>1921540
Spanish collaborated with natives against other natives.

>>1921790
>disease
>luck

>>1921593
This.

A lot of the South American civilisations had scouts or couriers to carry news between regions. As the Spanish arrived and made first contact the diseases they brought were often carried by scouts back into urban areas. By the time the Spanish reached the heart of these civilisations diseases had spread, leaders had often died and the societies were in a state of flux.