Early Spanish Colonization

[JeanryChandler]

Stacy

Congrats on your trip to Spain, I'm jealous, haven't been there since the 80's. Lovely place, I think may favorite in the world in some ways.

For an interesting quick insight into some of the earliest known cultural / agricultural / social foundations of Spain, I highly reccomend the Osprey Military book Rome's Enemies (4) Spanish Armies . Really helps deliniate some of the major cultural zones and what their differences were.

Jr

Edit: fixed typo

[Andrzej Rosa]

As for Russia, you are right good point. Definately an exception to
the rule

I wouldn't say so. Big Russia-like flatlands seem to "prefer" centralised
power. Mountainous countries, like Greece or Switzerland, seem to be more
kind to some sort of democracy.

And here is a point. Both Cortez and Pizarro managed to overthrow
mountainous empires, which should be sorta unstable, if above assumption
makes any sense.

It's unfortunate that academic study gets politicized but it seems to
be inevitable particularly in todays climate.

Woo-hoo! Inevitable?! Are you living in some sort of totalitarian state, or
something like that?

It's evitable, and I'd say it is also high time to start being ashamed about
it.

Regards.

[david welch]

I just read this... and thought it is relevant to this discussion.

http://www.discover.com/issues/feb-06/features/megadeath-in-mexico/?page=1

Epidemics followed the Spanish arrival in the New World, but the worst killer may have been a shadowy native—a killer that could still be out there
By Bruce Stutz
DISCOVER Vol. 27 No. 02 | February 2006 | Anthropology


When Hernando Cortés and his Spanish army of fewer than a thousand men stormed into Mexico in 1519, the native population numbered about 22 million. By the end of the century, following a series of devastating epidemics, only 2 million people remained. Even compared with the casualties of the Black Death, the mortality rate was extraordinarily high. Mexican epidemiologist Rodolfo Acuña-Soto refers to it as the time of "megadeath." The toll forever altered the culture of Mesoamerica and branded the Spanish as the worst kind of conquerors, those from foreign lands who kill with their microbes as well as their swords.

The notion that European colonialists brought sickness when they came to the New World was well established by the 16th century. Native populations in the Americas lacked immunities to common European diseases like smallpox, measles, and mumps. Within 20 years of Columbus's arrival, smallpox had wiped out at least half the people of the West Indies and had begun to spread to the South American mainland.

In 1565 a Spanish royal judge who had investigated his country's colony in Mexico wrote:

It is certain that from the day that D. Hernando Cortés, the Marquis del Valle, entered this land, in the seven years, more or less, that he conquered and governed it, the natives suffered many deaths, and many terrible dealings, robberies and oppressions were inflicted on them, taking advantage of their persons and their lands, without order, weight nor measure; . . . the people diminished in great number, as much due to excessive taxes and mistreatment, as to illness and smallpox, such that now a very great and notable fraction of the people are gone. . . .

There seemed little reason to debate the nature of the plague: Even the Spanish admitted that European smallpox was the disease that devastated the conquered Aztec empire. Case closed.

Then, four centuries later, Acuña-Soto improbably decided to reopen the investigation. Some key pieces of information—details that had been sitting, ignored, in the archives—just didn't add up. His studies of ancient documents revealed that the Aztecs were familiar with smallpox, perhaps even before Cortés arrived. They called it zahuatl. Spanish colonists wrote at the time that outbreaks of zahuatl occurred in 1520 and 1531 and, typical of smallpox, lasted about a year. As many as 8 million people died from those outbreaks. But the epidemic that appeared in 1545, followed by another in 1576, seemed to be another disease altogether. The Aztecs called those outbreaks by a separate name, cocolitzli. "For them, cocolitzli was something completely different and far more virulent," Acuña-Soto says. "Cocolitzli brought incomparable devastation that passed readily from one region to the next and killed quickly."

After 12 years of research, Acuña-Soto has come to agree with the Aztecs: The cocolitzli plagues of the mid-16th century probably had nothing to do with smallpox. In fact, they probably had little to do with the Spanish invasion. But they probably did have an origin that is worth knowing about in 2006.

[Justin Lompado]

There has been so much mention of Cortes (not that he doesn't deserve mention), but relativley little of Pizarro. It was he who defeated the Incan army under Atahualpa, at 80,000 strong, with less than 180 men (Not a single Spaniard was lost).

[kenneth house]

I'd say the whole situation was almost entirely decided by European geographical advantages.

Europeans have access to both horses and cattle, both powerful work animals and in the case of horses, military tools. Central Americans had...Llama's?

