What factors and motivations led to Spanish and Portuguese expansion across the Atlantic Ocean?

What factors and motivations led to Spanish and Portuguese expansion across the Atlantic Ocean?
▪ In what ways did the indigenous peoples resist and adapt to the European conquest of their territories?
▪ What kinds of racial and social hierarchies existed in colonial Spanish and Portuguese America? How did they change, if at all, over time?
▪ What were the varied roles of the Catholic Church in colonial Latin America?
▪ What were the economic strategies of the Spaniards and Portuguese in the different regions of Latin America?

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