Culture
What century did the Spaniards first introduce writing?
Peru
Sebastián Montero Immigration to Mexico German Brazilian Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest Agriculture in Colombia
Sebastián_Montero-Abstract Immigration_to_Mexico-Spaniards German_Brazilian-Immigration Seven_Myths_of_the_Spanish_Conquest-Chapters Agriculture_in_Colombia-Spanish_conquest_and_colonization
Sebastián Montero (born in Écija) was a Spanish secular priest who was active in the later half of the sixteenth century in North America. He was brought by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to proselytize Native Americans in what was considered the northern limits of Spanish Florida. Montero accompanied explorer Juan Pardo as a chaplain to present-day North Carolina. In February 1567, the Pardo expedition arrived at a Wateree village called "Guatari" in what is now Rowan County. The Spaniards called the village Salamanca in honor of the ancient city of Salamanca in western Spain. Pardo left Montero and four soldiers, under the command of Lucas de Cañizares, in the village to establish a Catholic mission. The mission was abandoned around 1572 and Montero subsequently returned to Spain. In the historical record, Montero was the first person to introduce Christianity in what is now North Carolina. 
Spaniards make up the largest group of Europeans in Mexico. Most of them arrived during the colonial period but others have since then immigrated, especially during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) and the Francisco Franco regime (1939–75). The first Spaniards who arrived in Mexico, were soldiers and sailors of Extremadura, Andalucia and La Mancha who discovered the Yucatán Peninsula, the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and then made the conquest of what they call the New Spain. Among the soldiers sent by the Spanish crown to the colonial territory were Muslims converts from Córdoba and Granada. At the end of the 16th century, both common and aristocrat people migrated to Mexico and disseminated by its territory. Most recent immigrants came during the Spanish Civil War. Some of the migrants returned to Spain after the civil war, but some of them remained in Mexico. According to the 2010 census, there were 18,873 Spaniards living in Mexico. Due to the 2008 Financial Crisis and the resulting economic decline and high unemployment in Spain, many Spaniards have been emigrating to Mexico to seek new opportunities. For example, during the last quarter of 2012, a number of 7,630 work permits were granted to Spaniards. The article on Basque Mexicans covers the large segment of Spaniards and some French immigrants of the Basque ethnic group. 
When German-speaking immigrants first arrived in Brazil starting at the beginning of the 19th century, they did not identify themselves so much as a unified German-Brazilian group. However, as time went on this common regional identity did emerge for many different geo-socio-political reasons. Germans immigrated mainly from what is now Germany, but also from other countries where German communities were established. From 1824 to 1969, around 250,000 Germans emigrated to Brazil, being the fourth largest immigrant community to settle in the country, after the Portuguese, Italians and Spaniards. About 30% of them arrived between World War I and World War II. 
 Chapter 1 deals with what Restall calls ""the Myth of exceptional men"" — the belief that the Spanish Conquest was enabled by certain outstanding individuals such as Columbus, Cortés and Pizarro and their personal courage and innovative strategies. Restall shows that instead, the techniques of conquest and colonization used by the early Spanish explorers had been developed throughout at least a century of colonial expansion by Spain and Portugal and were in fact mostly standard procedure. Chapter 2 deals with what Restall calls ""the Myth of the King's Army"" — the belief that the Spanish conquest was undertaken at the behest of the King of Spain and that the conquistadors were Spanish soldiers. Restall claims that in fact the conquistadors didn't necessarily see themselves as Spanish but rather identified as Andalusians, Castilians, Aragonese, Basque, Portuguese, Galician, and even Genoese, Flemish, Greek and Pardo (half-black). Nor were they acting under the command of the Holy Roman Emperor who was also the king of the Spanish realms. And they weren't soldiers in a military sense of the word but rather a group of feudal lords with their respective footmen, servants, pages and mercenaries. Chapter 3 deals with what Restall calls ""the Myth of the White Conquistador"" — the belief that the Spanish conquest was accomplished by a small number of white Spaniards. Restall claims that much of the actual military operations was undertaken by the indigenous allies of the Conquistadors, outnumbering the actual Spanish forces by many hundreds to one. He also shows that there were several conquistadors of African and Moorish descent — dispelling the idea of the conquest as a victory of the "white Europeans" over the "red Indians". Chapter 4 deals with what Restall calls ""the Myth of Completion"" — the belief that all of the Americas were under Spanish control within a few years after the initial contact. Restall claims that contrary to this