King Felipe says Spain’s conquest of the Americas involved 'much abuse' and ethical controversy

MADRID (AP) — Spain’s monarch said Monday the Spanish conquest of the Americas included “much abuse” and “ethical controversies,” striking a conciliatory tone in a yearslong row between Spain and Mexico over colonial era abuses committed by the Spanish crown centuries ago.

He made the remarks while speaking with Mexico’s ambassador to Spain, Quirino Ordaz, during a visit to a museum exhibition in Madrid about the role of women in pre-Columbian Mexico.

About the centuries-old Spanish conquest, Felipe VI said: “There are things that, when we study them, we come to know them, and well, with our current values, they obviously cannot make us feel proud.”

“But they must be understood in their proper context, not with excessive moral presentism, but with an objective and rigorous analysis,” he said.

The Bourbon king's symbolic remarks came after years of a diplomatic spat between Spain and Mexico over the Mexican government's demands that Spain apologize for its 1519-1521 conquest of Mexico, which resulted in the death of a large part of the country's pre-Hispanic population.

In 2019, former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador demanded that Spain “publicly and officially” recognize the abuses committed during the conquest of Mexico in a letter sent to the Spanish king and Pope Francis. Spain refused to do so, which resulted in worsening relations between the two governments.

In 2024, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum failed to invite King Felipe to her inauguration over the palace's refusal to issue a formal apology, a move that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called “unacceptable." Spain refused to send a representative to Sheinbaum's inauguration.

But tensions began to thaw last fall when Spain's Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares acknowledged the “pain and injustice” suffered by Mexico's Indigenous population at the hands of Spanish conquerors. Those comments came at the inauguration of the same museum exhibit attended by the king on Monday.

“There has been pain, pain and injustice toward the indigenous peoples to whom this exhibition is dedicated,” Albares said.

Sheinbaum recognized the foreign minister's remarks as a first step, saying then that “this is the first time that a Spanish government authority has spoken of regretting the injustice.”

Felipe's comments do not constitute a formal apology by Spain's royal palace. Sheinbaum on Monday said she needed to look into his remarks.