The Books
As each of us individually conducted research on a specific Atlantic traveler, collectively we read these books and used them as our navigational tools to sail the Atlantic's historiographical waters. The books' histories and stories guided us through our own process. Each of the following books features a unique, comprehensive approach to the early modern Atlantic world and the people who traversed it. Their authors provided us physical, conceptual, and narrative maps that we used to navigate our own understanding of the global Atlantic world. These books also offered us a set of concepts to understand and interpret the world our travelers inhabited and the challenges and opportunities they encountered in their journeys. Scott and Hébrard’s “micro-history set in motion,” Sparks's "Atlantic Creoles," Restall and Fernández-Armesto's "armed entrepreneurs," Sweet’s “Black Atlantic,” Jasanoff's "spirit of 1783," Pérez Morales's "masterless Caribbean," and Colley's "biography that crosses boundaries" offered us fruit for thought and nourished our weekly discussions.
The Books
As each of us individually conducted research on a specific Atlantic traveler, collectively we read these books and used them as our navigational tools to sail the Atlantic's historiographical waters. The books' histories and stories guided us through our own process. Each of the following books features a unique, comprehensive approach to the early modern Atlantic world and the people who traversed it. Their authors provided us physical, conceptual, and narrative maps that we used to navigate our own understanding of the global Atlantic world. These books also offered us a set of concepts to understand and interpret the world our travelers inhabited and the challenges and opportunities they encountered in their journeys. Scott and Hébrard’s “micro-history set in motion,” Sparks's "Atlantic Creoles," Restall and Fernández-Armesto's "armed entrepreneurs," Sweet’s “Black Atlantic,” Jasanoff's "spirit of 1783," Pérez Morales's "masterless Caribbean," and Colley's "biography that crosses boundaries" offered us fruit for thought and nourished our weekly discussions.
The Books
The Books
Ramusio Map (1534). Courtesy of John Carter Brown Library
Matthew Restall and Felipe Fernández-Armesto, The Conquistadors: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)
By Hana Aram and Michael Johns
The Conquistadors: A Very Short Introduction by Matthew Restall and Felipe Fernández-Armesto argues against our preconception of conquistadors by illustrating various accounts of the different conquistadors shrouded over time. Restall and Fernández-Armesto dissect common portrayals and characteristics of the conquistadors, such as their experience in battle along with a common desire to gain gold and glory, and dispute them by illustrating various accounts bolstering the argument that the common conquistador resembled an entrepreneur rather than a soldier. Out of the many conquistadors mentioned in their book, Restall and Fernández-Armesto focus specifically on Hernando Cortés and Francisco Pizarro as they played “prominent roles in the early explorations” of the Americas (44).
Hernando Cortés was born in Medellín, Spain in the early 1480s. Born as a middle-class man who was disillusioned with his studies in law, Cortés set off to the Caribbean alongside other “outcasts and social or financial failures” in order to satisfy his great ambitions to “achieve glory and status” (44). After arriving in the Americas, Cortés and his fleet of eleven ships set off on an expedition from Cuba in order to begin a gradual conquest of Mexico. By allying himself with “local lords”, Cortés was able to “advance towards Tenochtitlán” where he “seized and imprisoned” Moctezuma, king of Tenochtitlán, beginning the collapse of the Aztec Empire; thus, securing the “Kingdom of New Spain” in the name of the king (29-30).
The conquistadors' Americas. Traveling on ships, on horses, and on foot, conquistadors like Cortés and Pizarro, often accompanied by anonymous black and indigenous conquistadors, wandered the Americas in search for gold and glory. Image from Restall and Fernández-Armesto, The Conquistadors, 2.
Several decades after Cortés’s successes in Mexico, Francisco Pizarro set off to Panama in 1522 in search of Peru. Traveling on foot, even scaling the “northern Andes” region, Pizarro and his men, like Cortés, used hostages in order to gain power and authority in the foreign region. Driven, perhaps, by greed after receiving “gold and silver” from the Incas in hopes of freeing the hostages, Pizarro made great attempts to secure Peru for himself by executing his followers and partners of the conquest such as Diego de Almagro, who accompanied Pizarro from the beginning. Defiant of the Spanish Crown and anxious to retain footholds in “his” Peru, Pizarro was eventually assassinated. The plight of Pizarro is one typical of conquistadors of the New World; fueled by the hopes of wealth and haciendas, or landed estates, conquistadors often died penniless and in vain.
Encounter of Cortés and Moctezuma. Few other conquistadors found the wealth and glory they set out to achieve in the Americas. Image from Library of Congress.
Death of Francisco Pizarro by the sword of Diego de Almagro, the son. Even successful conquistadors, like Pizarro, were likely to meet a violent death. Image from Royal Library of Denmark.
Restall and Fernández-Armesto illustrate that the conquistadors were not experienced, armored commanders who used muskets and cannons to fight their way through the Americas but were middle class men, like Cortés, armed with a pen to persuade the Spanish Crown with a tale praising their courageous acts for the glory of the country. Many of these conquistadors were actually natives who, in an act to preserve status and retain power in the founding of a new world, allied with the conquistadors from Spain. However these alliances with natives as well as the contributions of black conquistadors and female conquistadors, according to Restall and Fernández-Armesto, have been forgotten in history, overshadowed by the thousands of proofs of merit sent by Spanish conquistadors as well as the grandiose paintings illustrating solely the so-called achievements of the Spanish. The likes of Catalina de Erauso, a female conquistador who fought in “Chile and Bolivia”, or Juan Garrido, a conquistador who originated from Africa who played a large part in the conquests of “Puerto Rico and Chile”, became forgotten amongst the grandiose achievements of Spanish conquistadors (61-63).
Restall and Fernández-Armesto also challenged the role of disease in the success of the conquests. Instead of undermining native resistance, as many believe, the disease often harmed populations after the conquistadors had passed on to other territories and in some cases strengthened the natives’ resolve to fight with stronger ferocity. Instead of disease harming native populations, it was the conquistadors themselves, who found the Americas to be a hostile environment often suffering from malaria and climate sickness. Accounts like Lope de Aguirre’s, who went insane and “slaughtered most of his companions in fits of paranoia,” help Restall and Fernández-Armesto argue against the unquestionability of the role of disease and its potency in the Spanish success in the conquest of the Americas (60).
The Conquistadors: A Very Short Introduction demonstrates how our understanding of the conquistadors is influenced by the biased nature of the probanzas, or proofs of merit, submitted by conquistadors to the crown to highlight their bravery, grandiosity, and military expertise. Like Cortés and Pizarro, most of the other conquistadors were not “experienced soldiers” navigating the Americas atop their horses, but hopeful entrepreneurs, looking to advance up the social ladder. Restall and Fernández-Armesto also bring to light the many conquistadors who have been forgotten in history. Without the help of native allies, black conquistadors and female conquistadors, men like Cortés and Pizarro would have returned home empty-handed and unsuccessful. Restall and Fernández-Armesto illustrate the misconceptions of conquistadors pointing that, instead of finding gold and achieving glory, many of the conquistadors died in futile attempts to gain access to haciendas and enhance their position in the Spanish social hierarchy. Instead of being remembered and revered for their heroic and victorious achievements to the Crown, Restall and Fernández-Armesto show that most conquistadors lived harsh, short, and fruitless lives.