January 11, 2024 | Amelie Dumont

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.


1. 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.

Conquistadors

2. 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.

Spanish Conquistadors factsWikimedia Commons

Advertisement

3. 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.

Spanish Conquistadors factsWikimedia Commons

4. Spiritual Conquest

Catholic religious orders that participated and supported the exploration, evangelizing and pacifying, were made up mostly Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits. In Mexico, the early systematic evangelization by monks came to be known as the "Spiritual Conquest of Mexico".

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

5. The Cousins

The two most famous conquistadors were Hernan Cortes, who "conquered" the Aztec Empire, and Francisco Pizarro, who led the conquest of the Incan Empire. The two were actually distant cousins.

Spanish Conquistadors facts

Advertisement

6. Side Piece

Famous for leading the battle that ended the Aztec Empire, Cortes was known for his aggression. While conquering the Aztecs, he destroyed temples, buildings, and brutally ended many natives. But Cortes missed his first expedition due to a rather embarrassing injury. He was in an adulterous relationship with a married woman, and injured himself while trying to escape from her bedroom.

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

7. The Illiterate

Pizarro was an illegitimate and illiterate Spaniard who, together with his four brothers, was able to rule in the former Inca territory. The Pizarro family became known as the mafia of the conquistadors.

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

8. Merger

In 1469, Ferdinand II of Aragon unified Castile with Aragon, creating the Kingdom of Spain in his union with Queen Isabella.

Spanish Conquistadors factsWikimedia Commons

Advertisement

9. We Are the Champions

The Battle of Cartagena de Indias was an amphibious army engagement between Britain and Spain in what is now Colombia. It ended in a major defeat and heavy losses for the British: over 50 ships lost and around 10,000 casualties. However, the battle has long been a cultural celebration in Colombia, which remembers the valiant Spanish defense.

Spanish Conquistadors facts

10. The Enemy of My Enemy

The conquest of the Aztecs was one of the most significant events in the colonization of the New World by Spain. Hernan Cortes led the expedition to conquer what we now know as Mexico. During the campaign, Cortes was given support from a number of tributaries and rivals of the Aztecs, including the Totonacs and the Tlaxcaltecas.

Spanish Conquistadors factsWikimedia Commons

11. The Island of California

Around the time of the Conquistadors, the Spanish held a huge cartographic misconception about America: they thought that California was an island, despite numerous accounts stating the contrary. Some even thought that California was an idyllic Eden (and were they wrong?).

Spanish Conquistadors factsPixabay

Advertisement

12. Eat or Be Eaten

Juan Diaz de Solis is remembered as the first conquistador to land on what is now modern day Uruguay, but he wasn’t able to see much in the New World, as reports suggest he was eaten by natives when disembarking.

Spanish Conquistadors factsWikipedia

13. Never Enough

Not every conquistador was happy in the New World, and that was the case with Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba. Together with some 110 discontented Spanish settlers in early colonial Cuba, Hernández de Córdoba petitioned the governor for permission to launch an expedition in search of even more new lands and exploitable resources.

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

14. All the Way Down

Francisco de Orellana was the first known explorer to navigate the entire length of the Amazon river; in fact, the Amazon river was called "Rio de Orellana" for a time.

Spanish Conquistadors factsWikimedia Commons

Advertisement

15. Leap of Faith

Pedro de Alvarado, another conquistador, was known for a daring leap he made across a canal while escaping the Aztecs who were attacking him.

Spanish Conquistadors factsWikimedia Commons

16. Mapping It out

Not all conquistadors were sent to lead in the battlefield. Some had other priorities, such as Juan de la Cosa, a cartographer who worked with Christopher Colombus. Cosa also owned Columbus' famous expedition flagship, the Santa Maria.

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

17. A Brutal Failure

Conquistadors are often described as brutal and cruel, and Panfilo de Narvaez lived up to the expectations. He participated in the conquest of Cuba and was known for his aggression to the natives. However, he is mostly remembered for the only two expeditions he completed without any success.

