Short History Of... - The Conquistadors

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

From the end of the 15th century, the Conquistadors changed the face of the Americas. Invading first the Caribbean and Mexico, they then plunged on into the rest of the continent and plundered the Pacific seaboard. So what do we know of these Europeans and their quest to expand a burgeoning empire? And who were the indigenous people that resisted invasion, negotiated with strangers, and fought off barbarians?  This is a Short History of the Conquistadors.   Written by Jo Furniss. With thanks to Professor Matthew Restall, Director of Latin American Studies at Penn State University and author of Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest and When Montezuma met Cortez. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is March 1517. On the Yucatan Peninsula, in what is now Mexico, a large group of men march down to the beach. They're Mayans, villagers from Campeche, and they've received word of strangers arriving by sea. Sure enough, there are two large boats moored offshore. large boats moored offshore. Even from this distance they can see that the vessels are nothing like their own decorated canoes with woven reed panels to catch the wind. These are many times larger, wide-bottomed and immensely tall with vast white sails. The Mayan chief has seen these ships scouting the coastline. They've sailed from the place where the sun rises. A smaller ship floats in the bay, and there are rowing boats sitting empty on the sand.

The Mayans estimate that a hundred men must have come ashore, twice the number of their delegation. They grip their spears and obsidian knives and go looking for the intruders. They grip their spears and obsidian knives and go looking for the intruders. They find them beside a freshwater pool, filling water barrels. Their helmets are the color of dark silver, and metal also covers their torso and hips, leaving only their arms and legs protruding. They look like tortoises in their shells. One of the intruders sees the bare-chested Mayans, and the whole group scramble to their feet,

hands on their swords. The Mayan chief breaks the standoff by pointing towards his village, whose fires send up welcoming plumes of smoke through the palm trees. One of the visitors steps forward, seemingly their chief. Slapping the plate on his chest, he says, Francisco Hernandez de Córdoba. This must be his name.

Córdoba talks, but the head mind doesn't understand, so turns on his heel to lead the way to his village. The foreigners follow. They enter the settlement and stop at a temple. Cordoba and his men chatter to one another, point rudely with their swords at stone idols of gods and drawings of mythical creatures. They wrinkle their noses and blood on the walls. The Mayan chief feels his anger grow. blood on the walls. The Mayan chief feels his anger grow. These men show no respect. Then the priests emerge. A confused silence falls as they arrange bundles of sticks into bonfires. As they work, more and more villagers gather. The foreigners are soon vastly outnumbered. Then the priests set light to the pyres,

while the chief uses hand gestures to communicate a message to the invaders. You are welcome to see the village of Campici, he says. Take your time, look around, enter the temple. You have until the fires burn out, and then you must leave. If you are still here when the sticks turn to ash, then we will kill you. We will kill all of you. Cordoba understands well enough. His men keep a close eye on the burning pyres as they explore Campichi.

When the fire dies down and the villages begin a war chant, the foreigners leave. They hurry to the beach, armed Mayans following them all the way. They get in their rowboats, board their galleons, and sail back towards the east. Wisely, the Spanish are gone before the last flames burn out. But their next visit will not be as peaceful. Not for the people of these lands, nor for the conquistadors who intend to conquer them. By the end of the year 1517, most of the Spaniards who visit Campichi that day are dead. A man named Bernal Diaz is one of the few survivors.

Years later, he writes a first-hand account that gives one side of the exploits, tactics, and cruelties of the conquistadors. conquistadors. They invade first the Caribbean and Mexico, then plunge on into Central America, North America, and around the continent to plunder the Pacific seaboard. Bernal Diaz will write, we went there to serve God and also to get rich. So what do we know of the Europeans who changed the fate of a continent? And who were the indigenous people that resisted invasion, negotiated with strangers, and fought off barbarians? What was it like to live and die during this tumultuous period of imperial expansionism? I'm John Hopkins, and this is a short history of the conquistadors.

In August 1492, a man named Cristobal Colón sets sail from Spain and travels west across the Atlantic. He first makes landfall in the Americas on the 12th of October on an island known in the local Taino language as Guanahani in the Bahamas. His expedition sails on to Hispaniola, what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where he founds the first European settlements. Colon calls the local people Indios, or Indians, and the name sticks, even though there are many ethnic groups here. At first, the indigenous people try to placate the foreigners with gifts of gold and women, in the hope they will take their treasure and leave.

