Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest

Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest focuses on specific historical myths surrounding the Spanish Conquest, a phenomenon that grew out of the European Age of Encounters (formerly called the Age of Discovery). During the early modern period (ca. 1500-1700), European kingdoms sponsored missions of exploration of the world outside of Europe that soon turned into missions of conquest, birthing global European empires. At its height, the Spanish empire included large portions of the Americas.

It was the Portuguese, however, who began these ambitious expeditions. During the course of the 15th century, they began exploring the islands of the Atlantic and the West African coast, establishing colonies of sugar plantations on islands like the Canaries. The Portuguese also sought a direct sea route from Europe to Asia so that they could better control the importation of eastern goods, particularly valuable spices. Discovery of this route in the late 1400s allowed the Portuguese to undercut the role of Islamic traders in the eastern spice trade. Merchants from Europe no longer had to do business in the markets of Cairo with these intermediaries but could go directly to the source of significant profits.

As Restall points out, the above historical context set the stage for the Italian navigator, Christopher Columbus, to approach the Spanish crown for financing his own expeditions after the Portuguese rebuffed him. He undertook a voyage in which he sailed west from Europe across the Atlantic, accidentally stumbling upon the Caribbean. Though Columbus held that he had arrived in Asia, other European navigators understood that he landed on a continent previously unknown to most of Europe.

After Columbus’s success, the Spanish crown gave contracts to other men who launched privately-funded expeditions of exploration and conquest in the Americas. These men are called the “conquistadors.” They colonized Indigenous lands and assumed control over peoples in modern Mexico, Central America, and South America. The importation of diseases that did not exist in the Americas prior to contact, especially smallpox, facilitated Spanish success, as these illnesses destroyed populations and weakened otherwise strong empires like the Mexica (or Aztec) empire of central Mexico and the Incas of Peru.

The most well-known of these conquistadors are Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizzaro. Cortés conquered the Mexica empire in 1521, after it was greatly weakened by an outbreak of disease. He also created alliances with other Mesoamerican peoples, such as the Tlaxcala, who were rivals of the imperialist Mexica. Restall, however, suggests that Cortés receives too much credit for this victory, which was partially the result of luck. Indigenous peoples like the Tlaxcala equally exploited the Spanish to engage in internal warfare, and had circumstances been different, the Spanish may have failed in their efforts to overcome the Mexica capital, Tenochtitlán, and other significant holdings.

Similarly, Pizarro arrived in Peru on the heels of a devastating smallpox outbreak that killed the Incan emperor, leading to civil strife among the Incan nobility over control of the empire. Restall argues that Spanish superiority is not the reason for Spanish success—rather, it was a variety of circumstances that gave the Spanish unexpected advantages. Restall explores this myth of Spanish superiority throughout his book and details oft-overlooked, erroneous, and/or misunderstood reasons that the Conquest succeeded. He also highlights the survival of Indigenous traditions in the face of Spanish exploitation and suppression, suggesting ongoing resistance even after colonization had taken place.