ABSTRACT
The conquest of the Americas by Spain and Portugal was the extension of a reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula that had been occurring in the mother countries for the preceding seven centuries. The conquest of the Americas was one of the great epic adventures of all time; its impact was worldwide. From Mexico Cortez's lieutenants fanned out to conquer Central America and the American Southwest. In less than a hundred years from the initial discovery, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and all of South America, east to west and north to south, had been conquered. The institutions that Spain and, less aggressively, Portugal brought to the New World reflected the institutions that had grown up in the mother countries during their centuries-long struggles against the Moors and their efforts to form unified nation states out of disparate social and regional forces. The immediate causes of Latin American independence were precipitated by events in Europe.
