A conquest without an army?

In the beginning of class students were to determine what terms fell under conquest; based on our own definition and idea of what conquest is students creating a list of terms. A couple of terms that were brought up to depict conquest were force, power, genocide, empire, etc. Negative terms were associated with conquest along with powerful terms; the terms power and empire stands out to me the most when I envision the word conquest. In order to conquer anything in life one must be able to build an empire of his own; being able to have a strong army and support system to depend on. When one is planning on conquering leaders must have a firm foundation of an army in order to move forward and develop strategic plans during their conquest.

As Restall discusses in chapter 2, page 33, “myth of the kings army” he indicates that the conquistadors did not have formal training and enough experience. In my opinion it was also not enough training and skills within each individual to fully be recognized as an army. The conquistadors did not have a support system from Kings or individuals in a higher status; they came from different backgrounds and simply followed one man on a journey. The Spanish presence and actions in the 16^th century is very questionable to whether or not we can really consider the Spanish conquest as a conquest. Today, having a powerful military we can recognize what a true army consists of and how it is governed. In this aspect the Spanish conquest lacked an army.

Restall introduces the third myth as “myth of the white conquistador”, not only were the Spaniards not experienced as soldiers yet they were often out numbered. In many of their invasion and battles the Spaniards were accompanied by Africans. Restall states, “…Spaniards seldom acknowledged the importance of African combat roles; yet it is also clear that Spaniards tended to view Africans as ‘very good at fighting’…” (61). Although Africans weren’t well recognized as being a part of the Spanish invasion they were acknowledged for their fighting abilities. As stated above in this perspective of a conquest the invaders and warriors during the 16^th century did not have a full team to call their journey as a conquest. The Spaniards lacked an army of their own which made it difficult to be recognized as a conguest.