How important was religious fundamentalism in Spanish culture as a factor of success in the conquest of the New World?

by SFGroggy

First read this thing I wrote.

https://www.reddit.com/r/althistory/comments/4yu5zf/what_if_the_conquistadors_lacked_religious/

So I am curious. Was religious fanaticism a definite important factor? Was it important enough that the Conquistadors could not have conquered the Aztecs, Incans, Mayans, and other civilizations without it even with all the lucky advantages they had (as I mentioned one source stated that in my link above)?

Or was Spain really destined to conquer the Americas even if it was never religious as the result of the Reconquista?

onetruepapist

/u/SFgroggy

"Destined", what a loaded word to use in this context. And are you asking people to read through your long, incoherent, unsourced ramble in another sub?

Spain's discovery and domination of the Americas is part luck, part inspiration, part brilliance. This has been discussed on AH multiple times, including here and here. The extent of the terrible crimes against native americans is also without question and is asked regularly here.

But as far as your insisting that Spain and the Catholic Church were to blame for this, you committed the gross error of failing to realize there was no such thing as a monolithic "Spanish empire" nor "evil profiteering papist church". There is no question that crimes were committed by persons claiming their authority from Spain and from the Catholic Church. But the reality of the attitude at the top levels of the Spanish monarchy and the Catholic Church was that they consistently advocated for the native americans.

Even starting with Isabella and Ferdinand, they instructed Columbus to treat the natives with love, and Columbus was arrested and brought back in chains partly due to his willing neglect of these instructions. Over successive monarchs, reforms were enacted that led to improved conditions for the native americans.

You have fallen squarely into the leyenda negra propaganda.

Want to know more? Kamen, "Spain's Road to Empire," 2003; Elliott, "Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830", 2006.

drylaw

Some main problems with your question have already been pointed out. I'd simply add that the premise of the question also seems highly speculative, which is not fit for this sub.

That said, in case you want to read more about connections between the reconquista (in medieval Iberia) and a Spanish "crusading spirit" in the Americas, here's an earlier post I wrote on the topic. The very short summary is

What I've tried to show here though is that the reconquista and its parallels with the crusades were extended to Ibero-America and transformed as important ideological features of early colonial life (at least in Mexico – but some parallels can surely be drawn e.g. to colonial Peru). This intellectual transmission can be seen in literature and art (e.g. with St. James „mataindios“), but also in religious and territorial concepts (see the requerimiento). The transformation of these medieval concepts would continue in New Spain with the conquistadors' decreasing influence towards the mid-16th century, and increasing importance of religious orders and gradually of creoles.