Spain expresses regret over ‘injustice’ suffered by Mexico’s Indigenous people during conquest

Aztec dancers perform a ritual to receive the sun's energy as they celebrate the spring equinox in Teotihuacán, Mexico. Photograph: Marco Ugarte/AP

Spain has acknowledged and expressed regret over the “pain and injustice” suffered by the Indigenous people of Mexico during its conquest of the Americas, heralding a shift in tone after six years of diplomatic spats over the abuses of the colonial period.

In March 2019, Mexico’s then president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote to King Felipe VI and Pope Francis, who was then the leader of the world’s Roman Catholics, urging them to apologise for the “massacres and oppression” of colonialism and the conquest.