Conquest

There are many different terms to describe what happened in Mesoamerica and the Andes and the term conquest is a very appropriate one. First, the word conquest should  be defined. There is, of course, a definition in the dictionary, it is the state of being conquered. The people in Mesoamerica and the Andes, were indeed conquered by the Spanish which is why this term is very appropriate. It was not easy, all of the different groups of people put up a fight, they were after all warriors, but the reason I can say that the word conquest with certainty is because after all of these years one language has prevailed. In South America and Central America, Spanish is still predominantly spoken, which tells me that in some way the Spanish conquered the Andeans and other groups. It isn’t to say the Spanish King sent armies to conquer any groups that the Spanish may have come across, on the contrary, Restall says “the conquistadors made it clear in the 1520’s and 1530’s that  no armies were sent by the King of Spain to the Americas during these decades(28)”. This is one of the myths that Restall exploits and explains, why it came to be. The King of Spain did not send an army necessarily to conquer any groups, but what with the requirmentos, how could Cortés and his “trecientos peones” “300 on foot” not try to conquer anyone who they may come across.

Restall says that this myth, of the king sending soldiers, is one that most likely got lost in translation, modern historians who would call the men soldiers when in actuality it was never written, by Cortés, that these men were soldiers, yet it is clear by what we know now that the Spanish were trying to influence any groups they may have come across to follow them religiously, or other wise and if they did not then they were made to, or taken over (conquered) by the Spanish. Regardless of how many Spanish were sent or what their initial intentions were, their story of coming to Mesoamerica and the Andes is one that can be called a conquest.