Black Conquistadors: Africans In the Conquest Of The Americas

When looking at some paintings of Spanish conquistadors in the New World, I would occasionally encounter the portrayal of Africans accompanying the Spaniards. Now admittedly, this was a tad bit confusing for me, and I just assumed that the African presence alongside the Spanish during this time must have been rare and very few in number. But after doing a little digging, to my surprise, I found that African men had various functions The most striking being the fact that throughout the 16th century, thousands of black men aided the Spanish in their conquest of the Americas as soldiers, auxiliaries, and even commanders. Today, modern scholars acknowledge them by calling them the Black Conquistadors. What's up African world, it's Home Team here and welcome back to another video of African History, Culture, and Worldview. My website Afrographics is available for resources on African History, and if you'd like to support this channel, you can do so on Patreon.com. And with a word from my sponsors, there's a new social media platform dedicated to educating and uplifting our people. No longer do we have to be censored for speaking our truth. Our Black Truth is black owned and operated, and a place where you can post your businesses and even monetize your content. You can download the app at Google Play or the App Store, and you can visit the website at OurBlackTruth.com. All links in the description box below. So this video is going to be a rather complex one, morally if you will. Because I have no intention of celebrating this event in history because the conquest of the Americas, as we all know, was a pretty brutal event that cost the lives of millions of native people. From that perspective, this history may be a little troubling and triggering. My only intent is to highlight this part of history that I actually had no idea about. I knew black conquistadors existed in general, but the scale of their participation was very surprising and interesting. Despite the possible triggers of this history, it's important to put this all in context as it relates to African participation. And hopefully I will do a decent job of that in the video. I wanted to start with a great quote by scholar Matthew Rustall. He wrote a journal article titled, Black Conquistadors, Armed Africans in Early Spanish America. From which this video will be based on. In it, he writes the following. The broader cultural context to the Spanish use of black fighters in the conquest and subsequent accounts of their roles is the Spanish perception of Africans as natural warriors. This perception is deeply rooted in Iberian and African history, going back to the role played by black slaves in the Muslim armies of North Africa and the Middle East during the medieval phase of the trade in Sub-Saharan Africans, and the black experience of the Reconquista as armed auxiliaries on both sides of the conflict. I believe this scholar sums up the existence of black conquistadors very well. If we recall, Spain had recently rid themselves of the Moors in the late 15th century. They saw how Moorish armies conquered their homeland and controlled it for centuries. Moorish armies with Amazigh leadership, most of which having many soldiers or military contingents reinforced by Africans from further south, in West Africa. The Spanish apparently never forgot that and sought out the use of the black arm, if you will, via enslavement or service. The first possible indication that people of African descent would be actively involved with the Spanish conquest of the Americas was the participation of Alonso Petro, the pilot of the Nino on the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus. Some accounts say that Alonso Petro was actually a mulatto. Aside from that, the most popular black conquistador is probably Juan Garrido, as he participated in the conquests of Puerto Rico and Cuba, but most of us don't know the truth. The reason we know Juan Garrido is largely because he was just exceptional. He survived all the conquests and he wrote a letter pretty much asking to reap the benefits of his military career. So the larger question is who are these black conquistadors and how did they come to be? Contrary to popular belief in the early conquest of the Americas by the Spanish, Africans accompanied them every step of the way. According to Matthew Rustall, black men played a pivotal role in the conquest and pacification of the Americas. Wherever Spaniards set foot in the Americas as members of conquest companies, they were accompanied by black conquistadors. Africans had a unique dichotomy in early Spanish America. They were present as both voluntary expeditionaries and involuntary colonists. Here's one of the reasons why there were significant numbers of black conquistadors in the Americas during the 16th century. Even though most Africans came to the Americas as enslaved individuals, the conquest of the Americas was only just in its beginning stages, and so many of these enslaved Africans would find themselves as not just servants, but conscripted soldiers alongside the Spanish to consolidate their rule, extracurricular work if you will. Let's think about it from a 16th century Spanish perspective. 1. The Spaniards already knew black men's reputation as moorish soldiers and warriors. 2. Many of the enslaved African men were war captives and knew warfare in general. 