Conquistadores

Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, Oceania, Africa, and Asia, colonizing and opening trade routes. They brought much of the Americas under the dominion of Spain and Portugal.

After arrival in the West Indies in 1492, the Spanish, usually led by hidalgos from the west and south of Spain, began building an American empire in the Caribbean using islands such as Hispaniola, Cuba, and Puerto Rico as bases. From 1519 to 1521, Hernán Cortés waged a campaign against the Aztec Empire, ruled by Moctezuma II. From the territories of the Aztec Empire, conquistadors expanded Spanish rule to northern Central America and parts of what is now the southern and western United States, and from Mexico sailing the Pacific Ocean to the Philippines. Other conquistadors took over the Inca Empire after crossing the Isthmus of Panama and sailing the Pacific to northern Peru. As Francisco Pizarro subdued the empire, in a manner similar to Cortés, other conquistadores used Peru as a base for conquering much of Ecuador and Chile. Central Colombia, home of the Muisca was conquered by licentiate Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, and its northern regions were explored by Rodrigo de Bastidas, Alonso de Ojeda, Juan de la Cosa, Pedro de Heredia and others. For southwestern Colombia, Bolivia, and Argentina, conquistadors from Peru combined parties with other conquistadors arriving more directly from the Caribbean and Río de la Plata-Paraguay respectively. All these conquests founded the basis for modern Hispanic America and the Hispanophone.

Spanish conquistadors also made significant explorations into the Amazon Jungle, Patagonia, the interior of North America, and the discovery and exploration of the Pacific Ocean. Conquistadors founded numerous cities, some of them in locations with pre-existing settlements, Manila and Mexico City.

Conquistadors in the service of the Portuguese Crown led numerous conquests for the Portuguese Empire across South America and Africa, as well as commercial colonies in Asia, founding the origins of modern Portuguese-speaking world in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Notable Portuguese conquistadors include Afonso de Albuquerque who led conquests across India, the Persian Gulf, the East Indies, and East Africa, and Filipe de Brito e Nicote who led conquests into Burma.

Conquest

Portugal established a route to China in the early 16th century, sending ships via the southern coast of Africa and founding numerous coastal enclaves along the route. Following the discovery in 1492 by Spaniards of the New World with Italian explorer Christopher Columbus' first voyage there and the first circumnavigation of the world by Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1521, expeditions led by conquistadors in the 16th century established trading routes linking Europe with all these areas.

The Age of Exploration was hallmarked in 1519, shortly after Europe's discovery of the Americas, when Fernando Cortés begins his expedition on the Aztecan Empire. As the Spaniards, motivated by gold and fame, established relations and war with the Aztecs, the slow progression of conquest, erection of towns, and cultural dominance over the natives brought more Spanish troops and support to modern-day Mexico. As trading routes over the seas were established by the works of Columbus, Magellan, and Elcano, land support system was established as the trails of Cortés' conquest to the capital.

Human infections gained worldwide transmission vectors for the first time: from Africa and Eurasia to the Americas and ''vice versa''. The spread of old-world diseases, including smallpox, flu and typhus, led to the deaths of many indigenous inhabitants of the New World.

In the 16th century perhaps 240,000 Spaniards entered American ports. By the late 16th century gold and silver imports from America provided one-fifth of Spain's total budget.

Background

Contrary to popular belief, the conquistadors were not trained warriors, but mostly artisans seeking an opportunity to advance their wealth and fame. A few also had crude firearms known as arquebus. Their units (''compañia'') would often specialize in forms of combat that required long periods of training that were too costly for informal groups. Their armies were mostly composed of Spanish, as well as soldiers from other parts of Europe and Africa.

Native allied troops were largely infantry equipped with armament and armour that varied geographically. Some groups consisted of young men without military experience, Catholic clergy who helped with administrative duties, and soldiers with military training. These native forces often included African slaves and Native Americans, some of whom were also slaves. They were not only made to fight in the battlefield but also to serve as interpreters, informants, servants, teachers, physicians, and scribes. India Catalina and Malintzin were Native American women slaves who were forced to work for the Spaniards.

Castilian law prohibited foreigners and non-Catholics from settling in the New World. However, not all conquistadors were Castilian. Many foreigners Hispanicised their names and/or converted to Catholicism to serve the Castilian Crown. For example, Ioánnis Fokás (known as Juan de Fuca) was a Castilian of Greek origin who discovered the strait that bears his name between Vancouver Island and Washington state in 1592. German-born Nikolaus Federmann, Hispanicised as Nicolás de Federmán, was a ''conquistador'' in Venezuela and Colombia. The Venetian Sebastiano Caboto was Sebastián Caboto, Georg von Speyer Hispanicised as Jorge de la Espira, Eusebio Francesco Chini Hispanicised as Eusebio Kino, Wenceslaus Linck was Wenceslao Linck, Ferdinand Konščak, was Fernando Consag, Amerigo Vespucci was Américo Vespucio, and the Portuguese Aleixo Garcia was known as Alejo García in the Castilian army.

