The intentions of the Spanish were to both acquire wealth in the form of gold, as well as convert the Aztec people to the Christian faith during their conquest of Mexico. However, the Spaniards became engulfed in their own greed, and in the end gold became their main obsession. Being the highly religious people that the Spaniards were, converting the Indians into Christians in order to ‘save their souls’ was important to them, thinking the Indians’ polytheistic religion was inferior to their own. After victory in the wars that usually ensued while trying to forcefully convert the natives, the Spaniards became accustomed to receiving many gifts as peace offerings from the Caciques of the tribes. This was a major factor in lighting a fire under the Spaniards’ ever-increasing greed for more gold. Based on these facts and events, along with others that I will discuss, the lust for gold was clearly of more importance to the Conquistadors than was the converting of the Indians to Christianity. To begin, the only reason Diego Velazquez originally sends Cortes’ expedition to New Spain is because previous trips, such as the one by Francisco Hernandez, had returned a great deal of gold to him. This message of a land full

"Another thing Cortes asked of them was that they abandon their idols and sacrifices"" (p. An example is when they are speaking with the Cempoalans and Diaz exclaims ""he had already told them to stop their sacrifices to these evil images and that we were going to get rid of them in order to save them from their false beliefs" (p. Everyone including the already wealthy citizens who held high positions in the community, to the poorest peasant who could barely support himself wanted very badly to, in some way, be a part of the expedition of Cortes. Montezuma"tms kidnap had little to do with religion and a great deal to do with finding out where the Aztecs kept their gold and treasure. This left all the poor men who came on the journey in the hope of becoming rich just as poor as ever, if not poorer, with many large debts to pay for items and services incurred during the expedition. Some soldiers who were too poor to return home decided instead to settle in the area and make a living from the land and agriculture. I do concede that when Cortes and the Spaniards do bring up the subject of the Indians converting, they usually do put strong effort into conveying how much it would better the lives of the natives. Although this contained many intricately crafted gold figures and jewelry, the Spaniards were merely interested in the gold"tms net worth, so they melted almost all of it down into stamped bars to be sent to the King. Only after all this had taken place did Cortes inform them of his desire to make Christians out of them. ""They tortured Guatemoc and the lord of Tacuba by burning their feet with oil, and extorted the confession that four days before they had thrown the gold into the lake"" (p. The Spaniards met and dealt with many different Indian groups along their voyage, but the events that occurred with each were very similar. This incident, like many others, ended in battle and bloodshed, with the Spaniards claiming victory. So, as the story is ended only on the note of how much wealth, or the lack thereof, each conquistador came away with, it is hard to understand anyone who argues that the conversion of the Indians to Christianity was more important to the Spaniards than was the acquisition of gold. of riches then spread, and soon ""those settlers and soldiers who possessed no Indians were eager and greedy to go" (p.