Armies of the Sixteenth Century, Vol.2 : The Armies of the Aztec and Inca Empires

176 Pages·2009·36.95 MB·English

by  Ian Heath

First Published in Great Britain in 1999
by Foundry Books
Hubert’s Lane
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Copyright © 1999 by Ian Heath
The right of Ian Heath to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
ISBN 1-901543-38-2
ISBN 978-1-901543-38-4
Print ISBN: 9781901543032
Digital ISBN: 9781901543384
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission in writing of the publishers.
Other books by the same author:
Armies and Enemies of the Crusades 1096–1291 (WRG 1978)
Byzantine Armies 886–1118 (Osprey 1979)
Armies of the Dark Ages 600–1066 2nd edition (WRG 1980)
A Wargamers’ Guide to the Crusades (Patrick Stephens 1980)
Armies of the Middle Ages Vol.1 (WRG 1982)
Armies of the Middle Ages Vol.2 (WRG 1984)
The Vikings (Osprey 1985)
Armies of Feudal Europe 1066–1300 2nd edition (WRG 1989)
The Irish Wars 1485–1603 (Osprey 1993)
The Taiping Rebellion 1851–66 (Osprey 1994)
Byzantine Armies 1118–1461 AD (Osprey 1995)
Armies of the Sixteenth Century Vol.1 (Foundry Books 1997)
Armies of the Nineteenth Century: Asia Vol.1 (Foundry Books 1998)
Armies of the Nineteenth Century: Asia Vol.2 (Foundry Books 1998)
The North-East Frontier 1837–1901 (Osprey 1999)
INTRODUCTION
One of the principal problems encountered in writing this book has been the difficulty of stopping it from
becoming either an anthropological survey, or a history of 16th century exploration. Preventing it from doing
either has not been altogether possible, nor, perhaps, entirely desirable, since in contrast to the relative
uniformity of much of Western Europe by this time, it was their cultural diversity which enabled the American
peoples to be told apart, both among themselves and by the early European explorers whose writings are our
main source of information. Nevertheless, I have tried to concentrate principally on those aspects of their dress
and customs which are most relevant to their military rather than their social organisation — though the two
were often inseparable — and to their style of fighting, both against each other and, with varying degrees of
success, against the European invaders.
It is not an altogether pretty story. All the early European voyages of exploration were distinguished by the
pride, ignorance, greed, and casual brutality of the majority of their participants. None of the early colonial
powers — Spain, Portugal, France, and England — were entirely innocent in this context, but of them all it
was the Spanish conquistadores who proved to be the bravest, the most determined, and yet at the same time
the very worst ambassadors that an alien civilisation could ever hope to foist upon an unsuspecting New
World. They had their critics even within Spain, notably in the person of Bartolomé de Las Casas, who wrote
that Spaniards operating in the Americas ‘acted like ravening beasts, killing, terrorising, afflicting, torturing,
and destroying the native peoples, with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty.’ It was this sort
of opprobrium that led to the so-called ‘Black Legend’ of Spanish malevolence, which England in particular
exploited to considerable political advantage at the time, and which to a greater or lesser degree has coloured
foreign attitudes towards Spain and Spanish-speaking countries ever since.
Although the vaunted might of the fabulous Aztec and Inca ‘empires’ collapsed like a proverbial house of
cards in the face of European military expertise, success proved progressively less easy to come by for the
conquerors as the century ran its course. Despite being decimated by the new diseases which accompanied
each European expedition, numerous unsophisticated American peoples proved resilient enough to withstand
and sometimes even to turn back the invaders. Some were not conquered for centuries, while others chose to
be decimated to the point of extinction rather than submit. As Joseph de Acosta observed in the 1580s: ‘Let no
man think that the Indians are of no consequence; and if they do think so, then let them go and put it to the
test.’
Wherever possible the line drawings which illustrate this volume are taken directly from, or at the very
least based on, pictures by 16th century artists or published in 16th century books. Any reconstructions that
have been necessitated by the absence of surviving contemporary illustrations are based instead on
archaeological finds, 15th or 17th century representations, and the detailed descriptions of eye-witnesses.
