MADRID\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Spain\u2019s monarch said Monday the Spanish conquest of the Americas included \u201cmuch abuse\u201d and \u201cethical controversies,\u201d striking a conciliatory tone amid a yearslong row between Spain and Mexico over colonial era abuses committed by the Spanish crown centuries ago.<\/p>\n
King Felipe VI made the remarks while speaking with Mexico\u2019s ambassador to Spain, Quirino Ordaz, during a visit to a museum exhibition in Madrid about the role of women in pre-Columbian Mexico.<\/p>\n
About the centuries-old Spanish conquest, Felipe said: \u201cThere are things that, when we study them, we come to know them, and well, with our current values, they obviously cannot make us feel proud.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cBut they must be understood in their proper context, not with excessive moral presentism, but with an objective and rigorous analysis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Bourbon king\u2019s symbolic remarks came after years of a diplomatic spat between Spain and Mexico over the Mexican government\u2019s demands that Spain apologize for its 1519-1521 conquest of Mexico, which resulted in the death of a large part of the country\u2019s pre-Hispanic population.<\/p>\n
Colonial Spain ruled one of the largest empires in history with its territorial holdings spanning 5 continents at its peak between the 16th and 18th centuries. That included much of Central and South America.<\/p>\n
Mexico City was the seat of Spain\u2019s colonial power in the Americas after the Spanish and their Indigenous allies toppled the Aztecs in 1521. Mexico City was built over the ruins of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.<\/p>\n
In 2019, former Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador demanded that Spain \u201cpublicly and officially\u201d recognize the abuses committed during the conquest of Mexico in a letter sent to the Spanish king and Pope Francis. Spain refused to do so, which soured relations between the two governments.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum did not invite Felipe to her inauguration over the palace\u2019s refusal to issue a formal apology, a move that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez called \u201cunacceptable.\u201d Spain refused to send a representative to Sheinbaum\u2019s inauguration.<\/p>\n
But tensions appeared to thaw last fall when Spain\u2019s Foreign Minister Jos\u00e9 Manuel Albares acknowledged the \u201cpain and injustice\u201d suffered by Mexico\u2019s Indigenous population at the hands of Spanish conquerors. Those comments came at the inauguration of the same museum exhibit attended Monday by the king.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been pain, pain and injustice toward the indigenous peoples to whom this exhibition is dedicated,\u201d Albares said at the time. <\/p>\n
Sheinbaum recognized the foreign minister\u2019s remarks as a first step, saying then that \u201cthis is the first time that a Spanish government authority has spoken of regretting the injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Felipe\u2019s comments do not constitute a formal apology by Spain\u2019s royal palace. Sheinbaum on Monday said she would look into his remarks. <\/p>\n
Naishadham writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Spain\u2019s monarch said Monday the Spanish conquest of the Americas included \u201cmuch abuse\u201d and \u201cethical controversies,\u201d striking a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5312],"tags":[1213,238437,2000,299,199960,238440,197798,15277,2132,1327,238438,1586,49601,51593,238439,104,238441],"class_list":["post-830799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-americas","tag-conquest","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-felipe","tag-inauguration","tag-injustice","tag-king","tag-mexico","tag-monday","tag-much-abuse","tag-pain","tag-palace","tag-remark","tag-sheinbaum","tag-spain","tag-spanish-conquest"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116242073843797479","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}