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| segolden |
Secrets Of The Conquistadores
Click to see full size image Above is an illustration from an Aztec codex, referring to the Seige of Tenochtitlan (later rebuilt as Mexico City). As is seen here, the natives of this region of North America had become quite proficient with the bow as a weapon of war in the two centuries after the fall of the Toltec Empire. So proficient, in actuality, that it was a major factor in the near defeat of Hernando Cortes’ Spanish Conquistadores. Archery is the most undisguised and yet the most unrecognized issue in the conquest of the Americas. Cortes is both renowned and infamous as the strategist of the Conquista, but it was his diplomacy with the local Indian tribes living under the heel of the Aztec Empire which saved his army from defeat and ultimate massacre. Time and again during the awful retreats and turns of fortune in the various battles, it was the arrows of his tribal allies that kept the Aztec forces from following up on their triumphs. Once the Aztecs learned that arquebuse and cannon could be neutralized by closing with the Spanish enemy, it was only steel and native archery that could stave off the attack. Lance and horse could maneuver and take the advantage directly to the battle leaders of the Aztecs, but it was directed archery’s firepower that covered Spanish movement on the field, and arrows which sheltered the engineering efforts that finally made a siege successful. The plague of small pox that devastated the Aztec will to resist was simply icing on the cake for Cortes. During the final battle for the city, shades of future wars and urban combat were seen as teams of archers, gunners and engineers worked to reduce opposition by taking and destroying one building at a time. At the moment of surrender, forty per cent of Tenochtitlan was rubble, and the rest was knocked or burned down afterward to prevent the spread of disease. Interestingly, it was the absence of archery that enabled Francisco Pizzaro to emulate Cortes. The Incas had little concept of the bow’s use in formal warfare, and found too late that it was an effective guerrilla weapon against isolated columns of troops, a tactic the Welsh used to stave off English invasion for many years. By the time the Empire’s warriors learned this, all they could do was retreat into the jungles and hidden cities on the eastern side of the Andes Mountains, forcing the Spaniards to follow at their own constant risk of ambush. The Conquista was complete, though it took many years of small campaigns and skirmishes to affirm Spain’s hold on Southern America. See the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hern...ort%C3%A9s#The_Invasion_of_Mexico http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Pizarro |
| fred |
conquistadoresSteve you are my type of man
FRED |
| segolden |
Like your signature, sometimes I hit 'em.  Got French and Polish stuff coming up eventually. 
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