Logan Schroeder

Representing Spanish Identity

In the late 1400s and early 1500s, Spain was a global superpower. Fearlessly led by the

Catholic Kings, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the country was the wealthiest and most

powerful in all the land. Throughout their reign, they funded multiple expeditions to find new

trade routes, one of which accidently discovered a “new” continent, and began to exploit its

inhabitants for their own, personal gain. Two of the people who were absolutely essential for

this mass abuse of entire civilizations were Christopher Columbus and Hernando Cortez.

Columbus began his journey in 1492, landing in the present-day Caribbean. In 1520, after the

colonization of the land and the mass genocide of the natives by Columbus, Cortez sailed north

to present-day Mexico City where he continued Columbus’ vision, taking every ounce of gold

the natives possessed while murdering countless people along the way. Both of these men,

righteous and holy as they were, were doing all of their work in the name of God, and for His

holy country, Spain. While both Columbus and Cortez are the epitome Spanish Identity, due to

differences in using Divine Providence to justify violence, and the differences in success in

finding gold and increasing their wealth and power, Hernando Cortez is a better representation

of true Spanish Identity than Christopher Columbus.

The myth of Spanish identity is rooted in being Catholic and pure, and it all started with

the 700 year battle between the Catholics and the Moors (Muslims) for the Iberian Peninsula.

This battle, known as the Reconquista for the Catholic re-conquest of Spain, was begun by a

man named Pelayo. Pelayo was the king of a northern tribe on the Peninsula, and although he
was solely fighting for more territory and power, the story morphed to turn him into the hero

that began the quest for a new, Catholic Spain. When the Catholic Kings wed, they were able to

use this story to unite all of the Visigoth tribes of the peninsula to fight with each other to

remove the Moors from the land. Fortunately, there were many signs from the Lord to inspire

the freedom fighters and remind them that they are doing His will. The bones of Santiago, one

of the twelve apostles of Jesus, were discovered in Spain during the war. They acted as a

physical symbol that God wanted the united Catholic tribes to continue fighting. Legend tells

that Santiago, also known as the Moor Slayer, descended from the sky on a white horse to help

the Spanish win one of the battles of the Reconquista, slaying 5000 Moors along the way.

Religious military institutions began to arise in Santiago’s name with the purpose on protecting

Christendom and remove the Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula. By removing all of the

Muslims, Spain was able to become a pure, Catholic nation. This was the will of God, and they

had multiple signs and reasons to show it. By the end of the war, the idea of being pure and

Catholic was so embedded in their identities that they believed that all of their actions were

truly justified by God. They had the Divine Providence to do whatever they pleased because

they were God’s people and they were doing it all for them. These are the same principles that

Columbus and Cortez use to justify the abuse and extermination of large civilizations of people

in the accounts of their journeys, known as the Cronicas.

Through the mass murder and disease epidemics that ran rampant in the New World

upon the arrival of the Spaniards, it is easy to say that violence is a key theme throughout both

the Columbus and Cortez narrative. However, all of their actions are justified through the Divine

Providence set forth by their pure Catholicism, an essential theme to Spanish Identity that
justified all of the actions of the Reconquista, Inquisition, and explorations of the New World.

Columbus shows his Divine Providence through the quote “(the natives) should be good

servants and intelligent, for I observed that they quickly took in what was said to them, and I

believe that they would easily be made Christians, as it appeared to me that they had no

religion” (Columbus, 3). Because it appears that these people do not have a religion, they are

not truly people. Columbus fully believes, because he is Christian and they are not, that he has

full dominion of them to do whatever he pleases. He states that they are intelligent creatures,

capable of learning things quickly, making them perfect slaves. He believes that he has the right

to tie seven of them up and take them back to Spain to show the world, unless the king wants

them all to be imprisoned in their own land. Just as the Catholics in Spain had the right to kick

out the Muslims and Jews from the Iberian Peninsula for the sole reason of not being Catholic,

the natives had no rights in the presence of the Spaniards. Columbus used his power through

Divine Providence to enslave the natives and convert them to Christianity.