While Quinoa boasts a very high nutritional content I seem to remember some kind of large disadvantage compared with wheat. Probably a more work intensive cultivation requirement or something like that, I'll look it up if I remember...

Europe and Asia (and Asia Minor) all reside along roughly the same latitude and thus all share roughly the same climate. Thus a population adapted to life in such a climate should find it quite easy to migrate population across this latitude and thus ideas. What I'm trying to say is that the similar climate throughout the very horizontal Euroasia facilitates rabid cross polinization of technology, resources and culture. Central America (and the American continent in general) is just the opposite - It's extremely vertical layout makes for vastly disparate climates resulting in great migration difficulty.

The Aztec homeland is mountainous while Europe is very flat. Due to this Europeans will have a much easier time growing an abundance of food. An abundance of food means more time for the population to focus on other things, such as inventing better ways to kill each other.

Europeans have had writing since just about the beginning of time, the Aztec lack this completely, enough said.

I've always found it odd, however, that the Aztec never managed to develope metalworking to any real extent. So many disparate cultures have developed this independantly at such early points in their development that it just strikes me as odd how this never occured in the Americas.

Europeans lived in close proximity to animals. As far as I know this was not the case with the Aztecs. No animals means no abundance of diseases and thus no natural immunities to European diseases.

Geographical advantages lead to technological and cultural advantages. Europeans held so many advantages over American civilizations I just can't foresee a European defeat as even possible, germs or no germs. If Cortez had not been successful there would have been another fleet and another fleet and still more fleets until someone accomplished it.

Even in Europe, cavalry has managed to defeat vastly larger numbers of infantry consistantly even though European armies had been dealing with that cavalry for ages. The steel armed and armored European cavalry seems more or less invincible against Aztec weapons. Exhaustion is the only thing I could possibly see stopping a group of European cavalry. Just imagine how many Aztec could be killed before reaching this point! And that's assuming their army hasn't already routed in terror.

The only thing worth noting here are some gross inaccuracies, such as Europeans having writing sense the beginning of time, which you should validate. Western European writing in no way predates that of the Central "American" cultural complex.

European armies' victories, which were, often then not, hard fought, came, really, with the assistance of native populations aiding European armies.

Given that this group (ARMA) concerns itself with indigenous European hand to hand weapons combat, and not ballistics technology, which was not a European invention, what battles with hand to hand combatives strategems/confrontations were won by European armies in the overwhelming way you seem to imply?

Likewise, your concepts on how technological practices are supposedly diffused are merely speculative at best.

You make bold statements on the supposed superiority of European armies which cannot be validated. Keep in mind that the Moors ruled a large portion of Western Europe for approximately 700 years.

Where is the data to support Medieval European martial victory using the armaments learned here?

[Robert James Lehnert]

I just finished Haven's Carnage and Culture as was very impressed--and agree it's a good antidote to Diamond.

However, a prior poster mentioned that the Conquistadors found native "cotton armor" better than their steel armor. Now, for the life of me, I cannot imagine how "cloth armor", other than venting body heat a lot faster than plate could possibly be better protection against obsidian edged maziquitals Owning a reproduction obsidian knife, the stuff is fragile--well it is volcanic glass. If I chopped it against mail or sheet steel, it would shatter. On the other hand, if I took it against "cloth armor" say something the consistency of macrame knitting, any decent pressure will slice through. The only effective defense might be the serrated edge (multiple chips stick into a wood shaft) of a maziquital might get hung up in the cloth, resisting the pulling draw slice.

Any feedback greatly appreciated

[Randall Pleasant]

However, a prior poster mentioned that the Conquistadors found native "cotton armor" better than their steel armor.

This might be another myth. If it is true then hopefully someone will cite a primary historical source for it. As an ex-arcahaeologist I am very aware of the properties of obsidian and I too cannot think of any reasons to not want steel armour. Against steel armour obsidian weapons would have been totally useless!

[Allen Johnson]

I just recently finished 'The History of the Conquest of Mexico" by Bernal Diaz del Castillo (superb primary source!) and I seem to recall him saying that some Europeans DID in fact use some of the native cotton armor. I dont have the book on me at the moment but I certainly will look it up when I get home.

