Though it is common to find economic rational behind a violent or colonial conflict, the first four chapters of Restall's Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest illustrates the huge role desire for wealth played in the early Conquest of Mesoamerican and Andean civilizations. Conquistadors were essentially entrepreneurs looking to establish a livelihood in the Americas. These were not, for the most part, a highly trained military or even mercenaries but Spaniards (and as pages 53-63 point out, Africans) in need of permits to establish a plantation or mining operation in the New World (66).
     This conclusion raises two serious problems with more traditional retellings of the Spanish conquest: that the spinsh militray machine was a force with which to be reckoned, and that conquistadors were personally invested in conversion efforts or expanding the influence of the Spanish crown. The notion of Spanish soldiers dominating, with gunpowder and steel armaments, has stuck in popular culture from movies to computer games. Restall dispells this by illustrating that the Spanish were armed men without standardized ranks or equipment (34) and without a formal, consolidated offensive plan, as Cortes' machiavellian maneuverings around Diego Velazquez's patronage (39).
    Restall further debunks the notion of a superior national Spanish army when discussing Indigenous political rivalries and how savvy conquistadores often allied with factions to topple others. This was most obviious with Cortes' allicance witht the Tlaxcalans against the Mexica (46). Here again the conquest was not a organized effort but a hodgepodge of variously motivated groups acting out of self interest. The early conquistadores' invasion of the Americas more resembled competing businesses, albeit ones that would not pass DOL guidelines, than one coherent group assailing another.