Instead, the invaders take the gifts as proof of the untapped wealth hidden in the hinterlands of what they call the New World. Satisfied with his spoils, Colon returns to Spain. His reputation as the pioneer of the lands to the west brings fame and fortune, and he becomes better known by his original Italian name of Christopher Columbus. becomes better known by his original Italian name of Christopher Columbus. Originally from Genoa, Columbus is not considered to be a conquistador because he is not from the Iberian peninsula comprised mostly of Spain and Portugal, and he never has an official license from the Spanish monarch to conquer or settle in the Americas. But his voyages at the end of the 1400s set the stage for the imperialistic conquistadors

who dominate the 16th century. Professor Matthew Restor is director of Latin American studies at Penn State University in the US. He's the author of Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest and more recently, When Montezuma Met Cortes. The big misunderstanding about the identity of the conquistadors, there are many, but I think the first one is an anachronistic notion that they are soldiers, that they are part of an army sent by the king of Spain. In this case, that's not what's happening at all.

The conquistadors are settler colonists. Their goal is not to fight. Their goal is to settle. They may have an idea that they will settle temporarily, and once they've made their fortunes, they'll go back to Spain. But still, the goal is not simply in the long run to go in there and fight and await orders and plunder and so on. So I have called them in the past armed entrepreneurs. These are individuals who have invested something in a corporate venture of some kind. They're investing at the very least their own body and their willingness to fight. But in many cases, a little bit more than that, right? If they have a horse, they're bringing a horse, they have some

equipment. And at the very top of the company, the spaniards called them compania the top of the company individuals who own ships in order to get the company across the atlantic or to other parts of the caribbean basin and the atlantic seaboard following in the footsteps of Columbus, companies of conquistadors spread through the Caribbean. By now, Pope Alexander VI has issued a papal decree which gives God's authority for the Catholics of Spain and Portugal to act as lords over the people who inhabit the territories they discover. The conquistadors settle on Hispaniola and other islands, including Puerto Rico in 1508. First of all, the pioneers need to survive. They requisition land for

agriculture and force indigenous people to work for them. Missionaries try to convert the locals to Catholicism. But the conquistadors also need loot. Their expeditions are expensive, funded by creditors at home in Spain. The explorers must send raw materials of high value back to the homeland in order to pay off their loans and secure new funding. It's a vicious circle of their own making. Gold and silver, those two precious metals, are the absolute best material objects that Europeans can find in the Americas in order to ship back to Europe. Why? Because they're highly valued in Europe, disproportionate out of any kind of utility, right? It's part of Western European culture that is not shared by indigenous peoples in the Americas.

So they're highly valuable and they're really fungible. shared by indigenous peoples in the Americas. So they're highly valuable and they're really fungible. So gold and silver won't rot on long voyages and they don't take up that much space relative to how much they're worth. However, there's a twist. Most conquistadors never get their hands on gold and silver. Most parts of the Americas, there aren't any gold and silver. So how are they building their colonies? They need indigenous peoples. They need their labor. They need their produce. So they need them to do the work

of building new colonial cities and towns, building churches, building their houses, and they need them to provide whatever the land produces. produces. The conquistadors have considerable outgoings. Not only do they have to repay their creditors, but 20% of their new wealth must be sent home in taxes to the Spanish monarchy. But there's still plenty of opportunity to feather their nests. They're keen to expand further and set their sights on a huge island that the indigenous people call Cuba.

The job of conquering Cuba goes to a Spanish soldier named Diego Velazquez. He first came to the Caribbean with Columbus, but unlike his famous captain, never returned home. As one of the few pioneers to survive the hardships of a new life in Hispaniola, Velázquez has been richly rewarded, deputizing for Governor Bartholomew Columbus, the young brother of Christopher. To prove himself, Velázquez brutally quashes any uprisings in the local Taino population. By 1511, Velázquez is ready to invade Cuba. He sets sail across the 50-mile strait between the two islands,

now called the Windward Passage. But as his company land on the eastern side of the island, little do they know that there is a welcoming party awaiting their arrival. His cruel treatment of the Taino people back on Hispaniola only strengthened their resolve. Unbeknownst to the Spanish, a Taino chief named Atue has gathered 400 warriors into canoes and set out to alert his neighbors across the strait to the trouble coming their way. Atue beats Velázquez to Cuba and meets with his fellow chiefs. He shows them a basket of gold and says, this is the lord that the Spanish serve and adore.

He warns that the newcomers will steal their land and women, their people will be enslaved. But the chiefs are not convinced. They haven't seen what Atue has seen on Hispaniola. the chiefs are not convinced. They haven't seen what Artue has seen on Hispaniola. Undeterred, Artue stays in Cuba and launches a guerrilla war against the Spanish that goes on into the following year. In retaliation, the conquistadors terrorize the local people, using the ferocious dogs of war they've brought with them from Spain. Finally, someone gives up Atwe's hiding place. On the 2nd of February, 1512, Atwe knows the end is coming. He faces summary justice for his rebellion. He's dragged into a forest near a village called Yara and tied to a stake beside a tamarind tree.

A bonfire is piled up around his feet. He uses all his strength to pull at his bonds, but is held back by thick ropes. A man wearing cowardly metal armor throws Atwe's long wooden mace, or macana, onto the pyre. It's what he used when he ambushed these invaders, waiting in the forest until they came crashing loudly by. Knowing how weak they were without their guns and their dogs, he took the lives of at least eight Spanish savages, and he would do it all over again. A Spanish friar comes forward and regards him. Atue has been stripped naked and robbed of his gold jewelry, but it is his macana that he misses the most, as the holy man roughly grasps his chin.

He asks if Atue will convert to Catholicism, explaining that if he accepts Jesus, then he can go to heaven. Atue thinks for a moment. Then he asks if this heaven is a place that Spaniards also go to when they die. Pleased that the chieftain has understood, the friar assures him that yes, Spaniards who are Catholics do go to heaven. Immediately Atue curls his lip and shakes his head. He'd rather go to hell than reside in the same place as the Spanish.

Why would he want to spend eternity with such cruel people? The priest, disgusted by his insolence, walks away. He orders the fires to be lit and Atue is burned at the stake. The story of Atue's resistance is recorded by Bartolome de la Casas, an early settler. Despite initially participating in the enslavement of the local population, he has a change of heart in 1515 and becomes an outspoken opponent of the system of encomienda. This royal grant, given to individual conquistadors, permits them to enslave native peoples or exact tributes from forced laborers in the name of the Spanish monarch. Las Casas gives up his land and the enslaved people who work it. He suggests bringing slaves from Africa so that the indigenous American workers can be freed.

But when he witnesses the even worse treatment meted out to them, he repents of that idea, too. But Las Casas is in the minority. By now, colonists are engaged in an elaborate treasure hunt for wealth and workers. Explorers realize that beyond the scattered islands of the Caribbean lies a vast land of untapped resources, the mainland. The scouts who visit the shores of the Yucatan, like Cordoba, who was repelled by the Mayans of Campeche in 1517, are desperate to be the first to discover their secrets.

Their Mayans are filled with the fantastical stories that circulate among conquistadors. There are rumors of cities made of gold, even a man made of gold, untold riches there for the taking, tales that will later include the myth of El Dorado. The Spanish state tries to control its outposts with the system of encomienda, which is designed to prevent a free-for-all and to ensure that taxes are paid to the Spanish state. But in reality, the conquistadors are too far from home and too close to temptation to stick to the rules. By 1519, Velázquez is governor of Cuba. He founds Havana with its magnificent harbor. He's ready to expand into the mainland, so he picks a man named Hernán Cortés to do the dirty work.

His mission is only to establish trade links with indigenous peoples, not conquer them. Cortés does not have a right to encomienda. One February morning, around 500 men, a dozen horses, and several cannon are packed onto 11 ships. By now, Velázquez has doubts about Cortés. Can his deputy be trusted? Cortés is a lawyer, a notary, who rose through the colonial ranks to become mayor of Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city on Hispaniola. Now he has invested his own fortune in this expedition. But why? He only has the right to explore, not make money.

Slowly, Velázquez realizes that Cortés has an ulterior motive. He intends to seize the resources of the mainland in what is now Mexico for himself. Velázquez issues an order for the expedition to stop, but it is too late. Cortés is one step ahead, his ships set sail early, and the trade mission becomes an invasion. The more time that I spent studying Cortés

and reading the things that he had written, the more I came to dislike him, The more time that I spent studying Cortes and reading the things that he had written, the more I came to dislike him, but not as a villain, not as a kind of larger-than-life, swashbuckling villain. He was accused of murdering one of his Spanish wives, and that's the least of the things that he does. The point is, he behaves like other conquistadors do. In fact, I don't think he is a particularly capable and brilliant one. I think he is the perfect figurehead for an enterprise in which a group of Spaniards are able to pursue their own individual ambitions as well as their collective ambition. They skip the Maya coast as much as they can because of previous defeats and end up in the Gulf of Mexico in Tottenac country, which is now the

