Spanish Conquest · War Crimes & Atrocities
The conquest was prosecuted with deliberate, calculated terror, and its perpetrators documented it themselves — the massacres at Cholula and Cajamarca appear in Cortés's and Pizarro's own dispatches, described as prudent measures. It also produced Europe's first sustained argument about whether any of it was legitimate: Bartolomé de las Casas, who had held an encomienda before turning against the system, catalogued the killing in detail and argued the indigenous case at Valladolid in 1550. His account was later seized on by Spain's Protestant rivals to build the 'Black Legend' of uniquely Spanish cruelty — a distortion that has made honest accounting harder in both directions, since the atrocities were entirely real and the Spanish were not uniquely capable of them. Atrocity was not incidental to this conquest. It was the method: terror travelled faster than the column and did the work that 900 men could not.
4,000+
deaths
Victims: The nobility and population of Cholula, a sacred city(Estimates range from about 3,000 to 6,000 killed in roughly two days)
600+
deaths
Victims: Unarmed Mexica nobility and celebrants at a religious festival(Accounts vary from several hundred to several thousand)
100,000+
deaths
Victims: The civilian population of a city of some 200,000(Deaths from hunger, thirst, and disease during the 93-day siege; estimates vary widely)
70+
deaths
Victims: Spanish prisoners and their indigenous allies taken alive in the siege(Spanish accounts describe dozens over the course of the siege; exact numbers are uncertain)
Victims: The captured Huey Tlatoani and the lord of Tacuba
3,000+
deaths
Victims: Atahualpa's unarmed retinue in the square at Cajamarca(Spanish accounts claim 6,000–7,000; modern estimates are typically lower, around 2,000–5,000)
1+
deaths
Victims: The Sapa Inca, after his ransom had been paid in full
Victims: Bound indigenous prisoners, lords, and suspected rebels(Never systematically counted; documented across Mexico, Central America, and Peru)
Victims: The written record of Mesoamerican civilisation(The auto-da-fé at Maní also tortured and killed an unknown number of Maya during the accompanying inquisition)
Victims: Conscripted indigenous labourers from across the Andean highlands(Deaths in the mines and the mercury works at Huancavelica ran into the hundreds of thousands over two centuries)