Needless to say, I have not attempted to deal with every Amerindian people, just those with whom the
conquistadores and other European adventurers came into more than fleeting contact during the course of the
period under review. Nor are individual European conquests or Indian rebellions covered in any detail, that not
being the specific purpose of this series. I have concentrated instead on the organisation, fighting style, and
appearance of the opposing forces, and am hopeful that the end product will surprise a great many readers who
had previously thought that the conquest of the Aztec and Inca ‘empires’ constituted the sum total of Spanish
military activity in the New World in Renaissance times.
Ian Heath
December 1998
CONTENTS
The Caribbean 1492–1603 …...................... 7
Mesoamerica c.1450–1600 ….................... 26
South America 1500–1600 ….................... 85
North America 1497–1608 ...................... 121
Spanish America 1492–1600 …............... 145
Bibliography …......................................... 170
The Caribbean 1492–1603

In the four main islands of the Greater Antilles
some caciques wielded considerable power over a
domain which might encompass many villages
extending over a considerable tract of territory.
THE WEST INDIES Except in Puerto Rico, where a single cacique
(Agueybaná) seems to have held sway, each island
The islands that go to make up the West Indies appears to have consisted of several principal and
consist of the Lesser Antilles, the Greater Antilles, numerous smaller chiefdoms, or cacicazgos, as the
and the Bahamas. It is generally agreed that when Spaniards called them. Those of the principal
the Spaniards arrived the four main islands of the caciques were subdivided into between ten and two
Greater Antilles — Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and dozen smaller districts under lesser caciques.
Puerto Rico — were known respectively to their Jamaica, for instance, had between eight and ten
native populations as Cuba, Ayti (whence modern main cacicazgos, while Cuba had perhaps six.
Haiti), Yamaye or Xaymaca (spelt ‘Jamaigua’ by Hispaniola had five, comprising those of the
1502), and Boriquén or Borichiù. However, Pietro chieftains Guacanagari of Marien, Columbus’ loyal
Martire d’Anghiera (more usually referred to in ally; Guarionex of Magua; Caonabó of Maguana;
English books as Peter Martyr) wrote that the Mayobanex and Cotubanama of Higüey; and
native name for Hispaniola was actually Behéchio of Xaragua. Though leagues were
Quizquella, and it seems that Ayti (which meant occasionally formed, individual caciques acted
‘rough highlands’) actually referred only to a largely independently of one another (on one
mountainous region in the east of the island. The occasion, during the Puerto Rican rebellion against
Greater and Lesser Antilles were peopled the Spaniards in 1511, an alliance was even formed
principally by Arawaks1 and Caribs respectively, with the chiefs of the neighbouring island of St.
while an earlier Arawak people, the Lucayos, Croix).2 Below the caciques came their blood-kin,
inhabited the Bahamas (the Spaniards consequently adopted or otherwise, called nitaínos. The
referring to these islands as the Islas Lucayas). Spaniards considered these to be nobles, and
recorded that in wartime they provided the caciques
with their bodyguards, while in peacetime they
THE ARAWAKS assisted in the government of individual villages.
Despite the estimates of early Spanish explorers
Migrating northwards from the coasts of that there were a million or more Arawaks in
Venezuela and Guiana either side of the Orinoco Hispaniola alone (a census of 1495/6 gives 1.13
delta, the Arawaks had occupied the entire West million, at a time when numbers in Spanish-
Indian archipelago during the course of the first controlled areas of the island had already declined
millennium AD. When the Spaniards arrived in by perhaps two-thirds), and that there were a further
1492, however, they were themselves in the throes 600,000 on Puerto Rico and Jamaica, it seems
of being pushed steadily north by the Caribs. They likely that their true numbers were probably
lived in large agricultural communities consisting smaller. Modern estimates of the population at first
of loose, unfortified clusters of houses, each village contact vary dramatically, from 200,000 upwards,
generally having a population of 1–2,000. They but it is certainly possible that there were as many
were governed by hereditary chieftains called as a million in all. However, in a pattern that was to
caciques, a term which the Spaniards subsequently recur repeatedly throughout the New World
utilised indiscriminately to refer to the native rulers thereafter, these numbers dropped dramatically
found in every corner of the Americas. Among the following the arrival of the conquistadores, as war,
Arawaks the office of cacique seems to have disease, starvation, and enslavement took their toll.
