The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the Americas during the Age of Discoveries. Seeing a great opportunity, the Spanish didn't wasted any time when it came to exploring and conquering in the Americas.
In very short space of time, the Spanish manged to conquer enormous amounts of land in South, Central, and North America. During this conquests though, the native populations of those regions suffered badly.
Big portion of the native population died out without even engaging into military conflict, as the Spanish brought diseases with them that were killing off the natives because their immune system was not able to cope with them.
The civilizations that exist were directly destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors, and lot of people were killed in the process. By destroying the civilizations, lot of Native American cultures got lost in time and seized to exist.
The surviving Native Americans were often discriminated, and they were set he lowest in the hierarchy, also often being used as slaves.
When the Europeans started mixing with the natives, the genome was also affected, and new ethnic entity occurred, called mestizo.
