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The Rise of the Conquistador
The European discovery of the Americas and the subsequent colonization of that land by Europeans was the most consequential occurrence of the last millennia. Two men prominent in that discovery’s opening events were Christopher Columbus and Hernando Cortés.
“Sword of Empire: The Spanish Conquest of the Americas from Columbus to Cortés, 1492-1529,” by Donald E. Chipman, tells the story of these two men. It explores the events of the first forty years of the Spanish acquisition of the American possessions.
Columbus opened the Age of Exploration. Cortés opened the Age of the Conquistador, where Spanish freebooters conquered the great empires of North and South America. Together the men form a set of bookends in the story of the Americas. Columbus departed the New World for the last time in 1504, dying in 1506. Cortés arrived at Santo Domingo, the colony founded by Columbus in the year of Columbus’s death. This allows Chipman to follow the thread of the opening years of Spain’s American adventures using these two as his focus.
These events shaped the modern world. Chipman takes readers with Columbus as he establishes colonies in the New World. He shows how adventurers from Spain settled the Caribbean, subjugating the primitive inhabitants of those islands. He then shows how the Spanish expanded into continental North America. Finally, he takes readers to present day Mexico, showing how a handful of Spaniards, led by Cortés, brought down the mightiest indigenous empire in the Americas.
Chipman is far more interested in Cortés than Columbus. Columbus exits the stage barely one-fifth of the way into the book. The remaining 80 percent focuses on Cortés. Additionally, most of the information about Columbus comes from secondary sources, while Chipman relies extensively on primary and archival sources when writing about Cortés. Yet the events involving Columbus prove critical to understanding how and why Cortés succeeded.
In “Sword of Empire” Chipman attempt is to present an approachable and accessible history of the opening of the Americas. It is intended as a readable narrative for the general public and an accurate one for scholars. He succeeds in these goals. His book offers a clear and understandable presentation of the initial settlement of the Caribbean and the conquest of Mexico. It presents the events in an entertaining narrative that does not compromise accuracy. It places these events in a historical context, which does not surrender to twenty-first century political correctness.
“Sword of Empire: The Spanish Conquest of the Americas from Columbus to Cortés, 1492-1529,” by Donald E. Chipman, State House Press, 320 pages, $39.95 (hardcover), $24.95 (ebook)
This review was written by Mark Lardas who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.
Published in History
I’m in. Grist for the AOC mill I’m ‘ginning up.
The conquistadors were young soldiers seeking land in a period when war had suddenly been won.
The previous decades had seen mighty warriors ousting Moors from their settled lands only to have the land awarded to the conquistador. So many soldiers of the Reconquista had found fortune in war. But suddenly it was over. In 1492.
And seemingly, the very first act of peace was Colombus sailing the ocean blue. Upon his discovery, landless soldiers seeking land to call their own found new purpose! And what better way to rid oneself of restless and rootless young men then to send them across the ocean to an unknown world?
The hope was they would become lords in their own right – and some succeeded more or less. But none so successful as Cortes who made himself not only a Lord, not only a King, but a god in possession of a golden people.
Great opening sentences.
Cortez was one of the few who died of old age, rich, in his own bed, and in Spain.
I’m impressed. Wasn’t he at one point suspected of treason? Wasn’t someone sent to put him down? Or maybe I’m confusing my conquistadors of Central America. My study a few years ago was limited to Florida and the states.
No. You are not confusing them. He was suspected of treason and someone was sent to arrest and execute him. But Cortez had two big brass ones and managed to overcome the obstacles. (He sent all the treasure he first collected directly to King Charles – later Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor – without keeping any for himself or his men. Since it was voluntary and the king was badly in need of money, he was disinclined to think of Cortez as a traitor.)
Cortez was big-pimpin.
It took 70 years for Muslims to conquer Spain and 700 years for the Spanish Catholics to take it back. Columbus must have been waiting with his briefing papers in Granada as Ferdinand and Isabella changed the locks at the Alhambra in 1492.
I suppose the Muslims could be blamed for being the losers who loosed Spanish conquistadors upon the New World while they refocused their “convert or die” colonizing on Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia. It would be entertaining to see The Squad (especially the East African Muslim and the Puerto Rican from the Cortez family) debate these secondary, lingering consequences among themselves.