Spain has acknowledged and expressed regret over the \u201cpain and injustice\u201d suffered by the Indigenous people of Mexico during its conquest of the\u00a0Americas, heralding a shift in tone after six years of diplomatic spats over the abuses of the colonial period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In March 2019, Mexico\u2019s then president,\u00a0Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador\u00a0wrote to King Felipe VI and Pope Francis, who was then the leader of the world\u2019s Roman Catholics,\u00a0urging them to apologise\u00a0for the \u201cmassacres and oppression\u201d of colonialism and the conquest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The letter drew\u00a0an angry response\u00a0from the Spanish government, which said Spain\u2019s actions in Mexico 500 years ago could not be judged \u201cin the light of contemporary considerations\u201d and that the two countries\u2019 common history should be viewed \u201cwithout anger and from a shared perspective\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Friday, however, the Spanish government signalled a more conciliatory and penitent approach. Speaking at the inauguration of\u00a0an exhibition in Madrid dedicated to the Indigenous women of Mexico, Spain\u2019s foreign minister, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Albares, reflected on the countries\u2019 joint history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very human history and, like every human history, it\u2019s had its light and its shadows,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd there has also been pain \u2013 pain and injustice towards the Indigenous people to whom this exhibition is dedicated. There was injustice and it\u2019s right to recognise that today and to be sorry for that, because it is also part of our shared history, and we can neither deny nor forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His words came four days after Mexico\u2019s president, Claudia Sheinbaum,\u00a0renewed calls for an apology. \u201cWe agreed with the letter that was sent by president L\u00f3pez Obrador and we are still waiting for a reply,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sheinbaum welcomed Albares\u2019s comments, saying they went some way towards recognising the wrongs of the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a first step and it speaks to the importance of what we\u2019ve always said: that apologies ennoble governments and peoples,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not humiliating, it\u2019s just the opposite. Congratulations to the foreign minister of the Spanish government, particularly in this\u00a0Year of the Indigenous Woman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The conquest of\u00a0Mexico\u00a0began in 1519 when Hern\u00e1n Cort\u00e9s led hundreds of soldiers, equipped with horses, carrying diseases such as smallpox and abetted by Indigenous groups at odds with the Aztecs, to Mexico City, then known as Tenochtitl\u00e1n.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Spanish sacked the city two years later and proceeded to convert the Indigenous populations to Catholicism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spain has acknowledged and expressed regret over the \u201cpain and injustice\u201d suffered by the Indigenous people of Mexico during its conquest of the\u00a0Americas, heralding a shift in tone after six years of diplomatic spats over the abuses of the colonial period. In March 2019, Mexico\u2019s then president,\u00a0Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador\u00a0wrote to King Felipe VI and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":47341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[13369,7247,9678,10624,9331,11287,4024,12246,5345,2264,12380,7248,1510,5445,12379,12187,7296,1062,3805,10897,7217,5618,4293,10480,5273,5320,36,594],"class_list":["post-47340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-americas","tag-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador","tag-apology","tag-catholicism","tag-city","tag-claudia-sheinbaum","tag-common","tag-diplomatic","tag-foreign-minister","tag-government","tag-injustice","tag-lopez-obrador","tag-mexico","tag-mexico-city","tag-mexico-indigenous","tag-n","tag-pope","tag-pope-francis","tag-president","tag-roman","tag-sacked","tag-soldiers","tag-spain","tag-spanish","tag-woman","tag-women","tag-world","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47342,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47340\/revisions\/47342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}