Spanish Conquistadors facts

Advertisement

18. Pigging Out

Vasco Nunez de Balboa is remembered as the first European to discover the Pacific Ocean. But after his first expedition in 1500, he settled in the New World and lived the life of a planter and pig farmer. He wasn't very good at this, though, and soon abandoned his vocation and joined up again with Spanish expeditions. 

Spanish Conquistadors factsWikimedia Commons

19. Edging out the Competition

How did the Conquistadors manage to conquer and brutally oppress the native peoples of the lands they were trampling through? Well, their steel armor protected them from native weaponry, which couldn't pierce their defences. Moreover, although the Spanish guns were clumsy and took time to load, the weapon also made smoke and loud noises that confused and scared their opponents.

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

20. A King's Ransom

The promise of gold in the New World was immense:  At one point, the Incan Emperor Atahualpa filled up a room once with gold and twice with silver in an attempt to secure his freedom and safety after the Spanish invaded his lands. Pizarro and his gold-thirsty crew were rewarded with 13,000 pounds of gold and 26,000 pounds of silver. 

Spanish Conquistadors factsWikimedia Commons

Advertisement

21. Half Bad

Many will remember Francisco Pizarro for his expeditions to conquer the Incas, but did you know his half-brother Gonzalo was also a conquistador? In fact, Gonzalo helped conquer Peru in the early 1530s, and participated in a rebellion against Spain in the 1540s.

Spanish Conquistadors factsFlickr, Fondo Antiguo de la Biblioteca

22. A Real Scrooge

Although Pizarro's men, after Atahualpa's ransom, made off with quite a lot of moola, Cortes' men did not fare as well; they were said to have received only about 160 pesos of gold each for their efforts, and these men often suspected Cortes of hiding his gold from them.

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

23. Cow Head

Spanish conquistador Cabeza de Vaca, which translates as "cow head" in English, was very different from other explorers. He actually became a faith healer for many Native American tribes as he travelled across the southwestern US.

Spanish Conquistadors factsWikimedia Commons

Advertisement

24. Fantasy Lands

As brutal as the conquistadors were, they also had their heads up in the clouds. Columbus thought he had found the garden of Eden, and another conquistador, Juan Ponce de Leon, sought out the Fountain of Youth in Florida.

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

25. Starting Young

Columbus might be known as the Spanish-funded conquistador who discovered the New World in 1492, but he began his career when he was just 10 years old. Because he was too busy travelling the seas at such a tender age, Columbus may never have known how to write in his native language.

Spanish Conquistadors factsGood Free Photos

26. All That Glitters

The myth of El Dorado, the city of Gold that many conquistadors sought, was so persistent and important that it actually lasted long after the first expeditions to the New World: people only stopped looking for the city around 1800.

Spanish Conquistadors factsFlickr, Sol Robayo

Advertisement

27. Of Noble Birth

Despite being born into a Portuguese noble family, Ferdinand Magellan sailed under the Spanish flag. Magellan is known for organizing the Spanish expedition to the East Indies, which resulted in the first circumnavigation of the Earth.

Spanish Conquistadors factsFlickr, Kandukuru Nagarjun

28. The Last Laugh

In modern day Latin American, not many people are clamoring to glorify the conquistadors. While many native faces appear on banknotes and in statues around these countries, the conquistadors are often relegated to their unassuming graves. 

Spanish Conquistadors factsPixabay

29. Big Name

Italian Amerigo Vespucci explored the coast of what we now know to be South America. Vespucci is often recognized as the man from whom America got its name.

Amerigo VespucciGetty Images

Advertisement

30. Re-Gifting

The word "encomienda" comes from a Spanish verb meaning "to entrust". One prize that could be used to buy off conquistadors was the gift of an "encomienda". An encomienda was land given to a conquistador, usually with natives already living there. In theory, the conquistador was supposed to protect the natives while they worked for him, but surprise! That didn't often happen. 

Spanish Conquistadors factsWikimedia Commons

31. Decimated

Thanks to both the brutality of the conquistadors and the variety of new European diseases these men brought over, the native populations of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Hispaniola, among others, were all but wiped out during these forays into the New World.

