"" The main goals in the expansion were to Christianize the Indians, to gain trading power, to expand their empire, and of course, to gain the great mineral wealth of the Americans. This mineral wealth included vast amounts of gold and silver ore. The Spaniards took the gold and silver ore back to Spain which contributed to the country's wealth, helping it to further expand.
The Spanish thought the Aztecs were not as developed as themselves because they did not have the same level of culture in the eyes of the Spanish. The Aztecs did not have weapons, ships, or other technological advances that the Spanish had. The Spanish were able to conquer the Aztecs because the Aztecs did not have the modern advances.
Exploration and expansion is a part of being modern because without new technology it is impossible to be knowledgeable and powerful in today's world. For places and items to be discovered people have to explore new land. When the New World was being discovered, the Old World was only trading within the Old World. They had no global trade established and did not yet know about what the New World had to offer. .
When the New World was discovered new resources were discovered and the Spaniards saw an opportunity to explore and expand the Spanish Empire. When people explore and discover, their knowledge is built up as well. They discover things about other cultures and their way of life. .
One of the reasons countries explored and expanded was in order to gain additional natural resources and power. The explorers were not concerned about the people who were already living in the areas they were exploring. Their main goal was to gain land, resources, and most importantly, power. Certain natural resources were only found in certain parts of the world. So in order to have those certain resources in your nation and have power over trading and other countries, exploring new land was key. .
The importance of the exploration was to make the nation richer and to make their economy better with the resources that the Spaniards picked up from Mexico.
