Spanish conquest

“ The apparent ease of the Spanish conquest is often cited as proof to the contrary, but the conquerors succeeded by a bold dash at the ruling group and, once having laid hands upon the machinery, the thoroughly domesticated natives were easily handled. So it was rather by the very thoroughness of the system, than its weakness, that they succeeded. In fact, wherever there were still independent cities, the invaders met with the most heroic resistance, some communities perishing to the last man. ”

“ No Spanish sovereign ever authorised the invasion or conquest of any of the countries, on which their distant and self-styled representatives embarked, for motives of personal aggrandisement or in a pure spirit of adventure. ”

“ Nor can we tell much more of the swift spread{v2-192} of Spanish adventurers over the rest of America, outside the Portuguese reservation of Brazil. To begin with, each story is nearly always a story of adventurers and of cruelty and loot. The Spaniards ill-treated the natives, they quarrelled among themselves, the law and order of Spain were months and years away from them; it was only very slowly that the phase of violence and conquest passed into a phase of government and settlement. ”

“ It is possible that the Spanish general, even so early as the period of his residence at San Miguel, may have meditated some daring stroke, some effective coup-de-main, which, like that of Cortes, when he carried off the Aztec monarch to his quarters, might strike terror into the hearts of the people, and at once decide the fortunes of the day. ”

“ Religion entered, more or less, into the theory, at least, of the Spanish conquests in the New World. That motives of a baser sort mingled largely with these higher ones, and in different proportions according to the character of the individual, no one will deny. And few are they that have proposed to themselves a long career of action without the intermixture of some vulgar personal motive, —fame, honors, or emolument. ”

“ The history of Spanish colonial legislation is the history of the impotent struggles of the government in behalf of the natives, against the avarice and cruelty of its subjects. It proves that an empire powerful at home—and Spain then was so—may be so widely extended that its authority shall scarcely be felt in its extremities. ”

“ The Spanish conquests were more quickly made, and appeared more easily settled, because in states so far advanced in civilisation the defeat of an army decides the fate of a kingdom, and the land already cultivated, and the mines already known and worked, were entered upon at once by the conquerors. ”

“ We have never warred with Spain, and our king has as his wife a princess of that country. Trading at Spanish ports, we learned that there was a rumor among the Spaniards that, far to the west, lay a great people possessing vast stores of gold, and riches of all kinds; and so my father, who was the captain of one of these floating castles, determined to sail across the sea and, in despite of the Spaniards and their rules, endeavor to perform the adventure of discovering, if possible, this great nation. ”

“ The Spanish Conquerors, to judge from their writings, unconscious of any worldly motive lurking in the bottom of their hearts, regarded themselves as soldiers of the Church, fighting the great battle of Christianity ”

“ The royal commission, of which we have spoken in the last chapter, was speedily borne to New Spain, where it was joyfully received by all who had participated in the conquest or joined the original forces since that event. Men not only recognized the justice of the act, but they felt that if the harvest was rightfully due to him who had planted the seed, it was also most probable that no one could be found in Spain or the Islands more capable than Cortéz of consolidating the new empire. ”

“ Besides these there were the special charges sent in since the first year of the conquest by the royal officers and other enemies, embracing the disloyal intent to revolt from the allegiance to Spain, with the aid of Spanish and native confederates, supported by artillery and forts ”

“ While the native element of the population at the time of the Conquest was represented by a race apparently very old and lacking resistant vitality, the conquerors and their followers, who constituted the Spanish element, represented a strong and independent people, who were still enjoying the noontide of their vigor, having recently won supremacy against the most powerful enemies by the might of their swords and in defence of the sovereignty of their faith ”

“ In one respect his writings are of peculiar value. They show the state of feeling which existed at the Castilian court during the progress of discovery. They furnish, in short, the reverse side of the picture; and, when we have followed the Spanish conquerors in their wonderful career of adventure in the New World, we have only to turn to the pages of Martyr to find the impression produced by them on the enlightened minds of the Old. ”

“ From that time there was a constantly growing wish on the part of the Spaniards to conquer those people, not only because they were not Christians and ate human flesh, but because they were a constant menace. On January 22, 1556, a cedula was dispatched ordering that the trouble-makers be reduced to obedience. (Remesal, lib. x, cap. 11.) For a long time after that bitter struggles between the Dominicans and the Indians lasted, struggles which caused the Spaniards to give the name of Tierra de Guerra to the region. One of the missionaries in this region. ”

“ Instead, however, as we shall see, their idolatrous ways were to continue for many decades, and their attitude was to suffer a great change which, we must concede, is largely to be accounted for by Spanish brutality and bad faith. ”

“ The bold leaguers united in that spirit of plunder and conquest which characterizes a martial people, as soon as they are surrounded by the necessaries, comforts, and elegances of life in their own country, and whenever the increase of population begins to require a vent through which it may expand those energies that would destroy the state by rebellions or civil war, if pent up within the narrow limits of so small a realm as the valley of Mexico. ”

“ And this once again leads us directly to that immense military force which the Spaniards have to combat; and which, many think, more than counterbalances every internal advantage. It is indeed formidable: as revolutionary appetites and energies must needs be; when, among a people numerous as the people of France, they have ceased to spend themselves in conflicting factions within the country for objects perpetually changing shape; and are carried out of it under the strong controul of an absolute despotism, as opportunity invites, for a definite object—plunder and conquest. ”

