Spanish Conquistadors - Background

Background

The conquistadors were professional warriors, using European tactics, firearms, and cavalry. Their units (Compañia, Companhia) 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 Iberian and other European soldiers.

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 which helped with administrative duties, and soldiers or mercenaries with military training. These native forces often included African slaves and Native Americans. They not only fought in the battlefield but served as interpreters, informants, servants, teachers, physicians, and scribes. India Catalina and Malintzin were Native American women slaves who worked for the Spaniards.

Frequently, clergy occupied 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 prohibited foreigners and non-Catholics from settling in the New World. However, not all Conquistadors were Castilian or Christian. 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 hispanized as Jorge de la Espira, Eusebius Franz Kühn hispanicised as Eusebio Francisco 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 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 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 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, 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 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, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Diego Durán, Juan de Castellanos and Fray Pedro Simón wrote about the Americas.

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 honour 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 neighbouring 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 (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.