outer regions, the coastal regions of the Aztec empire, where they then realize because the Aztecs send an embassy down that they're onto something. This is a wealthy area. I mean, they see the way this Aztec embassy is dressed, spectacular plumage of feathers and clothing and jewelry. And it's like, okay, we're onto something right here. At which point they then spend months and months and months arguing, going up and down the coast, trying to find where they are, fighting, killing each other. It's absolute chaos. Of course, it's presented as, you know, Cortés working out his brilliant enterprise as a brilliant general, but it's chaos. When Cortés finally lands in the Tabasco region of the Yucatan Peninsula, he defeats a Mayan tribe. He is presented with a gift, which is more valuable than he first realizes.

A woman named Malintzin, who will later become known as Doña Marina or La Malinche. Malintzin has been enslaved most of her life. Originally an Aztec, the child was given to or kidnapped by the Mayans, so she now speaks both languages. She is one of 20 girls, some mere children, received by Cortés as the spoils of war. Really, in the larger story, she's one of thousands of young women who have been caught up in this slave system. Possibly tens of thousands, many hundreds of whom end up back in Spain. thousands, many hundreds of whom end up back in Spain. So the trafficking network is huge, and it continues to expand as Spaniards travel further into the Americas, acquiring more and more indigenous young women, enslaving them, and then selling them through into the system.

So why do we know about her? Because she's bilingual. So this is not a perfect system at all. But it does give this one poor enslaved young woman a little bit of status and protection. And then the next step of it is that she acquires Spanish really quickly. So she obviously has a natural affinity for language. And then she is protected by Cortes as his personal interpreter. That is a moment of status for her. She is then called Doña by the Spaniards. That status lasts until the war is over, at which point Cortes doesn't need her anymore. And then the story gets really dark again, because nine months after the war is over, almost exactly, she gives birth to a child. Cortes is the father. So it's horrific.

And the fact that it's portrayed as some kind of romance hundreds of years later, I think, just adds to the horror of it, insulting the memory of this woman who was trying to survive amidst a horrific situation. Cortes sends his son back to Spain to be raised at court. Melancine never sees him again. For all the honorific titles given to Doña Marina, Cortes grows tired of her, and she is passed between his fellow Spaniards

until she marries a nobleman. She will die while still in her twenties. Historians, including the conquistador writer Bernal Diaz, claim that much of Cortés' success was thanks to her work as his translator. In Mexico today, she is sometimes portrayed as a traitor, even if the young woman, a teenager when she first met the Spanish, had little choice in the matter. Like Malintzin, other indigenous people join Cortes as a means of survival when he first lands on the Yucatan Peninsula in 1519. They are united by a common enemy, the Aztecs.

Cortes wants to seize their capital city of Tenochtitlan. Locals who have been persecuted by the Aztecs are keen to see the empire overthrown too, even if it means joining one group of conquerors to defeat another. By 1519, the Aztec empire is at its peak, controlling much of central Mexico by alliance or by force. Tenochtitlan is the largest city in the Americas and one of the largest in the world, around five times the size of Tudor London. Built on an island in a lake, Bernal Diaz later writes that its towers and gardens seem to rise from the water.

It appears to the invaders like a dream. Cortes was right when he first spotted the Aztec embassy and assumed that his rich attire indicated a mighty empire. We know that the Aztecs, for example, had an incredible literary tradition, had developed a beautiful language that could be spoken on all kinds of different levels. They valued poetry. They had an aesthetic tradition in art and painting, sculpture, architecture, as well as in the arts of the word. But when we think of the Aztecs, do we think of the Aztec equivalent of Shakespeare, their poetry, their dances, their music? No, we don't think of any of that stuff. Instead, we think of somebody being dragged up the steps of a pyramid and having their heart cut out.

And then we exaggerate it to be something that supposedly happens all the time. According to the Aztec legend of the five sons, their gods sacrificed themselves so that humankind could live. So a sacrificial victim is seen as paying back that debt to the gods. Sometimes people are ritually murdered, but often people let their own blood in tribute to their deities. The Aztec leader in 1519 is Montezuma II, a man who has himself conquered neighboring lands. Through a process of diplomacy and force, Cortes persuades indigenous warriors to join his army to fight against Montezuma and the Aztecs. It is the 8th of November, 1519, and the conquistadors are ready for battle.