“ All Spain a mass of hostility, a living tide of unquenchable hatred and consuming fire—the French battalions, pouring over the Pyrenees, will be like battalions poured into the ocean. They will be engulfed; they will never return. Our provinces are divided, but they have one invincible bond—abhorrence of the French. Even their division is not infirmity, but strength. They know so little of each other that even the conquest of one half of Spain would be scarcely felt by the rest. ”

“ We ought to draw in, get solid bases for our magazines and hospitals, and regard two-thirds of Spain as a vast battlefield, which a battle may give us or cause us to lose, till the moment that we change our system and take in hand the real conquest and pacification of the country,’ &c. ”

“ It was difficult to conceive any situation which would better warrant hopes of ultimate success than that of Spain. The people were unanimous in their resistance to the invader; and it was the only instance since the French revolution in which a whole people had taken up arms in their own defence. The territory of Spain was as large as that of France within its ancient limits, and the country possessed many local advantages for defence, ... advantages, the value of which the Spanish history in former times ought to teach us duly to appreciate. ”

“ When we approach the Conquest of Mexico with these impartial feelings, we are induced to pass lighter judgments on the prominent men of that wonderful enterprise. The love of adventure or glory, the passion of avarice, and the zeal of religion,—all of which mingled their threads with the meshes of this Indian web, were, unquestionably, the predominant motives that led the conquerors to Mexico. ”

“ The sounds of war died away before they reached the foot of the Pyrenees. Spain, it is true, sent forth her sons, from time to time, to serve under the banners of Charles; and it was in that school that was perfected the admirable system of discipline and tactics which, begun by the Great Captain, made the Spanish infantry the most redoubtable in Europe. But the great body of the people felt little interest in the success of these distant enterprises, where success brought them no good. Not that the mind of Spain was inactive, or oppressed with the lethargy which stole over it in a later age. ”

“ The Spaniards, in the mean time, marched rapidly from one conquest to another, sometimes under pretext of sustaining their ally Boabdil, and often in open defiance of the treaty they had formed with that prince; but always carefully feeding the fire of discord, while they were despoiling each of the three rival parties, and leaving to the vanquished inhabitants their laws, their customs, and the free exercise of their religion. ”

“ Indeed, my rude style of writing would be insupportable without truth, and therefore I was determined to put my trust in it, and continue my narrative in the way I had begun, that it might go to the press, and publish to the world the conquest of New Spain, as it really took place. In this way his imperial majesty will also learn the great services which we, the true conquistadores, have rendered to the crown; how small our numbers were when we first arrived in this country, under the command of our highly-favoured and faithful captain, Hernando Cortes; what dangers we had to brave ”

“ Summing up the faults of the Spanish army, its depleted battalions, its small and incompetent cavalry force, its insufficient proportion of artillery, its utter want of commissariat, we find that its main source of weakness was that while the wars of the French Revolution had induced all the other states of Europe to overhaul their military organization and learn something from the methods of the French, Spain was still, so far as its army was concerned, in the middle of the eighteenth century. ”

“ The position of the Spaniards in the midst of a hostile city seemed well-nigh hopeless--the barricades and pitfalls would paralyze the action of the cavalry and artillery, every house would be a fortress, and under such difficulties even the bravery of the handful of Spaniards would avail but little against the overwhelming force by which they would be attacked. ”

“ Having stripped Spain of its best troops, introduced his armies into the heart of the country, seized the most important fortresses, inveigled into captivity the whole Royal Family, and extorted from them a formal renunciation of the crown in his favour; the people, he thought, if they dared attempt any partial opposition, would be effectually intimidated by the first slaughter, and the military executions which should follow it. His calculation was erroneous, because the Spanish character, and the strength of good principles, had not been taken into the account. ”

“ It was natural, therefore, that they should acquire military functions. It was the adelantado fronterizo of Spain who figured so prominently in the conquest of the Americas. Most of the conquerors of the sixteenth century were adelantados. ”

“ Spain, for instance, whose centuries of fighting with the Moors had enormously developed her military efficiency, used this military power solely for the purpose of pursuing political and religious objects antagonistic or irrelevant to the responsibilities of the Spanish kings towards their own subjects. ”

“ As historians of the conflict we have done heroic work, as have Southern historians of our civil war and French historians of the struggle with the Germans—as all beaten peoples naturally do. Sir, do you know that the great body of the Spanish people believe, and will always believe, that Spain brought us to our knees in 1898? ”

“ Never, before the treaty with France of 1796, concluded by this wiseacre (which made him a Prince of Peace, and our Government the Sovereign of Spain) , was the Spanish monarchy reduced to such a lamentable dilemma as to be forced into an expensive war without a cause, and into a disgraceful peace, not only unprofitable, but absolutely disadvantageous. Never before were its treasures distributed among its oppressors to support their tyranny, nor its military and naval forces employed to fight the battles of rebellion. The loyal subjects of Spain have only one hope left. ”

“ With a civilization which had been ripening for centuries under Oriental skies,—rich in wisdom, learning, culture, science, and in art,—they had come into Europe, infidels though they were, to build up and not to destroy.
The Roman conquest of Spain had civilized a barbarous race. The Gothic conquest of Romanized Spain had converted an effete civilization into a strong semi-barbarism. ”

“ Here is one incident out of many to show the heights to which temper had risen.
'Long peace,' says someone, addressing the Privy Council early in Elizabeth's time, 'becomes by force of the Spanish Inquisition more hurtful than open war. It is the secret, determined policy of Spain to destroy the English fleet, pilots, masters and sailors, by means of the Inquisition. The Spanish King pretends he dares not offend the Holy House, while we in England say we may not proclaim war against Spain in revenge of a few. ”