The Early Modern World - Spaniards and Mestizos

Interesting how the Spaniards conquered the Americas and how cruel they were to the natives, the Spanish Crown still encouraged settlers to marry into elite Indian families. Cortes, for example the conqueror of Mexico, fathered children with two of Moctezuma's daughters. This I found very interesting that during the next 300 years of the colonial era "mestizo" which is a mix of Spanish and Indian grew substantially becoming the majority of the population in Mexico in the nineteenth century.

Mestizos were largely Hispanic in culture, however the Spaniards still looked down at them. They regarded them as illegitimate for they were not born from "proper" marriages. Interesting, the mix of Spaniards with the Indians made was is now Mexico. The Spaniards treated the local natives very poorly and basically forced them to learn Spanish and into Christianity. They had to move to cities to work for wages, and their diet had changed. Maize, beans and squash was one of the Indian's main diet and is still today in Mexico. We use Maize for a lot of different foods like Tamales, tortillas, "Platillo de Maize". Still today we use these staple foods in my household. Beans and tortillas are always a must in every dish no matter what.

How the Europeans came to the Americas, and what the indigenous peoples had to go through, all the suffering, diseases, forced into labor and ripping them from their own unique world of living. To me it is very cruel. Today, even though a special set of political rights have been set by International organizations such as the United Nations to protect the Indigenous peoples, still you can see the effects of what played out in the past.

When I look back and see how human kind has been very cruel to one another just for ones own benefit and "power", I find it hard to come to a realization that, we as humans have a long way to go in just being kind to one another. As you learn about history of the world, and how humans have behaved, it just does not make sense to me. We all should be one and be kind to one another for there is only one World and we need each other to survive and evolve as humans to our next world.