How the natives forgot their language and religion, and the Spaniards became fabulously rich: True facts about the conquistadors

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The arrival of the conquistadors in the New World is considered an outstanding event, however, it was not at all a noble mission. The appearance of the Spaniards in America really led to new research and discoveries, but their price was too high. The Spanish conquistadors were brutal colonialists who managed to make the king of Spain fabulously wealthy, but at the same time they robbed and killed most of the indigenous population.

1. Spanish conquistadors were not only Spanish

A rather little known fact about the Spanish conquistadors is that they were not all Spanish. Some men who wanted to get rich joined Cortez and Pizarro from other countries. Two of the most famous such foreigners who joined the conquistadors were the Greek arquebusier and artilleryman Pedro de Candia and the German Ambrosius Echinger.

Ehinger was known for his cruelty and lawlessness, and he tortured the natives, trying to knock out any information about the hidden gold and treasures from them. In the end, he met his death from a poisoned arrow in a foreign land. His body was not even returned to his home country for burial; instead, Ehinger was simply buried under an unnamed tree. A fitting end for a brutal life.

2. Countless atrocities

An amazing fact, which is often silent about in textbooks, is that 80% of the indigenous population died a century after the arrival of the conquistadors. Although most died from diseases brought to the New World by the conquerors, those who were killed cannot be discounted. The conquistadors were responsible for countless atrocities that would put even the Aztec gods to shame. In Mexico, Hernan Cortez was especially famous for the massacre in Cholula, and Pedro de Alvarado - for the massacre in the Great Temple (Tenochitlan).

The Cholula massacre was essentially a brutal "show" of the conquistadors as to who holds the real power. Cortes gathered the noble inhabitants of the city and accused them of treason, after which he killed unarmed men, women and children.

In 1520, Alvarado did a similar thing, claiming that the Aztec nobles were going to kill the Spaniards because they had captured the emperor Montezuma. Thousands of Aztec nobles were killed during the Toxcatl religious festival. The massacre rallied the Aztecs to drive the Spaniards out of their city.

3. Help from the natives

While it may seem that the conquistadors were able to overthrow the great empires of Mesoamerica with their own hands, they could not have done this without the help of the local natives. The empires of the Aztecs and Incas were aggressive and violent towards those whom they conquered. With the arrival of the Spaniards, the oppressed natives took up arms against their former oppressors, not fully understanding who they were helping.

Malinche, a local woman, was perhaps more important to Cortez than his muskets and sabers. She worked for the Spanish as a translator, helping Cortez understand Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. Sold into slavery and eventually brought to the Spanish as a gift, Malinche proved to be immeasurably important to the conquerors, helping the Spanish to understand the customs and religion of the Aztecs. She even saved their lives more than once. For example, Malinche told Cortez about a potential betrayal that led to the Cholula massacre.

4. Treasure hunt

If the New World were not so rich in gold, maybe then the fate of the local people would not be so sad. The conquistadors were looking for treasures that could make them rich. In Peru, Francisco Pizarro demanded that the captured Inca emperor Atahualpa fill the room in which he was held with gold to the ceiling in exchange for his freedom.

Not only did Atahualpa fulfill their requirements, ordering the Incas to bring the Spaniards about 6 tons of gold, he also gave them 2 times more silver. Nevertheless, the conquistadors did not even think to free the emperor, but executed him.

5. Search for historical myths

The conquistadors not only hoped to find treasures, but also hoped that their wildest fantasies would turn out to be true. Christopher Columbus, the chief conquistador, believed he had found the Garden of Eden in Venezuela. Other famous conquistadors such as Juan Ponce De Leon were looking for the Fountain of Youth in Florida.

Perhaps the most famous examples of faith in historical myth were the countless expeditions in search of El Dorado. After rumors spread about the successes of Cortez and Pizarro, and the gold and silver they found, many Europeans rushed to the New World, believing that El Dorado must be real. They tirelessly searched for the mythical city, but dozens of expeditions were unsuccessful. Finally, in 1800, almost two centuries after the first conquistadors, European expeditions ceased, and Eldorado was never found.

6. Most of the gold was sent to the king of Spain

Many conquistadors believed that their journey to the New World would end up getting rich just like the king. The truth is that most of the gold they found ended up in the king's pocket, not their own. In the case of Hernan Cortes, this meant King Charles V (who ruled both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire).

Of course, his people were the ones who actually got the short end of the stick. After most of the gold was given to the king, and Cortez and other nobles took the rest, the ordinary members of the expedition got only 160 pesos each. Cortez's men were sure that he had hidden a large amount of gold from them, but could not prove it. Pizarro's army was more fortunate, there they received 45 pounds of gold and twice as much silver.

7. The spread of religion

Many of the conquistadors were very religious, especially Columbus, who was so superstitious that he made the crews of the ships sing psalms.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the conquistadors converted to Christianity as part of their conquest of the New World. They found it disgusting that the locals worshiped idols and practiced human sacrifice, so they executed Indian priests, burned any local religious texts, and also destroyed temples. As a result of their efforts, the culture of the Aztecs and Incas is almost unknown today.

8. Frequent battles between conquistadors

After the early success of the conquistadors, they began sending many expeditions to fetch gold or slaves. Soon the expeditions began to unite into warring factions with each other, as the struggle for the dwindling resources of the New World took an increasingly fierce turn. Most of the conquistadors on these expeditions did everything to ensure that their mission was successful, so there is no wonder armed conflicts.

In 1520, a battle took place between Hernan Cortes and Panfilo de Narvaez. After Cortez disobeyed several orders of Diego Velazquez, the governor of Cuba, Velasquez sent about a thousand soldiers to Narvaez to capture or kill Cortez. Despite having a smaller army, Cortez won the battle and captured a significant number of men and weapons.

Another major battle that broke out between the conquistadors was the Peruvian Civil War (1537). Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro quarreled violently over the wealth found in Peru, after which Almagro became enraged with the greed of his former partner and refused to share the booty with the New World. On the advice of his people, Almagro returned to Peru, where an anti-Spanish uprising was taking place in the occupied territory. After fighting with the natives, Almagro enlisted the support of the people of Pizarro and proclaimed himself governor of Peru. Initially it seemed that it worked, but Pizarro learned of their deception and sent a loyal army of the Spaniards, which defeated Almagro and his army.

9. Slavery

In addition to gold and silver, the conquistadors were looking for slaves. After the conquest of Tenochtitlan, Cortes introduced the so-called "encomienda", during which the local population was enslaved and exploited by the ruling Spaniards. In fact, it was slavery with a nicer name.

The system was so brutal that even one Spanish monk protested against the encomienda, calling it brutal. As a result of the fact that the local population was mowed down by diseases (and the conquistadors themselves), the Spaniards, as well as other colonialists, began to swim to Africa for slaves.

10. Spanish

While the brutality, enslavement, and killing of the natives by the conquistadors were certainly horrific, one of the biggest influences of the takeover of the New World was the disappearance of the native language: Nahuatl. Spanish was spoken everywhere, and Nahuatl was completely forgotten.

When the descendants of the conquistadors began to come to power, they used exclusively Spanish. Despite the fact that only people of Spanish descent ruled, Nahuatl existed for another two centuries in rural Mexico.