Conquista (and earlier Conquista - from the Spanish La Conquista - “conquest") is called the conquest of the New World or the colonization of America by Spain, which lasted from 1492 to 1898, when the USA, defeating Spain, took Cuba, Puerto Rico from it. So, the conquistador is the Spanish or Portuguese conqueror of America, a participant in the conquest.
Objective premises
Discovered in 1492 by Columbus, America, which the Spaniards considered part of Asia, became the "promised land" for many impoverished Spanish noblemen, younger sons, who were not penniless from their father’s inheritance under Spanish law, rushed to the New World. With him were insane hopes for enrichment. Legends of the fabulous Eldorado (a country of gold and precious stones) and Paititi (the mythical lost golden city of the Incas) circled more than one head. Many prerequisites had developed at that time on the Iberian Peninsula, which had contributed to the fact that thousands (600 thousand only Spaniards) of its inhabitants moved to America. Newly arrived Europeans have captured endless expanses from California to the La Plata estuary (a funnel-shaped depression extending over 290 km, resulting from the confluence of the mighty
rivers of Uruguay and Parana, is an extensive, unique water system in southeastern South America).
A line of great conquerors
As a result, the Conquista was captured almost all of South America and part of North, including Mexico. The conquistador is a pioneer who, without any assistance from the state, annexed vast, boundless territories to Spain and Portugal. The most famous Spanish conquistador, the Marquis (the title he received from the king in gratitude) Hernan Cortes (1485-1547), who conquered Mexico, created a bridgehead for the further capture of the entire continent from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, rightfully enters the ranks of the greatest conquerors, along with Tamerlane, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Suvorov and Attila. The conquistador is primarily a warrior. In Spain, the reconquista (conquest) ended in the 15th century, a very long process that lasted almost eight centuries, the liberation of the Iberian Peninsula from the Arab invaders. Out of work there were many warriors who could not live a peaceful life.
The adventurous constituent
Among them there were enough adventurers, accustomed to live off the robbery of the Arab population. In addition, the time has come for great geographical discoveries.
In distant lands, the people who traveled to conquer them were freed from church (the Inquisition was still strong) and royal power (exorbitant payments existed in favor of the crown). The audience gushing into the New World was very mottled. And many believed that the conquistador is in most cases an adventurer. Everything that concerns the conquest, both the reasons that prompted it and the characters of people who decided to travel or were forced to carry it out, is very well described in the historical novel of the Argentinean writer Enrico Laretta “Glory to Don Ramiro”.
In general, this great page of history is devoted to many literary works, some of which romanticized the images of the conquistadors, considering them missionaries, others presented them as devils. The latter includes the very popular adventure and historical novel “Montezuma's Daughter” by Henry Ryder Hoggard.
Heroes of the Conquest
The leader or main Portuguese or Spanish conquistador was called Adelantado. These include leaders such as the already mentioned Hernan Cortes. The entire
Yucatan Peninsula was conquered by Francisco de Montejo. The Pacific coast of all of South America was conquered by Vasco Nunez de Balboa. The Inca Empire, the early class state of Tauantinsuyu, the largest Indians in terms of area and population, was destroyed by Francisco Pissarro. The Spanish conquistador Diego de Almagro annexed the crown of Peru, Chile and the Isthmus of Panama. Diego Velazquez de Cuellar, Pedro de Valdevia, Pedro Alvarado, G. H. Quesada also left a memory in the history of the conquest of the New World.
Negative consequences
Conquistadors are often accused of destroying the
indigenous population of America. And although there was no direct genocide, primarily due to the small number of Europeans, the diseases brought by them to the mainland and the subsequent epidemics did their dirty deed. And adventurers brought a variety of ailments. Tuberculosis and measles, typhoid, plague and smallpox, influenza and scrofula - this is not a complete list of the gifts of civilization. If
the Aztec tribe before Conquista numbered 20 million people, then the plague and smallpox epidemics that followed one after another mowed down most of the Aboriginal people. The terrible pestilence shook Mexico. So the conquest of conquestadors, which swept most of America, brought the conquered peoples not only education, Christianity and the feudal system of society. They brought to the naive aborigines a Pandora's box in which all the sins and illnesses of human society were enclosed.
Gold and precious stones, and even cities built from such building materials, the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors did not find. The treasures of the conquistadors are new countries and vast fertile areas, slaves in unlimited quantities to cultivate these lands, and ancient civilizations, the secrets of which have not yet been revealed.