Felipe VI acknowledges that there were "abuses" in the conquest of America

MadridKing Felipe VI admitted in an informal conversation with the Mexican ambassador to Madrid, Quirino Ordaz, that Spain committed "many abuses" during the conquest of the Americas and that there were also "moral controversies," despite the Catholic Monarchs' "desire to protect." This is evident in a video posted by the Royal Household on its Instagram and X accounts, where he emphasizes the importance of historical knowledge. "We have to learn lessons. There have been moral controversies about how power is exercised from day one. The Catholic Monarchs, with their directives, had a desire to protect, but reality later showed that this wasn't fulfilled as intended, and there was a lot of abuse," he says in the video after visiting the exhibition "The Middle of the World: Women in Indigenous Mexico," on display at the National Archaeological Museum until March 22.

In this way, the monarch is drawing closer to the Mexican government, led by Claudia Sheinbaum, which since 2019 has formally demanded that Spain apologize for its colonial past and the excesses committed during the conquest of the Americas. In fact, the Spanish Royal Household was expressly excluded from Sheinbaum's inauguration because it had not responded to a request for an apology from her predecessor. The Spanish government, however, recently took a first step, and now the King himself has taken the next. Last October Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares acknowledged the "highlights and lows" in the history of the conquest of America, and admitted that "there has been pain and injustice towards the native peoples."