The Spanish conquest of the Mayans is called to the prolonged war that occurred during the Spanish colonization of Mesoamerica, in which the conquerors and their allies gradually dominated the territory until then occupied by the Maya in what now corresponds to the Mexican states of Yucatán, Campeche , Quintana Roo and Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. The territorial conquest began at the beginning of the 16th century and concluded in 1697 with the defeat of the Itza people in the current Guatemalan Petén. The conquest of the Maya was hampered by their politically fragmented state. The Spanish and native technology and tactics were very different. The Spaniards used the strategy of concentrating native populations in newly founded colonial settlements; they considered the taking of prisoners as a hindrance to the final victory, while the Maya gave priority to capturing living prisoners and obtaining loot. Among the Maya, the ambush was a favored tactic; In response to the Spanish cavalry, the Maya of the highlands resorted to dig holes with wooden stakes. Many indigenous people resisted living in the new nucleated settlements, preferring to flee to inaccessible regions such as the jungle, or join neighboring Mayan groups that had not yet surrendered to the European conquerors. Spanish armament included swords, rapier, spears, pikes, halberds, crossbows, arcabuces and light artillery. Mayan warriors fought with flint-pointed spears, bows and arrows, stones and wore padded cotton armor to protect themselves. The Mayans not only lacked key elements of Old World technology, such as a functional wheel, horses, iron, steel and gunpowder, but were also very susceptible to Old World diseases against which they had no resistance.
The conquest of Peru is the historical process of annexation of the Inca Empire or Tahuantinsuyo to the Spanish Empire. It is considered that it began on November 16, 1532 when an Inca army met in Cajamarca with the Spanish conquerors led by Francisco Pizarro, shortly after the civil war between the two heirs to the Inca throne, Huáscar and Atahualpa (sons of the Inca Huayna Cápac). In that meeting, Atahualpa, who still celebrated his triumph over Huáscar, was taken prisoner by the Spaniards and months later executed, on July 26, 1533. Later the Spaniards, allied with the Canaris, Chachapoyas and other ethnic groups until then vassals of the Incas, they marched to Cuzco, the capital of the empire, where they entered on November 14, 1533 and proclaimed Manco Inca as a new Inca, with the intention of making him a puppet king. But soon Manco led a reconquest war, besieging Cusco and the newly founded city of Lima (1535). Although they caused great losses to the Spaniards, Manco finally had to retire to the rugged mountains of Vilcabamba, where he installed the headquarters of the Inca monarchy (1538), while the rest of the territory was occupied by the Spaniards, who carried out the process of settlement and colonization. The reign of these Incas of Vilcabamba would last until 1572, when the viceroy Francisco de Toledo would execute the last of them: Túpac Amaru I. The conquest of Peru then lasted forty years (1532-1572).
When Marx said that <span>"The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains" he meant that the common people of the word were already heavily disenfranchised, and only had opportunity to gain by switching from a capitalistic system to a communist one. </span><span />
