The first gold to be taken from the early colonies while torturing the natives was used to gild the Santa Maria Cathedral in Rome.
The staggering quantity of gold the conquistadors extracted from the Americas allowed Spain to become the richest country in the world. The thirst for gold to pay for armies and gain personal enrichment resulted in waves of expeditions of discovery and conquest from 1492 onwards. In only the first half-century or so of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, over 100 tons of gold were extracted from the continent.
In melting down this glittering metal, the conquistadors left behind a trail of death, torture, and destruction. The conquistadors massively reduced the number of artefacts which may have otherwise survived to this day, artefacts which could have spoken of the religious, cultural, and artistic significance their creators had once given them. It had been their hope that their choice of incorruptible gold would make these objects endure for generations, instead, it sealed their fate to be lost forever.
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2045/the-gold-of-the-conquistadors/
