Conquistador - Characteristics and Behaviour

Characteristics and Behaviour

The conquistadors were professional warriors, using European tactics, firearms, combat dogs, and cavalry. Their units (Compañia, Companhia) would often specialize in forms of combat that required long periods of training that was too costly for informal groups. Their armies were mostly soldiers of Iberian or European origin. Native allied troops were largely infantry equipped with armament and armor that varied geographically. Such groups consisted of young men without military experience, Catholic clergy, and soldiers or mercenaries with military training. These expeditions often involved African slaves and Native American men or women who often had more training than the troops. They served as interpreters, informants, servants, teachers, physicians, scribes, etc. Frequently, Catholic clergy played administrative positions of political responsibility. To enter the Catholic clergy was a way out of poverty and also was a way to obtain prestige and power among the nobility. The high clergy were mostly of noble birth.

Castilian law banned foreigners and non-Catholics from the New World. However, not all Conquistadors were Castilian or Christian. Many foreigners hispanicized their names. Even nationals of enemy countries were accepted. Ioánnis Fokás was known by Juan de Fuca. Nikolaus Federmann, hispanicized as Nicolás de Federmán, was born c. 1505 in Ulm and died February 1542 in Valladolid. The Venetian Sebastiano Caboto was Sebastián Caboto, Georg von Speyer hispanized as Jorge de la Espira, Eusebius Franz Kühn hispanicized as Eusebio Francisco Kino, Wenceslaus Linck was Wenceslao Linck, Ferdinand Konščak, was Fernando Consag, Amerigo Vespucci was Américo Vespucio, the Portuguese Aleixo Garcia was in Castilian army Alejo García etc.

The origin of many people in mixed expeditions was not always distinguished. Various occupations, such as sailors, fishermen and pirates 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, Arabic, Basque, Berber, Breton, Catalan, Dutch, French, Greek, 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 conquistadores married native American women or had illegitimate children.

European young men enlisted in the army because it was one way out of poverty. Most Iberians of that time could not read or write. Catholic priests instructed the soldiers in mathematics, writing, theology, Latin, Greek, and history, and wrote letters and official document 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 become soldiers or missionaries but mostly without to be the heir firstborn.

The two most famous conquistadors were Hernán Cortés who conquered the Aztec Empire and Francisco Pizarro who led the conquest of the Incan Empire. They were second cousins born in Extremadura, as were many of the Spanish conquerors.

During the 1650s, most troops were mercenaries. However, after the 17th century, states invested in better disciplined and politically reliable permanent troops. For a time mercenaries were important as trainers.

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 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 conquistadores 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 Mayan war leader for Nachan can, Lord of Chactemal. Gerónimo de Aguilar, who had taken holy orders in his native Spain was captured by Mayan 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, Diego Durán and Fray Pedro Simón wrote about the Americas. Lope de Aguirre was an emperor in the Amazon.

The defeat was likely. Even in victory, some hundreds of conquistadores may were disputing the booty being killed, executed, fled or imprisoned due to internal clashes. They were obsessed with matters of honor and reputation. Spanish soldiers had a reputation for rowdiness, and duels were not uncommon.

After Mexico fell, Hernán Cortés's enemies, Bishop Fonseca, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, Diego Columbus and Francisco Garay were mentioned in the 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 Almagro. After Peru fell to Spain, Francisco Pizarro dispatched to 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 Mexico in search of Inca gold further complicated the situation for Almagro and Belalcázar. Alvarado left South America in exchange for monetary compensation from Pizarro. Almagro was executed on 1538, under Hernándo Pizarro's orders. In Lima in 1541 supporters of Diego Almagro II assassinated Francisco Pizarro. Belalcázar in 1546 ordered the execution of Jorge Robledo, who governed a neighboring province in yet another land-related vendetta. Belalcázar was tried in absentia, convicted and condemned for killing Robledo and 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 looking for El Dorado. In 1544, Lope de Aguirre and Melchor Verdugo 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.