The origin of many people in mixed expeditions was not always distinguished. Various occupations, such as sailors, fishermen, soldiers and nobles employed different languages (even from unrelated language groups), so that crew and settlers of Iberian empires recorded as Galicians from Spain were actually using Portuguese, Basque, Catalan, Italian and Languedoc languages, which were wrongly identified.

Castilian law banned Spanish women from travelling to America unless they were married and accompanied by a husband. Women who travelled thus include María de Escobar, María Estrada, Marina Vélez de Ortega, Marina de la Caballería, Francisca de Valenzuela, Catalina de Salazar. Some conquistadors married Native American women or had illegitimate children.

European young men enlisted in the army because it was one way out of poverty. Catholic priests instructed the soldiers in mathematics, writing, theology, Latin, Greek, and history, and wrote letters and official documents for them. King's army officers taught military arts. An uneducated young recruit could become a military leader, elected by their fellow professional soldiers, perhaps based on merit. Others were born into hidalgo families, and as such they were members of the Spanish nobility with some studies but without economic resources. Even some rich nobility families' members became soldiers or missionaries, but mostly not the firstborn heirs.

The two most famous conquistadors were Hernán Cortés who conquered the Aztec Empire and Francisco Pizarro who led the conquest of the Inca Empire. They were second cousins born in Extremadura, where many of the Spanish conquerors were born.
Catholic religious orders that participated and supported the exploration, evangelizing and pacifying, were mostly Dominicans, Carmelites, Franciscans and Jesuits, for example Francis Xavier, Bartolomé de Las Casas, Eusebio Kino, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza or Gaspar da Cruz. In 1536, Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas went to Oaxaca to participate in a series of discussions and debates among the Bishops of the Dominican and Franciscan orders. The two orders had very different approaches to the conversion of the Indians. The Franciscans used a method of mass conversion, sometimes baptizing many thousands of Indians in a day. This method was championed by prominent Franciscans such as Toribio de Benavente.

The conquistadors took many different roles, including religious leader, harem keeper, King or Emperor, deserter and Native American warrior. '' Caramuru'' was a Portuguese settler in the Tupinambá Indians. Gonzalo Guerrero was a Maya war leader for Nachan can, Lord of Chactemal. Gerónimo de Aguilar, who had taken holy orders in his native Spain, was captured by Maya lords too, and later was a soldier with Hernán Cortés. Francisco Pizarro had children with more than 40 women. The chroniclers Pedro Cieza de León, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Diego Durán, Juan de Castellanos and friar Pedro Simón wrote about the Americas.

After Mexico fell, Hernán Cortés's enemies Bishop Fonseca, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, Diego Columbus and Francisco Garay were mentioned in Cortés' fourth letter to the King in which he describes himself as the victim of a conspiracy.

The division of the booty produced bloody conflicts, such as the one between Pizarro and De Almagro. After present-day Peruvian territories fell to Spain, Francisco Pizarro dispatched ''El Adelantado'', Diego de Almagro, before they became enemies to the Inca Empire's northern city of Quito to claim it. Their fellow conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar, who had gone forth without Pizarro's approval, had already reached Quito. The arrival of Pedro de Alvarado from the lands known today as Mexico in search of Inca gold further complicated the situation for De Almagro and Belalcázar. De Alvarado left South America in exchange for monetary compensation from Pizarro. De Almagro was executed in 1538, by Hernando Pizarro's orders. In 1541 Lima, supporters of Diego Almagro II assassinated Francisco Pizarro. In 1546, De Belalcázar ordered the execution of Jorge Robledo, who governed a neighbouring province in yet another land-related vendetta. De Belalcázar was tried in absentia, convicted and condemned for killing Robledo and for other offenses pertaining to his involvement in the wars between armies of conquistadors. Pedro de Ursúa was killed by his subordinate Lope de Aguirre who crowned himself king while searching for ''El Dorado''. In 1544, Lope de Aguirre and Melchor Verdugo (a ''converso'' Jew) were at the side of Peru's first viceroy Blasco Núñez Vela, who had arrived from Spain with orders to implement the New Laws and suppress the encomiendas. Gonzalo Pizarro, another brother of Francisco Pizarro, rose in revolt, killed viceroy Blasco Núñez Vela and most of his Spanish army in the battle in 1546, and Gonzalo attempted to have himself crowned king.

