Rationales for conquest

Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis, 9/20/2025

As we discussed earlier (The infamous Requerimiento), bringing Christianity to pagan natives was one of the official rationales for Spanish conquests in the New World. For the Catholic church’s representatives among the invading forces, there no doubt was a genuine desire to save souls. For others, it was the lure of controlling land and profiting from slave labor. Some might have claimed it was the preordained destiny of Spain to conquer new worlds. Conquerers have always tried to put some kind of gloss on their projects to subjugate other peoples for personal or national gain. There may even be some benefit for the conquered people. The Spaniards at least ended the widespread Aztec practice of human sacrifices. But that was only a byproduct of the real motivations for the conquest of Mexico and other territories in the New World: the lust for riches and the control of new lands and peoples. To my mind, the oddest thing about the human lust for wealth and power is that it seems to be insatiable. The more some people gain of both, the more they want or think they need. It’s no different today.