Building a Catholic Empire
This chapter begins with the Castilian conquest and colonization of the Canary Islands, which deployed a medieval model that had been carried over to the Americas by Columbus. When the Aragonese pope Alexander VI granted half the globe for Spanish missionary work and imperial expansion, Isabella and Ferdinand lacked the policies, institutions, and laws to rule over native peoples who did not live like European Catholics. They also struggled to maintain control over their Spanish colonists, who often abandoned the new settlements to explore, plunder, and raid for slaves in other places. The chapter follows one of these wayward colonists, Francisco Pizarro, from Hispaniola to Panama and on to the exploration of the Pacific coast of South America. As Charles V attempted to establish law and order in his American colonies—and to face the challenges of the Protestant Reformation—he granted Pizarro permission to colonize Peru, a rich, civilized realm that had been contacted during a rare moment of success in the conquistador’s otherwise disastrous expeditions on the Peruvian coast.