belief pockets of indigenous peoples living without having been conquered subsisted for several centuries after the conquest - and arguably to this day. For example Tayasal, the last independent city of the Maya, did not fall under Spanish sway until 1697. In other areas of Latin America, Spanish control was never complete and rebellions were continuous. He shows that the colonization of the Americas did not happen as one fell swoop, but rather as a historical process starting centuries before the magic years of 1492 and 1521 and ending several centuries after. Chapter 5 deals with what Restall calls ""The Myth of (Mis)Communication"" — the beliefs that the Spaniards and natives had perfect communication and that each group understood the other's words and intentions unhindered, or alternatively that many of the crucial events of the conquest were a result of the two groups misunderstanding each other's intentions. Restall claims how communication between the groups were in fact very difficult at first, and that the rendering of passages of speech made by one group to the other in post-conquest sources cannot be understood as having been recorded "verbatim" even though it is understood and interpreted that way. But he also shows that the natives cannot be said to have crucially misunderstood or misinterpreted the Spaniards' intentions, but rather that they had a good understanding of how the Spanish worked at a very early stage in the conquest. Chapter 6 deals with what Restall calls ""The Myth of Native Desolation"" — the belief that the indigenous peoples of the Americas resigned to their fate, included themselves in the new European order and ceased to exist as ethnicities. He also argues that many of the indigenous peoples never felt "conquered" but rather that they had formed a partnership with a new power to both of their advantage - this for example was the case for most of the allied forces that helped Cortés defeat the Aztecs. Chapter 7 deals with what Restall calls ""The Myth of Superiority"" — the belief that the success of the Spanish conquest was due to either the supposed technological superiority of the Spaniards or a kind of inherent cultural superiority — and that Spanish victory was therefore inevitable. Restall claims that such technological advantages as handguns, cannons, steel armor, horses and dogs weren't of great consequence in the actual fighting since they were all in short supply, and that the Aztecs were not daunted by this new technology for long. He also refutes the notion that the Indians' lack of alphabetic writing constituted a major drawback. Nor were the Indians childlike, naive or cowardly in comparison with the Spanish such as many early Spanish sources have painted them. Restall argues that the factors behind the success of the conquistadors were mostly the devastating effect of European diseases for which the Indians had no resistance, the disunity between indigenous groups some of which allied with the Spaniards early, the technological advantage of the steel sword, native battle practices that were not upheld by the Spaniards — such as killing non-combatants and civilians, and most importantly the fact that the Indians were fighting on their own ground with their families and fields to care for, which made them quicker to compromise.  
With the arrival of the Spaniards most of the indigenous peoples plantations were used for the consumption of the Spaniards. The Spaniards then turned to violence, domination and submission of the indigenous peoples, forcing most of them into slavery based in systems like the "encomiendas". The indigenous peoples were also forced to work under the "Mita" in the 16th Century by the Spaniards and many illnesses brought by the Spaniards combined with the forced workload eliminated or greatly diminished the indigenous population in most of the country. The Spanish introduced a variety of European animal and plant species in Colombia intended for the production and later commercialization back to Spain, as the Spanish monarchy had adopted a mercantilist style of commerce. The Spaniards brought new livestock such as horses, cattle, goats, birds, most of these intended for the human consumption and for commerce. It also introduce agricultural plants such as cotton, coffee, sugar cane, tobacco, tea, sorghum, wheat, with the same purpose of supplying Spain solely. During the Early 17th Century the "Meztizaje" (mixing of races) forced the Spaniards to adopt a prohibition of forced labor for indigenous peoples created new forms of contracting workers. The land acquired more importance as the Spaniards realized the productivity and commercial advantage of these and they also introduced private property, to own and commercialize land. During the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries the Spaniards changed to "latifundios" ("haciendas" like Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino) and "minifundios". The latifundios were great extensions of land owned by a single or very few owners and workers lived in the "hacienda" solely for the production of food, while the "minifundios" were small pieces of land owned by peasants "mestizos" which overused it and unfertilized these. The indigenous population was forced out from the rural areas and into the urban villages. 