Spanish cavalrymen lead the procession to Tenochtitlan. There are soldiers in armor with swords and lances, men with crossbows, infantry with rudimentary long-barreled guns called arquebuses. The warriors from local kingdoms wear simple padded armor and carry leather shields. Finally, wagons pull the conquistadors' cannon. The strangers enter the city across a flower-covered causeway over the lake. They marvel at the chinampa, or floating houses. The farmers are dressed in simple cloths tied at the shoulder,

but in the city nobles wear elaborate headdresses and animal skins. A grid of streets channels the procession to a central plaza, which is surrounded by temples, palaces, and schools. Its centerpiece is the vast terraced pyramid, 50 meters high, with steep stairs rising to a double temple on top dedicated to the gods of rain and war on ground level teams of youths play a game that resembles basketball on a special court with a stone ring nearby is an altar besides which stands zompantli a rack of human skulls from sacrificial victims or war captives. Cortes marches past this landmark, wondering how many of his men might be added to the grisly display by the end of the day.

But then, two columns of Aztec men approach. They are dressed elaborately, with ornately woven cloaks, and all barefoot except one man who wears sandals. Accompanied by attendants carrying garlands of flowers, this man, in his forties with a short, neat beard, is immediately identifiable as their leader, Montezuma II. Nervously, Cortes receives the gifts, allowing necklaces of petals to be placed around his neck. Only when his trusted translator, the young woman Malintzin, assures him that the Aztecs are bidding them welcome, does the Spaniard stand down his troops. Why does the Aztec king welcome Cortes?

No one knows for sure. Perhaps Montezuma fears that the Spanish will lay waste to his magnificent city. Perhaps the king thinks he can negotiate a profitable trade alliance with the Europeans. Maybe he is biding his time, gathering his forces in preparation to retaliate. Legend has it that Montezuma is a highly superstitious man who fervently believes a mythological story that the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl was exiled from Mexico but is destined to return one day in a new form. So it is said, when Montezuma sees the lighter haired Europeans arrive in ships, he mistakes the invasion for the prophesied return of Quetzalcoatl and hands over the city. Perhaps, not surprisingly, the legend originates in Spanish chronicles.

But is it likely that Montezuma is this gullible and unaware of the existence of conquistadors despite their presence off the coast of Yucatan for over two decades now? There's very little that has survived in terms of image and text from the Aztec period. So there's a sort of archaeological evidence because of Tenochtitlan being more or less destroyed gradually as Mexico City rises on top of it. Information that we know about Montezuma, therefore, is minimal. But what we do know is that he was a very successful emperor. He expanded the Aztec empire as much as, if not more than, any of his predecessors. He was very successful at controlling other members of the royal family, of the nobility. He was in every way a success. Therefore, the notion that as soon

as Spaniards come, he suddenly becomes a superstitious coward and surrenders the empire doesn't make any sense. But it's a fiction that really is convenient for everybody. It's convenient for Spaniards. Oh, we had a right to it. He surrendered. It was providential, right? It was what God wanted. God was working through Montezuma to bring about this surrender. It also was convenient to indigenous peoples as well, right?

To answer the question, how did this happen? How did this sudden change take place? Well, we had a leader who was a weak one. He surrendered. Cortes sees that despite the Aztecs' hospitality, when he first entered Tenochtitlan, he is vastly outnumbered by Montezuma's people. So, just a few days after their arrival,

fearing that his upper hand could slip, Cortes takes the king hostage. Soon his palace is guarded by a hundred Spanish soldiers, and the conquistadors make themselves at home in paradise. A few months later, in April 1520, Cortes receives news from the coast. More conquistadors have arrived. In 1920, Cortes receives news from the coast. More conquistadors have arrived. Nineteen ships, fourteen hundred soldiers, eighty cavalry, more cannon, a veritable army. This second invasion has been sent from Cuba by Velazquez, not as backup for Cortes, but to rein him in.

Velazquez knows that his ambitious countryman plans to seize the Yucatan for himself. Cortes has no choice but to leave Tenochtitlan under a deputy and march to the coast to confront his own compatriots. What happens next is contested. Some say Cortes subdues the new troops, but it is possible that the newcomers attempted to join a life of luxury in the Aztec capital. Either way, they abandon their original mission and come to his side. Cortes returns to Tenochtitlan with over a thousand conquistadors, only to find the city in chaos. During his two-month absence, his deputy went looking for

Aztec gold, tortured priests and nobles, and started a riot during the annual religious festival. If tensions were high before Cortes left, now they boil over as the Aztecs turn against both the invaders and their own leader, Montezuma, who welcomed the strangers in. When Montezuma is persuaded by Cortes to climb to the top of the pyramid temple and call for calm, he is pelted with rocks and spears by his own people. He dies two days later from his wounds. Without the Aztec king to act as his puppet leader, Cortes knows he cannot hold Tenochtitlan. He flees in a humiliating retreat that becomes known as La Noche Triste, or The Sad Night.

