Latin America

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The earliest inhabitants of America were hunters who migrated from the Asian mainland across the Bering Straits land bridge between 40,000 and 25,000 B.C.E. They adapted quickly to their environment. Their population in Central America and in the high valleys of the Andes alone had grown to approximately 45 million by 1492, the year Christopher Columbus arrived in America. In 1500, over 350 major tribal groups, 15 distinct cultural centres and more than 160 linguistic stocks existed in Latin America, a variety so great as to invite comparison with all of Eurasia or all of Africa.

The Europeans incorrectly categorised all these groups under the title of "Indian." "Indian" was of course a misnomer since it originated in a geographical misconception on the part of the Christopher Columbus who imagined himself near the East Indies. Having only one name applied to the diverse indigenous populations also presented a unity between these groups that did not actually exist. Even after contact with the European invaders, each group sought out the most advantageous situation for itself alone. This lack of unity was a key element to Spanish expansion as will be seen in the accounts of the conquests of the Aztec and Inca Empires.

Any commonality among the diverse indigenous groups came from their shared state of relative isolation from the rest of humanity. In the Old World, people, disease strains and technologies had been continually passed back and forth over the entire great landmass of Europe-Asia-Africa for centuries. New World peoples had no such contact and this resulted in devastating population losses due to a lack of resistance to the incoming Old World diseases like smallpox. Another way in which these groups were similar is that none had iron and steel. The Europeans knew how to manufacture and use steel weapons and this knowledge gave them the ultimate military superiority critical to their conquest of the New World.

The Spanish Conquistadors

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The Spanish explorers took two Iberian traditions and combined them to facilitate their entrance into the New World. The first tradition was the maritime-commercial "company," and the second was the military expedition that grew from the Reconquista. The leader and main investor of an expedition would have the title of "captain" and was invariably an important encomendero: a member or former member of a colonial municipal council, a senior settler in the area, a wealthy man, or a nobleman (hidalgo). Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro both match this profile. Their "company's" associates made the large investments of ships, clothing, weapons, and horses for the expeditions, and acted as officers. The ordinary members of an expedition usually supplied their own equipment and provisions in exchange for a share in whatever booty the expedition procured. None of the ordinary members had a direct connection with the royal army, most in fact had no professional military training or experience. They came from a variety of backgrounds and social classes that included artisans, merchants, clergy, lesser nobility, urban and rural residents, and freed blacks.

These expeditions were always carried out in much the same way. The conquistadors depended heavily on the military advantage given them by their steel weaponry and horse cavalry. They also adopted a divide-and-conquer strategy that exploited pre-existing indigenous political rivalries. An equally effective strategy was the capturing of an indigenous leader and the holding him hostage to pacify his followers. The conquistadors, including Cortés and Pizarro, typically carried out their expeditions in this fashion. It was these men who carried out the mainland conquests and set up a new social framework in colonial Latin America.

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