After the new sea route was opened, the first country to invade Latin America was

Portugal and Spain conquered and plundered before other European countries, and the two countries declared the places they first arrived as their own territories

After the opening of new sea routes and the discovery of the New World, In the period of primitive accumulation, the emerging bourgeoisie, declining nobles and merchants, with the support of various dynasties, rushed to Asia, Africa and the Americas to carry out colonial conquest and plunder. Portugal and Spain conquered and plundered before other European countries. The two countries declared the places they first arrived as their own territories. As a result, the two countries had a dispute over the territories. Pope Alexander VI then intervened to mediate. The two sides A treaty was signed in June 1494, drawing a dividing line from the North Pole to the South Pole 2,220 kilometers west of the Cape Verde Islands, called the "Papal Meridian." The treaty stipulated that the non-Christian lands found west of this line were owned by Spain. Eastern Portugal. When Magellan arrived at the Molucca Islands on his voyage, he had conflicts over the ownership of the islands. In 1529, the two sides signed another treaty in Zaragoza and drew another dividing line 17 degrees east of the Moluccas. According to these two agreements, Spain had almost exclusive control of the Americas, and Portugal placed Asia and Africa under its sphere of influence. This was the first colonial partition in world history.

Soon after Columbus arrived in America, the Spanish began to invade the American continent. In the first decade of the sixteenth century, it first occupied the Caribbean and the West Indies, established colonial strongholds in Saint-Domingue on the island of Haiti and islands such as Jamaica, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, and then further invaded the vast Central and South America. By the mid-16th century, with the exception of Portuguese Brazil, the entire Central and South American continent was basically conquered by the Spanish, stretching from Mexico in the north to Cape Horn at the southern tip of Argentina. The conquest is the most typical. (Conquests by Cortes and Pizarro)

After the Spanish conquered Central and South America, they established colonial governments there, stationed governors, and implemented direct rule. Subsequently, the Spanish immigrated in large numbers. By 1574 the total number reached 150,000, and Spanish nobles, monks, merchants and other adventurers seized land there and became the owners of large estates. The original owners of the land were reduced to serfs or slaves. The colonists implemented slavery in plantations and gold and silver mines, brutally oppressed and exploited the Indians, resulting in a sharp decline in the Indian population. For example: when Spain invaded Jamaica in 1503, the island There were about 300,000 inhabitants, but in 1548 they were almost extinct. By the mid-sixteenth century (1541), it was estimated that 15 million Indians in the Spanish colonies had been wiped out.