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

32. Sole Searching

The conquistadors had a favorite aggression method to get a native to show them where gold was located: the Spaniards would burn the soles of their victims' feet to prod them into confessing what they knew.

Portrait of Don Gonzalo Jiménez de QuesadaCoriolano Leudo Obando, Wikimedia Commons

Advertisement

33. These Bros Ain't Loyal

Conquistadors were less like an army and more like a group of mercenaries: they would join up with one expedition, and then another, and, although the King demanded a cut of their profits, they weren't particularly loyal to one ideal, or to each other, for that matter.

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

34. Wrath of God

Lope de Aguirre styled himself "Wrath of God, Prince of Freedom, King of Tierra Firme," but fellow conquistadors called him “El Loco” or “The madman". So yomu get an idea of what this dude was like. He is best known for his final expedition, the search for El Dorado, on which he mutinied against the leader of the expedition. Once he was in control, he went mad with paranoia, ordering the summary executions of many of his companions. He even ended his own daughter.

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

35. A Dish Served Crazy

Before his whole ending-my-daughter exploit, Aguirre did something equally brutal. He was once flogged for disobedience, and the unhinged explorer spent three years plotting bloody revenge on the judge who ordered the punishment. The judge had promptly fled town after giving the order because he didn't want to mess with a guy who called himself weird nicknames, but "Wrath of God" reportedly travelled something like 3,7000 miles on foot to find the judge in Cuzco, Peru. Aguirre then broke into the judge's house and hurt him badly, hiding out until he could escape the city and any further punishment.

Students Getting Expelled factsPixabay

Advertisement

36. Grounds for Divorce

Hernan Cortes was the brutal conqueror who brought down the Aztecs, but less known is his entanglement in a violent, licentious scandal closer to his bedchamber. Cortes' first wife, Catalina Suarez, passedin the night under mysterious and suspicious circumstances just after she joined him in New Spain. The marriage had been barren, although Cortes had fathered children through extra-marital affairs. She was also now a political burden to him, being related to one of his allies-turned-enemy. The scandal provoked an investigation, but Cortes emerged relatively unscathed.

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

37. The Great Lady

In the heat of battle, a wearied Aztec fighter looked up to see a vision of the Virgin Mary. But this was no heavenly creature: it was a ruthless female conquistador. Maria de Estrada was one of the few women who traveled as a conquistador to the New World. Nicknamed the Great Lady, she fought alongside her husband in every battle including the epic La Noche Triste (“The Night of Sadness”) when the conquistadors’ retreated from the Aztec capital in 1520. She was likely the first white woman in the Americas.

Spanish Conquistadors factsShutterstock

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30


READ MORE

The Oneida Indian Nation

The Oneida Indian Nation made their mark on American history when they became the first ally to America in their fight for independence during the American Revolutionary War. But their victory wasn’t such a win after all—it was actually the beginning of a nightmare.
December 12, 2024 Allison Robertson

Slaves At Mount Vernon: What Life Was Really Like As A Slave Under George Washington

Just a stone’s throw from the nation’s capital, Mount Vernon is home to one of America’s biggest contradictions. Here is the intriguing story of how the “Founding Father of the United States” oversaw hundreds of those who were enslaved.
December 12, 2024 Alex Summers

The Dramatic Fall Of The Portuguese Empire

If you dance to Samba, enjoy eating bacalhau (salted cod), or build using azulejos (decorative ceramic tiles), you have the Portuguese Empire to thank. All this influence is from the 15th century to the 19th century. Here is the story.
December 12, 2024 Jane O'Shea
Jack London (r) with George Sterling, James Hopper, Harry Leon Wilson, Bohemian Grove, 1913

The Secrets Of Bohemian Grove

Have you ever heard of the Bohemian Grove? It's a top-secret campground for the world’s most powerful men—and is one of history's greatest secrets.
December 11, 2024 Sarah Ng

The True Story Of Marco Polo

Marco Polo’s father wasn’t around much for his childhood. So, when he finally returned and discovered the connection his son made with a powerful Asian leader, he devised a devious plan—and dealt Marco the ultimate betrayal.
December 11, 2024 Allison Robertson