On the effectivness of obsidian edged swords:
I havent had the opportunity to experiment with obsidian weapons but there are MANY times in Diaz's account where he mentions how the Mexicas "did us much hurt with their swords". They respected the weapon and the people that used it. I think that the users of these stone edged swords approached the problem the same way the Europeans do when faced with armor. Dont cut through it- Go around it. I don't seem to recall any more armour being mentioned other than helmets and breastplates on the side of the Spainards. This would mean that possibly the arms and legs were exposed. Especially given the natives penchant for taking prisoners, I'd imagine that disabling blows to the legs were a mainstay in their technique. If we look at some of the period artwork we see many severed arms, legs and heads sitting on the ground.

So in summary, I think that if obsidian reacts badly against steel, the natives would have figured that out very quickly and would focus on attacking the unarmoured areas. Just as anyone would who had a solid understanding of armed martial arts- which is obvious these people did.

Thats how I see it...at least until I see evidence to prove things otherwise...then I'll go with that

[Benjamin Smith]

This is only in repsonse to one or two of the posts so far, and supports most of what has been said, as a historian whose secondary expertise is colonial Latin America. If Bernal Diaz account is correct, and we have a lot of reasons to assume that it is. The most effective troops on the battlefield by far were in fact the Spanish foot soldiers, against whom the Aztecs were simply outmatched. They held the centers or important flanks of the lines that met the native forces. Most of the kills recored by Diaz are on by soldiers on foot. Most of the fighting in Tenochtitlan was by foot soldiers, led by these Spanish infantry. In the iconography these are almost invariably shown with a mixture of plate and mail armors, a shield, and a sword of either the older knightly or a cut and thrust variety. This matches Diaz's description of the troops. There are as far as I know no rapiers that saw action in this stage of the conquest of the Americas, and it predates most rapiers I know of by some 50-70 years. I know of no mention or portrayal of a rapier in Spanish accounts of the conquest of Mexico, nor in the conquistadors iconography. Diaz notes a small variety of pole-arms (which were probably of the shorter variety carried aboard ships at the time).

The wounds Diaz records for the Spanish (and he's very thourough about this) are usually not lethal, in contrast to Native injuries, for which he often reports death. If his account is to be believed, the Spanish armor made a very big impression on the natives who did in fact realize that it was very difficult to to kill an armored Spaniard, especially in an even fight.

All the cavalry victories in Diaz's account were setup in conjunction with the effective use of the foot soldiers meeting the Nahuatl advances head on, allowing the cavalry time to flank and roll up the enemy line.

[Jaron Bernstein]

You also have to consider the Spanish tercio as a highly effective tactical formation.

[s_taillebois]

Another effect would have been differential cultural mnemonics. The Aztecs morale tended to be very reliant on favorable omens (they won one battle, prior to Cortez, because an owl ('muan' normally a ill harbinger, hooted sounding like the word for Atzec victory).
It wasn't uncommon for meso-American combatants, to wait on battles, until various natural events had been interpreted.
The Spanish, generally (baring such as comets) did not share this tradition.
Another factor, was literally how the war was declared. Usually there was a series of reciprocal ritualized insults, and it wasn't uncommon for the Aztecs to literally announce their warplans to enemies. Partially to show their lack of fear, partially because the Aztec pilpiten (nobility in Hummingbird/Jaguar societies etc) viewed lies as dishonorable.
In either small unit, or larger actions that type of conduct would have been very problematic. And the Spanish, between the cruzada ethos, and the viewing of the triple alliance as 'heathens' would have no reservations in this regard. (something similar to the advantage Henry had over the French with his Welsh daggermen).
Cauhtemoc prior to his death, did conduct his guerrilla actions closer to the Spanish conceptual model, but by then it was too late.

And if this thread keeps coming back to life, Quetzoqautl will return before it ends...

[Allen Johnson]

...doing my best to bring back the feathered serpent...

Good points these last few posts...
Another point of interest is that even though crossbows, cannons and early guns played a large role in Cortez's campaign, when the chips were really down and the Spainards were close to defeat, Diaz almost always noted that it was their superior swordplay that gave them victory ("We gave them good play with our swords").

I forgot to check on the armor source...I'll try to remember today.

[Robert James Lehnert]

In terms of armor the Spanish had availible, I admit I'm doing this from memory, but from all place an early 1980's article in Tournaments Illuminated (the SCA member magazine) actually listed, from primary sources, the extensive list of armor (including full plate harnesses) the Conquistadors carried on their expeditions--with the interesting exception swords were not mentioned because it was expected that each soldier would have one--and we certainly know sw3ords were used.

I'm wondering if these manifest lists were just the companies property; back up weapons & armor to be issued as needed?--that like swords, personaly owned armor was not mentioned?