3. The Africans that actually survived the Middle Passage to make it to the American shores were literally the strongest stock in the creme de la creme, if you will, of African men. Basically, the Spanish were not only getting more warriors, but they were getting the Lebrons, Colbys, and Jordans of African warriors. It would be counterintuitive to not use these African men as armed and unarmed auxiliaries or soldiers. Now as it concerns the incentive for black men to willingly participate and not rebel, I think Matthew Rustall puts it best. Indeed, black conquistadors by definition fought alongside Spaniards against indigenous warriors. It was by risking their lives, suffering in the field, protecting Spaniards and killing natives that black men were able to improve their circumstances and, if enslaved, fight for their own freedom. Black men who were enslaved tended to acquire their freedom soon after they began fighting alongside Spaniards, if not before. According to Matthew Rustall, very few black conquistadors seem to have remained enslaved after their participation in the conquest. Records of enslaved Africans assisting the Spanish conquistadors in their conquest begin to appear as early as 1502. King Ferdinand repeatedly permitted and encouraged the taking across the Atlantic of black slaves, who continued to enter the colony in small but steadily growing numbers and to participate in Spanish expansion in the region. In 1508, Ponce de Leon took armed Africans to help him conquer Puerto Rico, while Diego Velazquez similarly used black auxiliaries in his conquest of Cuba in 1511-1512. Juan Garrido later claimed to have participated in both these expeditions. As we can see, the popular Juan Garrido was not the only African conquistador, he was simply one of many. Unfortunately, Spanish conquest accounts tended to ignore African conquistador participation and only mention them when they had died in a notable battle or if they had killed a native ruler, but in certain other circumstances, they were mentioned. Blacks accompanied Gio Gonzalez on his conquest expedition up the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and Nicaragua in 1522-23. While the Spanish conquerors of Costa Rica in the 1540s, Sanchez de Badajoz and Cavallon respectively brought nine black slaves and ninety Spaniards and blacks. The name of only one of the black conquistadors in Costa Rica was apparently recorded, Pedro Faluppo. We do have the name, however, of another African-born slave who fought in Central America. Juan Bardales participated in the conquests of Panama and Honduras for which services he was granted his freedom and later a modest pension. Around the 1530s, thousands of the so-called black conquistadors accompanied the Spanish invasion of Peru. As scholars have noted, the historical record is remarkably silent on the roles of black conquistadors in Peru, yet their presence and large numbers are indisputable. This sort of information is somewhat of a paradigm shift as it concerns the history of Afro-descended people in the Americas. The history of black conquistadors, from my view, is certainly unexplored and not at all mentioned in any documentary or history book that I've seen or read. Also, it's one thing to be silent on this topic and another to dismiss the black conquistador participation as insignificant. For example, one black soldier named Juan Beltran played such a pivotal role in the that he was appointed commander of the garrison there. One Spanish observer said that after his death, the area became unstable. Black conquistadors even participated in the founding of Cartagena, Colombia, in the 1530s. Rodrigo Quiroga, writing to the king about the campaigns in Chile, commented that blacks often fulfilled functions necessary to the war. During the 1536 siege by Manco Inca of the Pizarro-led forces in Cusco, the colonial authorities in Hispaniola sent to aid them 200 Spanish-speaking blacks who were very good at fighting. These are roles that simply cannot be downplayed or ignored if we consider proper historical perspectives. Black men were not just conquistadors, but there were some who decided to fight against Spanish expansion and colonialism despite the potential benefit of gaining freedom. Some Africans decided to create maroon communities and even become pirates. Studying this topic would be incomplete if we omitted that fact. But all in all, black conquistadors played a significant role in the conquest and pacification of the Americas. More by necessity than design, blacks, both free and enslaved, became an integral part of Spanish-American garrisons and militias in the 16th century. By the 17th century, this fact had become fully accepted by the colonial authorities. Like I mentioned previously, I hope to put the history of black conquistadors in its proper context. Black men during this time, ironically, had better options than their later counterparts during colonialism. Essentially, they could decide to be a conqueror, potentially gaining their freedom and their dignity, or remain enslaved. Of course, this didn't apply to everyone, and I'm sure it wasn't that simple, but they did have at least some semblance of an option. I find it interesting that the same strategy North Africans used to conquer Spain was the same strategy Spaniards used to conquer the Americas. Anyway, I'm all out guys. Did you guys know anything about the history of black conquistadors? And if so, do you think they played an important role in the conquest of the Americas? Let me know in the comment section below. And if you like these videos, you can support the home team on Patreon.com. The link is in the description box below. Know thyself. Remember your ancestors. Peace.