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Conquistador means “conqueror” in Spanish. So called people in the era of the colonization of America, who conquered the territory of the New World.
The ruined knights became conquistadors, who went to new lands in order to seize territories and earn money. In addition, far from his homeland, the conquistador received freedom from church and royal power.
In our top we will talk about the most famous conquerors of that time, who terrified the Indian settlements with their firearms, cruelty and ruthlessness.
10 Hernando de Soto
Hernando was a navigator with the title of adelantado, that is, he participated in the conquests not on his own initiative, but on the orders of the royal authorities in order to study the lands beyond the Spanish possessions.
For the first time, the conquistador took part in the campaign in 1514, becoming famous as a good fighter and strategist, who soon began to lead entire expeditions. Hernando took part in the campaign against the Incas and in 1534 he became vice-president of Cusco.
9. Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada
In addition to the conquests, Gonzalo was engaged in writing history. He was born into a noble and wealthy family, devoting his youth to study, but after graduating from university, Quesada was sent to command the Colombian coastal population. He had no military experience, but was successful in commanding 900 Spanish soldiers.
With the army of Quesada, he traveled for 8 months in search of Eldorado, but found a settlement of the Chibcha people. The settlers mistook the soldiers for gods, so they surrendered without a fight, and the territory was named Santa Fe de Bogota by the conquerors.
All his life, the conquistador dreamed of the mythical El Dorado, but, as you know, no one managed to find the country. Gonzalo, after his travels, settled in Huesca, having lived a long life, the rest of which he devoted to writing books based on his surviving memories.
8. Pedro Alvarado
Alvarado was a conquistador who conquered Central America. In 1519, he began to command the expedition ship in the detachment of Hernan Cortes, and after that he became the commander’s confidant.
5 years after joining the detachments of Cortes, Alvarado went to conquer Guatemala, which ended with his appointment to the rank of the first governor of the conquered territory.
Alvarado was a cruel man, the severity of his character manifested itself, first of all, in the peoples of the conquered territories. Dwellings were burned by entire villages, and all objectionable Indians were fed to dogs.
Pedro Alvarado died, stopping the uprising of the Indians. He was thrown from the saddle by his own horse and the conquistador died within a few days.
7. Pedro de Valdivia
The conquistador went down in history as the first governor of Chile. In 1537, Valdivia supported Pizarro in the battle with Almagro, for which Pizarro rewarded Pedro by placing him in chief of the detachment to conquer Chile.
During the conquest of Chilean territory, Valdivia met resistance in the person of the people inhabiting the territory – the Mapuche. However, Chile was conquered and Valdivia was appointed governor.
In 1553, there was a major uprising of the Mapuche Indians, against whom Valdivia went out to fight personally. But it did not work to suppress the uprising, Pedro and the detachment had to retreat, but the army managed to run only to the swamps in which the horses got stuck. Mapuche Valdivia was taken prisoner, and no one else saw the conquistador, because the date of his death is unknown.
6. Diego Velazquez de Cuellar
Adelantado conquered Cuba. Diego also became famous as a participant in the second campaign of Christopher Columbus. Velázquez launched a campaign to conquer Cuba in 1511 and became governor of the conquered territory. He remained in this position until his death.
Diego had a difficult relationship with fellow conquistador Hernan Cortes. The conflict arose on the basis of the fact that Velasquez instructed Cortez to go to the capture of Mexico, providing finance and military force, but Cortez refused him.
5. Vasco de Balboa
Balboa became famous as the founder of the first European city on the American continent, and Vasco also discovered one of the coasts of the Pacific Ocean. Before becoming a famous conqueror, Balboa was engaged in farming on his native island. After 10 years of housekeeping, the farm began to make losses, eventually bankrupting Balboa.
Then he joined a detachment that was trying to strengthen the first Spanish colony. The military detachment could not withstand the resistance of the natives, and then Balboa offered to retreat to the peaceful lands of the Isthmus of Panama. The soldiers who joined Vasco eventually became involved in the founding of the first Spanish city on the mainland, of which the conquistador became governor in 1511.
It was Balboa who found out from the Indians information about the golden city of El Dorado, but in the process of searching for a mysterious place, Vasco discovered the waters of the current Pacific Ocean.
4. Diego de Almagro
Diego de Almagro was one of the conquerors of Peru along with Francisco Pizarro and Hernando de Luque. During the first expedition to conquer Peru, Almagro did not gain anything, but he lost his eye. On the next expedition, the conquistadors reached the territories of the Incas, and after the empire was captured.
Almagro became the governor of New Castile, most of whose territories needed to be explored, which the conquistador did in 1535. During the year, he explored the territory in search of gold and wanted to destroy the Indian tribes, but Diego did not find gold and met with strong resistance from the Indian peoples.
In 1537, the Incas rebelled in Peru against the Spanish armies, Almagro, taking advantage of the situation, captured Cusco, captured the Pizarro brothers and proclaimed himself governor of Peru. Attempts were made by Gonzalo Pizarro to free the brothers through war or negotiations. And only by 1538, the brothers, through diplomacy, were released, and Gonzalo began a war with Almagro because of his deeds. Almagro was taken prisoner and a few months later was sentenced to death by decapitation.
3. Francisco de Montejo
Francisco de Montejo is remembered for having conquered the Yucatan, and was also a rival to many famous conquistadors, due to his cruel and difficult nature.
In 1526, by royal decree, Montejo became the captain-general of Yucatan, and the conquest of this territory began 2 years later. The eastern coast of Yucatan offered resistance, not wanting to surrender territories to the conqueror. For this, Montejo used cruel tortures on the Indian tribe, burned their houses and fed their children to fighting dogs. But, despite all the dirty methods of struggle, Montejo could not win back the eastern territories and moved to the West, where he was already waiting for success.
The second attempt to capture the Yucatan happened in 1931 and lasted until 1935, but the conquistador again failed. It was only in 1940 that the people and lands of Yucatan Montejo were subdued.
2. Francisco Pizarro
Francisco Pizarro founded the city of Lira and conquered the Inca Empire. The conquistador took part in the discovery of Peru, but the first expedition ended in failure.
The second expedition is known for the fact that the Inca leader Atahualpa gave the order to sacrifice two Pizarro soldiers to the god. The leader was captured for what he had done, but only 4 years later, when Pizarro entered the territory of the Incas and defeated the troops of Atahualpa, although Francisco had only 168 people under his command. As a result, the leader was captured, about 7000 Incas died, while there was not a single loss in Pizarro’s detachment.
The Indians tried to ransom their leader, and Francisco set the following price: gold and silver coins were to fill the indicated room to the height of a raised hand. The Incas collected the required amount, but Pizarro still sentenced Atahualpa to death and hanged the leader.
1. Hernan Cortez
Cortes conquered the Mexican territories and destroyed the Aztec tribes. The conqueror belonged to a noble family, therefore, in his youth he studied at the university, but after that he preferred military service to science.
Hernan participated in the conquest of Cuba, and conquered Mexico for three years. Little information came to contemporaries about the campaigns and life of Cortes, and some historical sources even contradicted each other, so historians differ in their opinion when assessing the personality of Cortes.