The Emperor commissioned bishop Pedro de la Gasca to restore the peace, naming him president of the '' Audiencia'' and providing him with unlimited authority to punish and pardon the rebels. Gasca repealed the New Laws, the issue around which the rebellion had been organized. Gasca convinced Pedro de Valdivia, explorer of Chile, Alonso de Alvarado another searcher for ''El Dorado'', and others that if he were unsuccessful, a royal fleet of 40 ships and 15,000 men was preparing to sail from Seville in June.

History

Early Portuguese period

Infante Dom Henry the Navigator of Portugal, son of King João I, became the main sponsor of exploration travels. In 1415, Portugal conquered Ceuta, its first overseas colony.

Throughout the 15th century, Portuguese explorers sailed the coast of Africa, establishing trading posts for tradable commodities such as firearms, spices, silver, gold, and slaves crossing Africa and India. In 1434 the first consignment of slaves was brought to Lisbon; slave trading was the most profitable branch of Portuguese commerce until the Indian subcontinent was reached. Due to the importation of the slaves as early as 1441, the kingdom of Portugal was able to establish a number of population of slaves throughout the Iberia due to its slave markets' dominance within Europe. Before the Age of Conquest began, the continental Europe already associated darker skin color with slave-class, attributing to the slaves of African origins. This sentiment traveled with the conquistadors when they began their explorations into the Americas. The predisposition inspired a lot of the entradas to seek slaves as part of the conquest.

Birth of the Spanish Kingdom

After his father's death in 1479, Ferdinand II of Aragón married Isabella of Castile, unifying both kingdoms and creating the Kingdom of Spain. He later tried to incorporate the kingdom of Portugal by marriage. Notably, Isabella supported Columbus's first voyage that launched the conquistadors into action.

The Iberian Peninsula was largely divided before the hallmark of this marriage. Five independent kingdoms: Portugal in the West, Aragon and Navarre in the East, Castile in the large center, and Granada in the south, all had independent sovereignty and competing interests. The conflict between Christians and Muslims to control Iberia, which started with North Africa's Muslim invasion in 711, lasted from the years 718 to 1492. Christians, fighting for control, successfully pushed the Muslims back to Granada, which was the Muslim's last control of the Iberian Peninsula.

The marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile resulted in joint rule by the spouses of the two kingdoms, honoured as the "Catholic Monarchs" by Pope Alexander VI. Together, the Crown Kings saw about the fall of Granada, victory over the Muslim minority, and expulsion or forcibly converted Jews and non-Christians to turn Iberia into a religious homogeneity.

Treaties

The 1492 discovery of the New World by Spain rendered desirable a delimitation of the Spanish and Portuguese spheres of exploration. Thus dividing the world into two areas of exploration and colonization. This was settled by the Treaty of Tordesillas (7 June 1494) which modified the delimitation authorized by Pope Alexander VI in two bulls issued on 4 May 1493. The treaty gave to Portugal all lands which might be discovered east of a meridian drawn from the Arctic Pole to the Antarctic, at a distance of west of Cape Verde. Spain received the lands west of this line.

The known means of measuring longitude were so inexact that the line of demarcation could not in practice be determined, subjecting the treaty to diverse interpretations. Both the Portuguese claim to Brazil and the Spanish claim to the Moluccas depended on the treaty. It was particularly valuable to the Portuguese as a recognition of their new-found, particularly when, in 1497–1499, Vasco da Gama completed the voyage to India.

Later, when Spain established a route to the Indies from the west, Portugal arranged a second treaty, the Treaty of Zaragoza.

Spanish exploration

Colonization of Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, and South America

''Sevilla la Nueva'', established in 1509, was the first Spanish settlement on the island of Jamaica, which the Spaniards called ''Isla de Santiago''. The capital was in an unhealthy location and consequently moved around 1534 to the place they called "Villa de Santiago de la Vega", later named Spanish Town, in present-day Saint Catherine Parish.

After first landing on ''Guanahani'' island in ''The Bahamas'', Columbus found the island which he called ''Isla Juana'', later named Cuba. In 1511, the first '' Adelantado'' of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded the island's first Spanish settlement at Baracoa; other towns soon followed, including Havana, which was founded in 1515.