But the Spanish are not ready to give up their prize. They regroup and come again. What follows is over a year of warfare and a siege of the capital city that lasts for four months. Cortes has more weaponry, but the Aztecs have more soldiers. Perhaps what swings the conflict for the Spanish are the secret weapons they bought inadvertently but emphatically on their ships. Smallpox, measles, influenza. Since the first European footsteps in the Americas, these diseases have been carrying out a massacre of their own. There's a whole array of diseases that are not known in the Americas at all until Spaniards arrive. And the diseases spread quicker than the Spaniards do.

For example, the six months that the Spaniards spend in Tenochtitlan has the effect of introducing various diseases into that city. When nine months, a year later, a Spanish indigenous force is then besieging that city, those defenders are having to deal with waves of epidemic disease that's probably killing more of the defenders than the war itself is directly through violence. Tenochtitlan, that culminates in August of 1521. Yes, the defenders in the city are dealing with a smallpox epidemic, but 98% of the attacking force is indigenous. The Spaniards are numbering in the hundreds, and there are tens of thousands of indigenous warriors, and they are in even closer proximity to the Spaniards

and their African servants, slaves who were with them as well. After months of fighting, Cortes is victorious. Tenochtitlan falls. The conquistadors tear down the monumental structures that reflect the might of the Aztec empire, its temple pyramids and lush palaces, and use the stones to construct the first buildings of a new town that will become Mexico City. Despite the horrors faced by both Aztecs and conquistadors during these conflicts, the Spanish settlers and fortune hunters keep coming. There's a lot of PR, if you

like, circulating around the Iberian Peninsula, promoting what is going on in the colonies in a positive way. Then, of course, who tells the stories of how wonderful it is? The survivors. Most conquistadors die. The mortality rate is really high, and it's a violent place. The Spanish conquistador invasion has dramatically increased the level of violence and mortality, even while they are ironically putting out stories about how terribly violent indigenous peoples were, the Indians, and how they brought them civilization and peace and so on. After his victory over the Aztecs, Cortes names his territory New Spain, with Mexico City as his capital. It is overseen by Cortes as governor,

who reports to the Spanish monarch. In 1512, New Spain comprises the seized Aztec lands in Mexico, but throughout the rest of the decade, companies of conquistadors set about expanding it. Cities are founded in Venezuela, Hond honduras and guatemala as settlers move through central america but the conquistadors want more they know there is a vast sea to the west back in 1513 a man named vasco nunez trekked across panama and saw the pacific ocean by the end of the decade, Núñez is dead, beheaded by fellow conquistadors who thought he wanted to take the land for himself.

But he leaves behind stories of a fabulous empire in the mountains to the south, a society with wealth to rival the Aztecs. A man named Francisco Pizarro picks up the trail. He's a distant cousin of Hernan Cortes, and he hungrily explores the Pacific coast, searching for treasure to match that enjoyed by his relative. In two nimble caravel ships, Pizarro visits what is now Colombia and Ecuador, and reaches as far as Peru without spotting any signs of a great empire that

might provide gold and other riches. But he does encounter indigenous sailors carrying valuable cargo, so he knows there must be a source of wealth somewhere on the Pacific side of the continent. By 1531, Pizarro is on his third expensive expedition and is growing desperate. his third expensive expedition and is growing desperate. He now holds the coveted Encomienda. But if he wants to conquer indigenous societies, he has to find them first. He pushes further south, far enough to spy the rugged white tips of the Andes. In 1532, Pizarro lands at a place called Tumbes. He has 168 men, 27 horses, and a Catholic friar. They set out into the highlands in search of the rich mountain civilization believed to exist in these southern lands.

Little does Pizarro know, but he's in the kingdom of the Incas. This empire is one of the largest in the world. It stretches almost the length of South America, from Quito in the north to what will become Santiago in the south, and far inland across the mountains. Luckily for Pizarro, the Incan empire is in disarray due to a civil war and the relentless spread of disease. In some parts of South America, up to 90% of the population die from the invisible enemy of foreign viruses.

