Conquistador in Chains

Conquistador in Chains PDF Author: David A. Howard
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817308288
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
The current image of the Spanish conquest of America and of the conquistadores who carried it out is one of destruction and oppression. One conquistador does not fit that image, however. A life-changing adventure led Cabeza de Vaca to seek a different kind of conquest, one that would be just and humane, true to Spanish religion and law, but one that safeguarded liberty and justice for the Indians of the New World. His use of the skills learned from his experiences with the Indians of North America did not always help him in understanding and managing the Indians of South America, and too many of the Spanish settlers in the Rio de la Plata Province found that his policies threatened their own interests and relations with the Indians. Eventually many of those Spaniards joined a conspiracy that removed him from power and returned him to Spain in chains. That Cabeza de Vaca was overthrown is not surprising. His ideas and policies opposed the self-interest of most of the first Spaniards who had come to America. What is amazing is that he was able to inspire and hold support among many others in America, who remained loyal to him during his time in prison and after his return to Spain.

Conquistador in Chains

Conquistador in Chains PDF Author: David A. Howard
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817308288
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
The current image of the Spanish conquest of America and of the conquistadores who carried it out is one of destruction and oppression. One conquistador does not fit that image, however. A life-changing adventure led Cabeza de Vaca to seek a different kind of conquest, one that would be just and humane, true to Spanish religion and law, but one that safeguarded liberty and justice for the Indians of the New World. His use of the skills learned from his experiences with the Indians of North America did not always help him in understanding and managing the Indians of South America, and too many of the Spanish settlers in the Rio de la Plata Province found that his policies threatened their own interests and relations with the Indians. Eventually many of those Spaniards joined a conspiracy that removed him from power and returned him to Spain in chains. That Cabeza de Vaca was overthrown is not surprising. His ideas and policies opposed the self-interest of most of the first Spaniards who had come to America. What is amazing is that he was able to inspire and hold support among many others in America, who remained loyal to him during his time in prison and after his return to Spain.

Conquistador

Conquistador PDF Author: S. M. Stirling
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101043938
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
“In this luscious alternative universe, sidekicks quote the Lone Ranger and Right inevitably triumphs with panache. What more could adventure-loving readers ask for?”—Publishers Weekly Oakland, 1946. Ex-soldier John Rolfe, newly back from the Pacific, has made a fabulous discovery: A portal to an alternate America where Europeans have never set foot—and the only other humans in sight are a band of very curious Indians. Able to return at will to the modern world, Rolfe summons the only people with whom he is willing to share his discovery: his war buddies. And tells them to bring their families... Los Angeles, twenty-first century. Fish and Game warden Tom Christiansen is involved in the bust of a smuggling operation. What he turns up is something he never anticipated: a photo of authentic Aztec priests decked out in Grateful Dead T-shirts, and a live condor from a gene pool that doesn’t correspond to any known in captivity or the wild. It is a find that will lead him to a woman named Adrienne Rolfe—and a secret that’s been hidden for sixty years…

A Land So Strange

A Land So Strange PDF Author: Andrés Reséndez
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465010342
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
From a Bancroft Prize-winning historian, the "gripping" tale of a shipwrecked Spaniard who walked across America in the sixteenth century (Financial Times) In 1528, a mission set out from Spain to colonize Florida. But the expedition went horribly wrong: Delayed by a hurricane, knocked off course by a colossal error of navigation, and ultimately doomed by a disastrous decision to separate the men from their ships, the mission quickly became a desperate journey of survival. Of the four hundred men who had embarked on the voyage, only four survived-three Spaniards and an African slave. This tiny band endured a horrific march through Florida, a harrowing raft passage across the Louisiana coast, and years of enslavement in the American Southwest. They journeyed for almost ten years in search of the Pacific Ocean that would guide them home, and they were forever changed by their experience. The men lived with a variety of nomadic Indians and learned several indigenous languages. They saw lands, peoples, plants, and animals that no outsider had ever before seen. In this enthralling tale of four castaways wandering in an unknown land, Andrés Reséndez brings to life the vast, dynamic world of North America just a few years before European settlers would transform it forever.

