jeffreyralph
27.04.2021 7:28:16
. has history, and our ways of seeing the world, ever moved so fast as it did in the 16th century?
See full version: The Story of the Conquistadors
. has history, and our ways of seeing the world, ever moved so fast as it did in the 16th century?
It is amazing to think that when Bartolome de las Casas wrote those words in 1542, barely 20 years had passed since the discovery and conquest of the Aztec world in Mexico. It was only three years since the defeat of the Great Revolt of the Incas in the High Andes of Peru. At that moment, in fact, Manco Inca still controlled an independent Inca state in the jungles of Vilcabamba. During the same years in which Cortes overthrew the Aztecs, Magellan circumnavigated the globe.
Moreover, this is a story of the reshaping of mental landscapes. The discovery of the New World after all was a 'Close Encounter of the Third Kind'. It was a meeting of civilisations which previously had no idea of each other's existence. One fascinating aspect of this encounter is how they responded to each other; how each categorised the other and read the signs. It has often been claimed, for example, that the Aztecs were fatally disabled in their encounter with the 'Other' because the conceptual tools of their civilisation did not enable them properly to categorise the aliens who had landed.
Some may think that the conquistadors, in their fine armor and steel swords, conquered the mighty empires of Mexico and South America by themselves. The truth is that they had a lot of help. Cortes would not have gotten far without Malinche (c. 1500-1550), an enslaved native woman who acted as his interpreter and was also the mother of one of his children. The Mexica (Aztec) Empire was largely comprised of vassal states which were eager to rise against their tyrannical masters. Cortes also secured an alliance with the free state of Tlaxcala, which provided him with thousands of fierce warriors who hated the Mexica and their allies.
The common soldiers in Pizarro's army did well, each of them getting about 45 pounds of gold and twice that much silver from the emperor's ransom. The men in Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes' (1485–1547) forces in Mexico, however, did not make out nearly as well. Common soldiers wound up with a paltry 160 pesos of gold after the King of Spain, Cortes, and the other officers had taken their cut and made various payoffs. Cortes' men always believed that he hid massive quantities of treasure from them. more
The conquistadors were ruthless when it came to conquering native civilizations or extracting gold from them. The atrocities they committed over the course of three centuries are far too many to be listed here, but there are some that stand out. In the Caribbean, most of the native populations were completely wiped out due to Spanish rapine and diseases. In Mexico, Hernan Cortes and Pedro de Alvarado (1485–1581) ordered the Cholula Massacre and the Temple Massacre respectively, killing thousands of unarmed men, women, and children. [links]
In Mexico, conquistadors found great golden treasures, including great discs of gold, masks, jewelry, and even gold dust and bars. In Peru, Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro (1471–1541) demanded that the Incan Emperor Atahualpa (ca. 1500–1533) fill up a large room once with gold and twice with silver in exchange for his freedom. The emperor complied, but the Spanish killed him anyway. All in all, Atahualpa's ransom came to 13,000 pounds of gold and twice that much silver. This did not even count the vast treasures taken later when the Inca capital city of Cuzco was looted. more
Jl FilpoC / Wikimedia Commons / CC SA 4.0 [links]
Following Christopher Columbus' voyage in 1492, it wasn't long before the so-called New World was filled with colonists and adventurers looking to make a fortune. The Americas were full of fierce native warriors who defended their lands valiantly. The men who ravaged the peoples of the New World came to be known as the conquistadors, a Spanish word meaning "he who conquers." How much do you know about the ruthless men who gave the New World to the King of Spain on a bloody platter?
Since the city of Toledo in Spain was one of the best in the world for making weapons and armor, conquistadors highly valued their fine Toledo swords. In fact, the swords were not approved for sale until they were proven to bend in a half-circle and endure forceful impact with a metal helmet. Toledo swords gave conquistadors such an advantage during conquests that the Spanish made it illegal for natives to possess one.
The two most famous conquests were those of the Aztec empire in Mexico by Hernan Cortes and the Inca empire in Peru by Francisco Pizarro. What is intriguing is that both of these Spanish explorers had only modest forces that were far outnumbered by the warriors of the empires they conquered. Cortes’s army consisted of around 600 men while Pizarro’s was only 160 men, but these and other Spanish conquistadors were able to defeat much larger bands of warriors – for example, Sebastian de Benalcazar’s army of 200 Spanish and 3,000 Canary allies brought 50,000 Inca warriors under the command of General Rumiñahui to a draw. A key element of the success of all Spanish conquests of the time was their advanced weaponry and fine armor.
Also, conquistador success was helped by the diseases they brought to the New World; millions of natives died from smallpox, which they had never been exposed to.
Of course, the success of Spanish conquests in native locations was not due solely to weapons and armor, but they were key elements. Native warriors were fierce and strong, but even in greater numbers than their attackers, they simply lacked the skill and technology to defend themselves fairly. Spanish conquistadors used this to their advantage, making their invasions much easier and their influence much greater.
Lady Hester Stanhope records that her brother James who fought alongside General Sir John Moore who died at Corunna, rode a horse for 2000 miles and at one point 900 miles without resting and only dried peas to eat. There are simply hundreds of books on long distance rides. The Long Riders Guild continues today.
Allowing horses to transport themselves from one place to another is the simplest way to move them. Horses have always been driven from place to place, often in great numbers, as when large herds are gathered in from the wilds of Exmoor or the Australian outback.
Road transport for horses began as early as 1902, but trailers designed to be drawn by motorized vehicles were not manufactured commercially until 1912, and for many decades it remained a short distance option, since there were few vehicles around that could cope with pulling a horse trailer long haul. It was not until the 1950s that road travel became a suitable option for long distance transport, and since then many different vehicle and trailer designs have been created to carry horses safely. Safety is paramount in modern horse transport, which is very different to the early days of boat and rail travel, when horses were often injured or even killed in transit. Journey times are minimized, horses are given sufficient space in a safe environment, with opportunities to rest and feed, and specialist insurance and breakdown policies can be put in place to ensure animals are never left stranded. Many horse owners now own or have access to a trailer built specifically for the purpose of transporting horses, and although travel can still be stressful, we have come far beyond the noisy, cramped train compartments into which horses used to be forced by untrained handlers.
A former president of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, J Wortley Axe, wrote in 1905 that conditions on board often seemed intentionally designed to spook horses, with loud noises everywhere, and tethers too short to allow the animals to maintain their balance.
Sailors lived in close quarters and found that areas below decks were inappropriate for most human habitation. Sleeping was most often accomplished on mats provided by the sailors themselves on any available space on the top deck that they could find. One-third of the crew was on watch throughout the night, which did allow some increase in the space available, but the sleeping crew could easily be forced to move when sails were rearranged or for other adjustments on board.
Cannons became more common on ships in the second half of the 16th Century. In addition, various hand-thrown projectiles, some utilizing gunpowder or hot tar, and some including lime in order to blind their victims, were used, along with muskets, swords, crossbows, etc. here
Sailors were on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If repairs were needed, the captain needed to be able to call on any and all persons on board, who were used to repair sails and mast, man the bilge pumps below decks, or even to leave the ship in order to patch holes in the ship’s sides with wood or sheets of lead that were nailed to the ship. Some were designated as divers who could accomplish these repairs, at great personal risk, under roiling water. more