Well, the Inca, because Inca means emperor, the Inca emperor dies, probably, we don't know for sure because there were no Europeans there at that point, but probably dies from a smallpox that has spread down into the andes before spaniards have got there so by the time a full scale expedition comes down that we sort of associate with pizarro smallpox has already and other diseases probably have already gotten into the andes and spread kill the inca emperor and his two sons then engage in a rivalry, a violent rivalry, and sort of temporarily split the empire. And that provides Spaniards with an opportunity

to get in and create further disruption and chaos. So again, in South America, these diseases do play a crucial role, but not simply just to give Spaniards an advantage, but to create a kind of a chaos. And only through that chaos are the Spaniards able to create, to gain these toeholds or footholds in these regions. And then with the surviving indigenous rulers sort of begin to build this new arrangement. By Friday, the 15th of November, 1532, Pizarro is heading inland. After months of envoys going between himself and Incan leaders, he has been invited to meet the emperor. Pizarro leads his small force up the mountain trails to the highland town of Cajamarca.

The Inca is named Atahualpa. to the highland town of Cajamarca. The Inca is named Atahualpa. As the Spanish approach, he is relaxing in a hot spring. He stretches his aching muscles in the steaming waters and breathes the scent from the tropical flowers that cascade into the baths. Atahualpa is recovering after a recent victory in battle. He barely stirs as a runner enters the compound and delivers the message that the bearded white man and his few soldiers are close.

The emperor is unconcerned. Clearly this foreigner poses little threat against his massive army of 80,000 warriors. Atahualpa lies back and makes Pizarro wait. But as soon as the Spanish reach Cajamarca, they grow impatient. A man named Hernando del Soto comes to Atahualpa as an envoy. The Inca receives him while sitting on a dais, hidden behind a linen veil. Del Soto puts on a display of horsemanship. At one point he charges towards Atahualpa at a gallop, stopping his horse inches from the platform. The Inca does not move or even flinch,

but several members of his entourage draw back and the Emperor has them executed for their cowardice. Pizarro must wait until the following day for an audience with Atahualpa. The Spaniard uses the time to lay a trap. His men set up artillery, including cannon, in the narrow alleys that surround the main square at Cajamarca. As the Inca's procession enters the plaza, the emperor is

carried on a golden throne, with attendants throwing petals in his path. Pizarro realizes for the first time the extent of the wealth of this empire. Just like his distant cousin Cortes, who plundered the abundant resources of the Aztecs, the Spaniard has an opportunity to strike it rich by conquering the Incas. It takes some time for the musicians and dancers to finish their show. The Incan delegation wears colorful ceremonial robes and gold or silver headdresses. The plaza is packed with Atahualpa's entourage, Pizarro's men, plus nobles from neighboring towns and villages who are ruled by the Inca. The emperor is positioned in the center of the square on his throne. Pizarro's friar steps forward and offers Atahualpa a crucifix and a Bible and invites him to swear allegiance to the Spanish crown.

The Inca only frowns at the strange book. After all, his vast empire has no written language, using instead a sophisticated system of knotted threads to convey messages. So to him, this jumble of printed pages is meaningless. Atahualpa flings the Bible to the ground. This is provocation enough for Pizarro, who attacks. Using cannon, weapons, and cavalry horses, he soon routes the Incan forces despite being outnumbered. Atahualpa is struck by a rock, and captured. Perhaps sensing that his days are numbered, Atahualpa offers Pizarro a deal. Keep me alive and I will fill a room with treasure.

Over the course of eight months, the simple stone cell where the Inca is imprisoned, in central Cajamarca, is filled to the roof twice with gold and once with silver in an effort to placate Pizarro. In that time, the Spanish take over the empire with Atahualpa as a puppet emperor. In July 1533, despite Atahualpa's desperate efforts to pay ransom after ransom, Pizarro tires of him. The Inca is given a summary trial for rebellion and sentenced to death by burning. When Atahualpa agrees to be baptized, the Spanish show leniency by strangling him instead. early in that invasion there is a point in the northern Inca city of Cajamarca where all the gold and silver that has been acquired as a ransom for Atahualpa is then melted down turned into bars

and then divided up as shares among the 168 based on their rank and how much they had invested and the more we delve into it the more we have to better understand not only how the conquistadors are working themselves, it's this kind of conflict between individual gain and group gain, and what's good for the King of Spain and for the burgeoning empire. But we also have to better understand Inca society,

