To protect the Spanish territory from the French :)
The Catholic church had entered a process in which it was gaining immense power, having influence in many government affairs and institutions. This started when the Roman Empire decided to adopt Catholicism as the official religion.
However, during the 16th century, the Renaissance, which was a philosophical current that focused on human development appeared. This brought many developments, particularly in literature and science. One of the key figures during this period was Nicolaus Copernicus, which published a series of works in which he claimed that the Sun, and not the Earth, was the center of the universe. These ideas were highly disruptive at the time and represented a threat to the Catholic Church, as they thought that the further spread of this way of thinking among the people will eventually lead them to lose power.
These two-way exchanges between the Americas and Europe/Africa are known collectively as the Columbian Exchange. Of all the commodities in the Atlantic World, sugar proved to be the most important.