Conquistador

Conquistador PDF Author: Buddy Levy
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553384716
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
In this astonishing work of scholarship that reads like an edge-of-your-seat adventure thriller, acclaimed historian Buddy Levy records the last days of the Aztec empire and the two men at the center of an epic clash of cultures perhaps unequaled to this day. It was a moment unique in human history, the face-to-face meeting between two men from civilizations a world apart. In 1519, Hernán Cortés arrived on the shores of Mexico, determined not only to expand the Spanish empire but to convert the natives to Catholicism and carry off a fortune in gold. That he saw nothing paradoxical in carrying out his intentions by virtually annihilating a proud and accomplished native people is one of the most remarkable and tragic aspects of this unforgettable story. In Tenochtitlán Cortés met his Aztec counterpart, Montezuma: king, divinity, commander of the most powerful military machine in the Americas and ruler of a city whose splendor equaled anything in Europe. Yet in less than two years, Cortés defeated the entire Aztec nation in one of the most astounding battles ever waged. The story of a lost kingdom, a relentless conqueror, and a doomed warrior, Conquistador is history at its most riveting.

Conquistador in Chains

Conquistador in Chains PDF Author: David A. Howard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780817391706
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description


Came Men on Horses

Came Men on Horses PDF Author: Stan Hoig
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607322064
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
Guided by myths of golden cities and worldly rewards, policy makers, conquistador leaders, and expeditionary aspirants alike came to the new world in the sixteenth century and left it a changed land. Came Men on Horses follows two conquistadors—Francisco Vázquez de Coronado and Don Juan de Oñate—on their journey across the southwest. Driven by their search for gold and silver, both Coronado and Oñate committed atrocious acts of violence against the Native Americans, and fell out of favor with the Spanish monarchy. Examining the legacy of these two conquistadors Hoig attempts to balance their brutal acts and selfish motivations with the historical significance and personal sacrifice of their expeditions. Rich human details and superb story-telling make Came Men on Horses a captivating narrative scholars and general readers alike will appreciate.

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca PDF Author: Donald E Chipman
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 087611298X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
Cabeza de Vaca’s mode of transportation, afoot on portions of two continents in the early decades of the sixteenth century, fits one dictionary definition of the word “pedestrian.” By no means, however, should the ancillary meanings of “commonplace” or “prosaic” be applied to the man, or his remarkable adventures. Between 1528 and 1536, he trekked an estimated 2,480 to 2,640 miles of North American terrain from the Texas coast near Galveston Island to San Miguel de Culiacán near the Pacific Coast of Mexico. He then traveled under better circumstances, although still on foot, to Mexico City. About a year later, Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain. In 1540, the king granted Cabeza de Vaca civil and military authority in modern-day Paraguay. After arriving on the coast of Brazil in 1541, he was unable to find transportation by ship to the seat of his governorship. He then led a group of more 250 settlers through 1,200 miles of unchartered back country, during which he lost only two men. Cabeza de Vaca’s travels are amazing in themselves, but during them he transformed from a proud Spanish don to lay advocate of Indian rights on both American continents. That journey is as remarkable as his travels. It was this “great awakening” that landed him in more trouble with Spaniards than Indians. Settlers at Asunción rebelled against the reformist governor, incarcerated him, tried to poison his food on two occasions, and finally sent him to Spain in irons. There he was tried and convicted on trumped-up charges of carrying out policies that were the exact opposite of what he had promoted—the humane protection of Indians. This book examines the two great “journeys” of Cabeza de Vaca—his extraordinary adventures on two continents and his remarkable growth as a humanitarian.

Barefoot Conquistador

Barefoot Conquistador PDF Author: Diana Childress
Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books
ISBN: 0822575175
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
Chronicles Cabeza de Vaca's journey to the New World in 1527, describing the disasters of the expedition and his seven-year stay among the Indians, first as a captive, then as a trader and healer.

The Conquistadors: A Very Short Introduction

The Conquistadors: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Matthew Restall
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195392299
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
This Very Short Introduction examines the Spanish conquistadors who invaded the Americas in the sixteenth century, as well as the Native American Kingdoms they invaded.

The Last Conquistador

The Last Conquistador PDF Author: Marc Simmons
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806123684
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This book chronicles the life and frontier career of Don Juan de Oñate, the first colonizer of the old Spanish Borderlands. Born in Zacatecas, Mexico, in the mid-sixteenth century, Don Juan was the prominent son of an aristocratic silver-mining family. In 1598, in his late forties, Oñate led a formidable expedition of settlers, with wagons and livestock, on an epic march northward to the upper Rio Grade Valley of New Mexico. There he established the first European settlement west of the Mississippi, launching a significant chapter in early American history. In his activities he displayed qualities typical of Spain’s sixteenth-century men of action; in his career we find a summation of the motives, aspirations, intentions, strengths, and weaknesses of the Hispanic pioneers who settled the Borderlands.