Although Columbus is using the his Divine Providence to justify the enslavement of the

natives, Cortez is a true representation of Divine Providence by using it to justify the

kidnapping, and possible murder, of the native’s king. “Trusting in the greatness of God, I

proposed to go and see him (Montezuma) wherever he might be…I assured your Highness that

he should be taken either dead or alive, or become a subject to the royal throne of your

Majesty” (Cortez, 1). This quote is an example of the extreme lengths that Cortez is will to go to

while justifying his actions in the church. He is telling the king that he trusts God and he thinks

that Montezuma should be killed or made a slave to the throne of Spain. How could the king

possibly refute this? Cortez is using the power of the church to justifying his actions to the king,
knowing that if the king were to disagree he would be going against God’s orders. (This is an

exceptionally powerful argument because the Spaniards treat their king like he is God. By

disagreeing with Cortez, he is essentially going against his own will.) He is using his Divine

Providence to justify his plans for Montezuma, when his true motives are completely different.

Cortez wants Montezuma out of power so that he can become the ruler of the Aztec

civilization, obtain all of their gold, and finally have the wealth and power that he has been

searching for since abandoning his post months earlier. Although both Columbus and Cortez

demonstrate using Divine Providence to justify their violent actions, Cortez is a better

representation of Spanish Identity because he uses that power for more violence and the

progression of his own, personal goals.

If each of these noble, pure, Catholic Spaniards have their actions justified through

Divine Providence, something has to set them apart from each other. The extreme egocentrism

that the Spaniards possessed caused the possession of wealth and power to be another critical

component of Spanish Identity. Columbus wrote about gold in the following manner: “(Gold) is

worn on the arms and legs; and it must be gold, for they point to some pieces that I can

have...with the help of our Lord, (I can) find out where this gold has its origin” (Columbus, 6).

During Columbus’s time in the New World, he never finds the city of gold that he was searching

for. This quote encompasses him praying to the Lord, hoping he can find the origin of the Gold.

Without it, his expedition would be worth nothing. He may have been given credit for

discovering the New World and given many riches because of it, but gold and wealth is such a

crucial part of Spanish Identity that it is not enough. There is significance in the phrase “and it

must be gold” because Columbus is trying to reassure himself that he is not going crazy.
Expedition after expedition, he is left empty handed. He is trying to convince himself, and the

king, that the city of gold is real and he is going to be the person to find it. It is so prevalent in

their identity, that without it, Columbus is not the true Spaniard and explorer that he could be,

and it is evident that it distresses him.

Although Columbus continues his search for gold for as long as he can, he is unable to

find the city of gold and lives out the rest of his life knowing that he missed an opportunity to

rise in the ranks as a leader and a Spaniard due to the immense amounts of gold he would

have. On the contrary, Cortez found more gold than he thought possible. “I requested that…he

would point out to me the mines from which the gold was obtained; to which he consented

with the greatest readiness, saying it would give him great pleasure to do so” (Cortez, 5). There

are two important concepts can be taken from this one sentence: 1) Cortez has found real gold,

and an extreme abundance of it, and 2) He has so much power that the leader of the Aztec

civilization took great pleasure in giving it all to Cortez. He continues on to discuss how they are

able to obtain all of the gold using simple Indian tools, implying how much better the Spanish

would be able to obtain the gold, and giving himself more power over the natives. He has taken

control of Montezuma and the Aztec empire, and the gold that he now possesses increases his

wealth, power, and success back in Spain. Where Columbus found nothing, Cortez found great

wealth. Because of his success, Cortez is a better representation of Spanish Identity than

Columbus.

Two central themes of Spanish Identity are Divine Providence and the Spaniards ability

to use it to justify the actions they make, and building wealth and success as their expand their

rule conquering new lands. Columbus used his Divine Providence to justify the enslavement of
the natives because of their differences, but Cortez used it to capture the Aztec leader and

exploit an entire society of people. While Columbus spend many expeditions search for the gold

that thought was there, Cortez found a vast amount of gold, and used it to propel him to the

top of social hierarchy. In both of these cases, Cortez is a better representation of Spanish

Identity than Columbus. Although each of these events are currently seen as unthinkable, at the

time these two men embodied and encapsulated everything that it meant to be a Spaniard.

Luckily, most of us have raised our standards since then.