the Inca political arrangement, Andean culture, and why it is that a group of invaders are allowed to survive for so long, just as they do in Aztec Mexico. And I think there's an irony there that the Spaniards portrayed indigenous peoples as barbaric and bloodthirsty. But if they really were that barbaric and bloodthirsty, invading Spaniards would have been slaughtered in far greater numbers than they were. It takes several more decades for the Spanish to quell individual Incan rebellions. By that time, Pizarro has long since been assassinated by rival conquistadors in Lima,

the city he founded on the coast of Peru. He is buried in the cathedral, with his decapitated head in a separate lead box while pizarro is busy in peru his compatriots are on a mission to the north francisco vasquez hears rumors of gold in the great plains of north america he wanders as far as kansas with a band mercenaries, only to return empty-handed and financially ruined. In 1542, a man named Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sails up the Pacific coast of what is now the United States.

He names San Diego in California and reaches as far as present-day Oregon. Meanwhile, Hernando del Soto, the same man who charged the Incan Empire at Hualpa on a horse, makes his own foray into North America. He leads an expedition through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and into Arkansas, tirelessly chasing an empire to conquer, an El Dorado to make his name and fortune. chasing an empire to conquer, an Eldorado to make his name and fortune. We know there was no such empire anywhere in North America or in the rainforests of Brazil, but Spaniards didn't know that. So they keep looking for the next one. And everyone who goes in there wants to be the man who discovers that next big empire. It becomes turned into almost like a children's adventure story where they're looking for the fountain of youth or the city of gold, the El Dorado, the man of gold, whatever it is. But it's essentially they're looking for another

Aztec empire. There isn't one in North America, so that story ends up involving small conquistador expeditions. As elsewhere, the Spaniards are greatly outnumbered by indigenous people who are accompanying them, who are essentially keeping them alive. And these kind of wanderings through, those conquistadors tend to become seen in American history as kind of heroic explorer figures in a way that Cortés is not. Hernando del Soto will die somewhere on the banks of the Mississippi River, like so many of his fellow conquistadors. For every victorious Cortés and Pizarro, there are thousands more Spaniards whose names are lost to history. But the high death rate doesn't deter them. By 1565, the Spanish are pushing further west, across the vast empire of the Pacific into Asia.

A sailor named Miguel López, originally from the Basque region of Spain, survived the treacherous crossing to arrive on an island called Cebu. Here, López meets the chieftain. The two men perform the local ritual of cutting their hands and letting their blood drip into a cup from which they both drink. López goes on to forcibly establish a colony on these islands and pays tribute to his sponsor, the Spanish monarch Philip II, when he names them the Philippines. The Spanish conquistadors are best remembered for what they stole from the people they suppressed, the material wealth of the Mayas and Aztecs,

the sophisticated empire of the Incas, the lives of millions of indigenous Americans via diseases they introduced, the freedom of the people they enslaved from Africa, whose descendants enriched the ethnic diversity of the Caribbean. The conquistadors also changed a continent with what they left behind, in particular the Spanish and Portuguese languages. The seaborne adventurers of the 16th century may have died,

but the legacy of the colonizers remains, indelibly written on the land and its people. There is no obvious and agreed ending for the conquistador era. So any particular region we look at, we can find conquest activity dragging on for many, many generations. If we want to look at say the Maya area, which crosses many modern national boundaries, right, it's now Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and so on. There's a major conquest campaign into the center of the Maya area in 1697. Now we're a century and a half later, but Chile, Argentina, there's really violent campaigns of extermination of indigenous peoples that are taking place in the late 19th century by those nation states. That story varies from country to country. There's no nation in the Americas that can claim the kind of a spotless record. And that very much includes the United States.

record. And that very much includes the United States. Individuals do terrible things. And individuals can take control of regions or countries and terrible things are done in their name. But the problem is empire. The problem is colonialism and imperialism. That's the problem. In the next episode of Short History Of, we'll bring you a short history of Vincent van Gogh. You don't have to know a lot about Vincent van Gogh to know that the life was tragic. Just the ear incident alone is enough to let us know that he was an unhappy person. And yet you walk into a museum or into an exhibition and look at his art, and it just overwhelms you with the joy that it takes in

life. And I think people, without even being necessarily consciously aware of it, come away from it with an almost religious feeling about how somebody can transmute pain and sorrow into joy. So this mechanism of turning sorrow into joy was very much a conscious one on Vincent's part and became in some ways, I think, the ultimate defining characteristic of Van Gogh as a human being and as an artist. That's next time on Short History Of.