Bloody Facts About Spanish Conquistadors
After Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in 1492, many Spaniards decided to become conquistadors, dreaming of gold, power, and adventures. Conquistadors, which in Spanish means “the ones who conquer,” are remembered for their brutality to natives, colonizing any population they came across in the name of the King of Spain.
The most well-known warriors of the American colonization are Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro, who conquered the Aztec and Inca empires. But did you know there were women among the Spanish conquistadors?
Read on to learn 37 glorious and bloody facts that you probably didn't know about Spanish conquistadors.
Spanish Conquistadors Facts
37. The Conquest of the New World
Spanish conquistadors were explorers of the Spanish Empire who sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, Oceania, Africa and Asia, conquering territory and opening trade routes.
They not only fought in the battlefield, but served as interpreters, informants, servants, teachers, physicians, and scribes in the New World.
36. Faking It
Castilian law prohibited foreigners and non-Catholics from settling in the New World, but not all conquistadors followed this rule.
Many Hispanicised their names and/or converted to Catholicism to serve the Castilian Crown to be able to search for gold and treasures in an unknown land.
35. Women
Castilian law also banned Spanish women from travelling to America unless they were married and accompanied by a husband. But neither men nor women would have settled in the New World if it wasn’t for Queen Isabella I of Castile. She, along with her husband Ferdinand, encouraged Columbus to establish an overseas empire for the newly unified kingdom of Spain, and she was the one who provided the funds for his first voyage.
