Conquistador in a cotton shell

A book that reveals the main secret of the conquistadors: how did they succeed?

The thousand -grass work of Andrei Kofman is devoted to the conquest of the Spaniards of America. Especially for Gorky, Semyon Kvasha read the book and realized how exactly a bunch of Europeans managed to conquer huge territories in a short time.

Andrey Kofman. Under the protection of Santiago. The Spanish conquest of America and the fate of the famous conquistadors. SPb: Kriga, 2017

The Spaniards began to colonize America (which was still considered India) from despair. Columbus did not bring spices, porcelain, silk from the New World - all that he sailed to the fairy -tale east through the Atlantic Ocean. And almost simultaneously with this, the Portuguese nobleman Vasco da Gama sailed to real India, discovered the Malabar coast, fought a little with local residents and brought pepper, cinnamon, carnations, prisoners and clear evidence that real India exists and is ready for colonization, Christianization and robbery. The Portuguese crown took note of this and began to send the fleet behind the fleet there, because, despite the monstrous deprivations and terrible distances (from Europe to the Caribbean, Columbus sailed a little more than a month, Africa Gama scoured a year and a half), the expeditions were grandiose.

The Spaniards did nothing in Western India. The Antille Islands were not similar to either the islands of spices or the mysterious country of Yapan. There was no gold, spices and Christian lords there. The inhabitants were relatively friendly, but poor and new subjects of the Catholic kings did not seek. Spanish colonies organized in Cuba and Espanyol, but they did not even really provide themselves.

At the same time, stubborn rumors went (the entire early history of colonization was built on rumors and biblical legends) about the kingdoms rich in gold and spices, and about the sources of eternal youth. These rumors were not enough for the kings of Aragon and Castiles to organize full -fledged military expeditions, but they were enough for adventurers from among the poor nobles and even children of pigs (the main thing is that they would not be descendants of baptized Jews) to collect units at their own expense and colonized America - themselves. These people were called the conquistadors, and Andrei Kofman wrote a very thick and rich book about them.

Firstly, it is huge. 1 030 pages with a preface, a name pointer and a list of literature and sources. Good, thick, heavy paper, a beautiful hard cover-this is not the book that can be carried with you in a purse or a neat city backpack, it should be read at home-preferably from a special medieval pupiter-content. For the convenience of the reader, the publication is equipped with a silk red slant - a trifle, but nice.

Secondly, she is beautiful. The book has cards - both ancient and modern artistic stylizations. And pictures. The latter, however, is difficult: a lot of Indian drawings were published there (the Indians painted their conquerors very well, the images can be considered simply hours), many drawings of the conquistadors themselves and the monks accompanying them, copies of ancient engravings and a certain number of modern, but made in the same style. And it’s easy to get confused. Not all illustrations are signed, and it is not always possible to understand whether the hero of the Aztec graffiti is looking at you.

The main thing, however, is not pictures, but letters.

Andrei Kofman made a popularizer feat and gathered the whole story of America’s conquest in one volume. About a hundred years, incredibly saturated with events and heroes, the fall of the two great American empires, the catastrophic anabasis of the Florida expedition, access to the Pacific Ocean, victory and defeat, internal trees of the conquistadors - and all under the same cover. For simplicity, he took advantage of the personal approach: each chapter is a description of the life and exploits of one “adventurer”. This is not very facilitated by the reader’s life, because the same heroes are found in different chapters: this one served with this, he fought with that, the new character tried to put the hero of the previous chapter in prison and issue to the royal authorities as a traitor, embezzlement and villain. The head from the abundance of actors begins to spin quite quickly - especially since if the names of the conqueror of Mexico Cortes, the winner of the Incaro Incarro and the only decent person in this gang of Alvara Nunees Kabesa de Vaka, we still know, then little -known Pedrarias crushed, Juan de Garay and Lope de Aigirre, circle with a round dance and forced to dance and force them. the reader to cry.

But not the author. The author really loves them, even mediocrity and soutines like Pedrarias Davila. He writes a lot and in detail about their ethics and their inner world. These guys were brought up on knightly novels, the peak of fashion for which came at the very end of the 15th century (Cervantes already ridicules this fashion). They sincerely believed in biblical and near -biblical fairy tales and they were directly guided by them, looking in America and the copy of Tsar Solomon, and the kingdom of the presbyter John and other medieval mirages. They combined the cult of personal valor and personal honor with reasonable cynicism and passion for enrichment. Huge wealth, however, could go to a few units, but incredible adventures, monstrous deprivations and unknown lands were enough for everyone. They really believed that their divine mission was to bring the light of the faith of Christ's savages, which did not prevent them from turning these new Christians into slavery and driving them into enkkomends (estates) and mines. Like the Spanish territories - the legendary infantry regiments, which at about the same time horror at all European peoples - the conquistadors detachments were not estimated. There were nobles - but mostly poor and, moreover, the second and third sons, which nothing shone in their homeland - and commoners who, armed, professed the same values ​​and the same code of honor as their comrades with blue blood.

Roughly speaking, I put on an iron shell - became a conquistador.

Or not.

The fact is that (especially in the early stages of conquest) the conquistadors were very poor. And they were also armed too badly. Literally: one arquebus for all, armor - only officers, crossbows - and there were not enough. Cortes's associates willingly wore trophy Aztec shells from quilted cotton - enemy arrows stuck in them, they softened the blows of the Indian clubs, and in any case it was better than nothing. So Gumilev had to write “I am a conquistador in a cotton shell” or something like that.

And here again and again the main question arises, which is asked by everyone who at least someday, at least a little interested in the history of the conquest of America. How did it happen that tiny, poor, poorly armed detachments of the Spaniards defeated the huge armies of the Indian emperors? There were hundreds in the conquistadors, sometimes even dozens of people - there were tens of thousands of soldiers in the armies of the Aztecs and Inca.

It is clear that specifically Cortes very successfully played on hatred between different tribes entering the Aztec state, actually stood at the head of the uprising against the imperial house. But there were quite a few clashes in which Cortes had to do without the support of the Tlaskalans, and Pisarro completely did almost without the support of local tribes. It is clear that the Spaniards had a little cavalry, and the Indians never saw monsters called “Horseman” and had no idea how to deal with him, but they were not idiots either, such things work once.

Kofman also asks this question and brings everything to the honor and discipline of white conquerors. The Spaniards with an oath and a contract were clearly distributed by all roles. Each commander has a whole chain of deputies. Each fighter knew his place in the ranks and knew whose place he would have to take if the losses were large. The wound or death of the commander did not lead to panic and flight, as was happening among the Indians.

In addition, the Spaniards were ordinary soldiers, the purpose of which to make the enemy fall, surrendered or fled, and they could achieve this goal by any methods. For the Indians, the war was a ritual, the main goal of which was to take the enemy captured and then sacrifice it to the gods. At the same time, they did not know, they did not know, different military units did not know how to interact with each other - and as a result, the Spaniards were very much lost in tactics. But it is still incomprehensible - because many tribes of South and Central America resisted the conquistadors very successfully, having mastered riding, using partisan tactics and using the knowledge of the area.

In the Spaniards, however, this circumstance did not cause amazement. On their side were God and the apostle Jacob, Santiago, and they simply could not lose. For the same reason, by the way, they were much smaller racists than other colonial Europeans. From the first years of the Concists, the Spaniards married local women (and why not, if they accepted Christianity), and their metis children inherited titles and property and became full members of society. The very one that of New Spanish very quickly turned into Latin American.