After he pacified Hispaniola, where the native Indians had revolted against the administration of governor Nicolás de Ovando, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar led the conquest of Cuba in 1511 under orders from Viceroy Diego Columbus and was appointed governor of the island. As governor he authorized expeditions to explore lands further west, including the 1517 Francisco Hernández de Córdoba expedition to Yucatán. Diego Velázquez, ordered expeditions, one led by his nephew, Juan de Grijalva, to Yucatán and the Hernán Cortés expedition of 1519. He initially backed Cortés's expedition to Mexico, but because of his personal enmity for Cortés later ordered Pánfilo de Narváez to arrest him. Grijalva was sent out with four ships and some 240 men.

Hernán Cortés, led an expedition (entrada) to Mexico, which included Pedro de Alvarado and Bernardino Vázquez de Tapia. The Spanish campaign against the Aztec Empire had its final victory on 13 August 1521, when a coalition army of Spanish forces and native Tlaxcalan warriors led by Cortés and Xicotencatl the Younger captured the emperor Cuauhtemoc and Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire. The fall of Tenochtitlan marks the beginning of Spanish rule in central Mexico, and they established their capital of Mexico City on the ruins of Tenochtitlan. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most significant events in world history.

In 1516 Juan Díaz de Solís, discovered the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River.

In 1517 Francisco Hernández de Córdoba sailed from Cuba in search of slaves along the coast of Yucatán. The expedition returned to Cuba to report on the discovery of this new land.

After receiving notice from Juan de Grijalva of gold in the area of what is now Tabasco, the governor of Cuba, Diego de Velasquez, sent a larger force than had previously sailed, and appointed Cortés as Captain-General of the Armada. Cortés then applied all of his funds, mortgaged his estates and borrowed from merchants and friends to outfit his ships. Velásquez may have contributed to the effort, but the government of Spain offered no financial support.

Pedro Arias Dávila, Governor of the Island La Española was descended from a converso's family. In 1519 Dávila founded Darién, then in 1524 he founded Panama City and moved his capital there laying the basis for the exploration of South America's west coast and the subsequent conquest of Peru. Dávila was a soldier in wars against Moors at Granada in Spain, and in North Africa, under Pedro Navarro intervening in the Conquest of Oran. At the age of nearly seventy years he was made commander in 1514 by Ferdinand of the largest Spanish expedition.

Dávila sent Gil González Dávila to explore northward, and Pedro de Alvarado to explore Guatemala. In 1524 he sent another expedition with Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, executed there in 1526 by Dávila, by then aged over 85. Dávila's daughters married Rodrigo de Contreras and conquistador of Florida and Mississippi, the Governor of Cuba Hernando de Soto.

Dávila made an agreement with Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro, which brought about the discovery of Peru, but withdrew in 1526 for a small compensation, having lost confidence in the outcome. In 1526 Dávila was superseded as Governor of Panama by Pedro de los Ríos, but became governor in 1527 of León in Nicaragua.

An expedition commanded by Pizarro and his brothers explored south from what is today Panama, reaching Inca territory by 1526. After one more expedition in 1529, Pizarro received royal approval to conquer the region and be its viceroy. The approval read: "In July 1529 the queen of Spain signed a charter allowing Pizarro to conquer the Inca. Pizarro was named governor and captain of all conquests in New Castile." The Viceroyalty of Peru was established in 1542, encompassing all Spanish holdings in South America.

During early 1536, the Adelantado of Canary Islands, Pedro Fernández de Lugo, arrived to Santa Marta, a city founded in 1525 by Rodrigo de Bastidas in modern-day Colombia, as governor. After some expeditions to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Fernández de Lugo sent an expedition to the interior of the territory, initially looking for a land path to Peru following the Magdalena River. This expedition was commanded by Licentiate Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, who ended up discovering and conquering the indigenous Muisca, and establishing the New Kingdom of Granada, which almost two centuries would be a viceroyalty. Jiménez de Quesada also founded the capital of Colombia, Santafé de Bogotá.

Juan Díaz de Solís arrived again to the renamed Río de la Plata, literally river of the silver, after the Incan conquest. He sought a way to transport the Potosi's silver to Europe. For a long time due to the Incan silver mines, Potosí was the most important site in Colonial Spanish America, located in the current department of Potosí in Bolivia and it was the location of the Spanish colonial mint. The first settlement in the way was the fort of Sancti Spiritu, established in 1527 next to the Paraná River. Buenos Aires was established in 1536, establishing the Governorate of the Río de la Plata.

Africans were also conquistadors in the early Conquest campaigns in the Caribbean and Mexico. In the 1500s there were enslaved black, free black, and free black sailors on Spanish ships crossing the Atlantic and developing new routes of conquest and trade in the Americas. After 1521, the wealth and credit generated by the acquisition of the Mexica Empire funded auxiliary forces of black conquistadors that could number as many as five hundred. Spaniards recognized the value of these fighters.

