A description of conquistadors

What and who were the conquistadors? The Conquistadors were the warriors from Spain. They were the ones who conquered the Aztec, Inca and Mayan empires. These people started with Columbus that included Cortes, Francisco Pizarro, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, Hernando de Soto, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. These explorers covered an area that included the western coast of South America, sailed around the California coast, discovering the Mississippi river, the southwestern portion of the now United States.

Spain was the country the established the model of colonization that the other countries later attempted to imitate. There were three major elements that they followed. These three steps are as follows:

1. The crown maintained tight control over the colonies, establishing a hierarchical government that allowed little autonomy to New World jurisdiction.
2. Most of the colonists sent from Spain were male and they married the Indian women and later on the black women who were bought out of slavery and this is what caused the racially mixed population that characterized the Latin America even to the present day.
3. The colonies' wealth was based on the exploitation of both the native population and the slaves imported from Africa.

During the time of the conquistadors there was the encomienda system which granted tribute from Indian villages to individual conquistadors as a reward for their services to the crown, ensured that the conquerors themselves did not have to engage in field work. Some of the conquistadors sought to erase all vestiges of the great Indian cultures by burning all the written records they found.

Reference: Norton, Mary Beth. & etal. (1991). A People and A Nation A History of the United States. Volume A: to 1877. Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston.