African Conquistadors

Knowledge is like a baobab tree; no one can encompass it with their hands. 

  "From the very onset of Spanish activity in the Americas, Africans were present both as voluntary expeditionaries and as involuntary colonists" states Matthew Restall from his book entitled, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest.

 

Black Conquistadors

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.”
― Aldous Huxley, Collected Essays

Contrary to history books, the European conquerors of  the Americans were not all white.  Some were brown skin and even black.

Case in point is Juan Garrido.  Fortunately we know of him first hand.   From his own letter to the Spanish Crown outlying 30 years of service in an effort to qualify for a well earned pension.

Juan Garrido

Conquistador Hernando Cortes Pizarro Part II

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Cortes assembled a motley crew of experienced Spanish soldiers seeking fame and fortune and inexperienced skilled laborers and 16 horses aboard 11 ships.

On February 18, 1519 he set sail for the Yucatan coast