One of the black conquistadors who fought against the Aztecs and survived the destruction of their empire was Juan Garrido. Born in Africa, Garrido lived as a young slave in Portugal before being sold to a Spaniard and acquiring his freedom fighting in the conquests of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and other islands. He fought as a free servant or auxiliary, participating in Spanish expeditions to other parts of Mexico (including Baja California) in the 1520s and 1530s. Granted a house plot in Mexico City, he raised a family there, working at times as a guard and town crier. He claimed to have been the first person to plant wheat in Mexico.

Sebastian Toral was an African slave and one of the first black conquistadors in the New World. While a slave, he went with his Spanish owner on a campaign. He was able to earn his freedom during this service. He continued as a free conquistador with the Spaniards to fight the Maya in Yucatán in 1540. After the conquests he settled in the city of Mérida in the newly formed colony of Yucatán with his family. In 1574, the Spanish crown ordered that all slaves and free blacks in the colony had to pay a tribute to the crown. However, Toral wrote in protest of the tax based on his services during his conquests. The Spanish king responded that Toral need not pay the tax because of his service. Toral died a veteran of three transatlantic voyages and two Conquest expeditions, a man who had successfully petitioned the great Spanish King, walked the streets of Lisbon, Seville, and Mexico City, and helped found a capital city in the Americas.

Juan Valiente was born West Africa and purchased by Portuguese traders from African slavers. Around 1530 he was purchased by Alonso Valiente to be a slaved domestic servant in Puebla, Mexico. In 1533 Juan Valiente made a deal with his owner to allow him to be a conquistador for four years with the agreement that all earnings would come back to Alonso. He fought for many years in Chile and Peru. By 1540 he was a captain, horseman, and partner in Pedro de Valdivia's company in Chile. He was later awarded an estate in Santiago; a city he would help Valdivia found. Both Alonso and Valiente tried to contact the other to make an agreement about Valiente's manumission and send Alonso his awarded money. They were never able to reach each other and Valiente died in 1553 in the Battle of Tucapel.

Other black conquistadors include Pedro Fulupo, Juan Bardales, Antonio Pérez, and Juan Portugués. Pedro Fulupo was a black slave that fought in Costa Rica. Juan Bardales was an African slave that fought in Honduras and Panama. For his service he was granted manumission and a pension of 50 pesos. Antonio Pérez was from North Africa, and a free black. He joined the conquest in Venezuela and was made a captain. Juan Portugués fought in the conquests in Venezuela.

North America colonization

During the 1500s, the Spanish began to travel through and colonize North America. They were looking for gold in foreign kingdoms. By 1511 there were rumours of undiscovered lands to the northwest of Hispaniola. Juan Ponce de León equipped three ships with at least 200 men at his own expense and set out from Puerto Rico on 4 March 1513 to Florida and surrounding coastal area. Another early motive was the search for the Seven Cities of Gold, or "Cibola", rumoured to have been built by Native Americans somewhere in the desert Southwest. In 1536 Francisco de Ulloa, the first documented European to reach the Colorado River, sailed up the Gulf of California and a short distance into the river's delta.

The Basques were fur trading, fishing cod and whaling in Terranova (Labrador and Newfoundland) in 1520, and in Iceland by at least the early 17th century. They established whaling stations at the former, mainly in Red Bay, and probably established some in the latter as well. In Terranova they hunted bowheads and right whales, while in Iceland they appear to have only hunted the latter. The Spanish fishery in Terranova declined over conflicts between Spain and other European powers during the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

In 1524 the Portuguese Estêvão Gomes, who had sailed in Ferdinand Magellan's fleet, explored Nova Scotia, sailing South through Maine, where he entered New York Harbor and the Hudson River and eventually reached Florida in August 1525. As a result of his expedition, the 1529 Diego Ribeiro world map outlined the East coast of North America almost perfectly.

The Spaniard Cabeza de Vaca was the leader of the Narváez expedition of 600 men that between 1527 and 1535 explored the mainland of North America. From Tampa Bay, Florida, on 15 April 1528, they marched through Florida. Traveling mostly on foot, they crossed Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, and Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and Coahuila. After several months of fighting native inhabitants through wilderness and swamp, the party reached Apalachee Bay with 242 men. They believed they were near other Spaniards in Mexico, but there was in fact 1500 miles of coast between them. They followed the coast westward, until they reached the mouth of the Mississippi River near to Galveston Island