this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
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It was definitely more conquest than colonization.
The more interesting thing is that the Ummayads conquered most of Iberia in like 7-8 years. The Reconquista took 7 centuries and wasn't completed until 1492.
Incidentally some of the hardened veterans of the late Reconquista were the ones who would go on to annihilate the Aztec empire (didn't help that the Aztecs had a lot of surrounding nations that they had subjugated that hated them) and commit some of the worst atrocities in this history of European colonialism including treating the natives of the new world as slaves in their race for resource extraction.
The resources extracted in the new world would help build a lot of the nice architecture we see in modern day Spain, but it also cause inflation that destroyed Spain's productive economy.
Here's a video that explains that last part (to be taken with a huge grain of salt - lot of absolutes stated here, but the overall thing did happen):
https://youtu.be/Mqde3Oeo7Rg