generally descended from father to eldest son, but if The Arawak population of Hispaniola, which may
a cacique left no sons of his own then his sister’s have stood at 250–300,000 in 1492, had dropped to
son inherited instead. If a cacique inherited in this 60,000 by as early as 1508, and to 11,000 by 1518.
way — i.e. via his mother — then at his death it By the 1530s there were said to be less than 500.
was her nearest relative who succeeded, not his. In The story was the same elsewhere. By 1550 just
Puerto Rico and Hispaniola at least this method of 1,000 free Arawaks were left of Cuba’s estimated
succession occasionally resulted in the existence of pre-Conquest population of 100,000, and only 60
female caciques, notable amongst whom were could be found on Puerto Rico in 1542, while the
Higuanama, cacique of Higüey, and Anacaona, who Bahamas had been entirely depopulated by Spanish
succeeded to the chieftainship of Xaragua at the slave-raids as early as 1513.3 Though a few isolated
death of her brother Behéchio. pockets may have survived long enough to merge
with the incoming Spanish population, the Arawaks Hispaniola had their heads ‘shaved in places and in
of Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico were all places have tufts of tangled hair of such shapes that
effectively extinct by the middle of the century. it cannot be described’, while Columbus himself
In addition to the Arawaks proper, there was a wrote in 1492 that the Lucayos wore theirs short
sub-group called the Ciguayo living in the ‘down to the eyebrows, except a few locks behind,
mountains and along the north-east coast of which they wear long and never cut.’ The Ciguayo
Hispaniola, who spoke a different language. wore theirs waist-length, ‘drawn back and fastened
Columbus describes those of Cayabo, who he calls behind, and put into a small net of parrots’
the Macorix, as being ‘of strange speech’, and feathers’, which Columbus describes as ‘plumes of
observes that they and the ‘long-haired’ Ciguayo of feathers of parrots and other birds’ worn behind the
Huhabo province were more warlike than the head.
Arawaks. Since, unlike most Arawaks, they are All the sources agree that they went largely
recorded to have used bows, it is conceivable that naked, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (1525) being
they were of mixed Arawak–Carib descent, alone in mentioning the wearing of ‘a certain leaf as
ethnologists having noticed other distinctive Carib broad as a man’s hand’ (presumably a penis sheath)
traits in ‘the meagre evidence available’. They are to conceal their private parts. It was only after the
said to have been able to raise 15,000 warriors. Conquest that genital coverings were widely
Vestiges of the Greater Antilles’ aboriginal adopted. The Jamaican Arawaks, however, are
population also survived alongside the Arawaks in described by Andrés Bernáldez in 1494 as having
some areas. Bartolomé de Las Casas says these ‘the breast and stomach covered with palm leaves’,
were called Guanahacabibes, but today they are probably indicating some sort of short plaited palm
generally referred to as Ciboneys (as a result of an garment.
early misreading of Las Casas). Another source Most men decorated themselves extensively
says they were referred to as Cenavas, meaning with black, white, red (especially for war), and
‘fleet as deer’. A considerably more primitive yellow paint, at least some such decoration taking
people than the Arawaks, they followed a nomadic the form of tattoos. Bernáldez described the
existence, feeding themselves by hunting and Jamaican Arawaks as ‘painted a thousand colours,
fishing rather than agriculture, and living in but the majority black’, while Columbus described
temporary camps which were often in caves. By the the Lucayos as painting themselves black, white,
time the Spaniards arrived the Ciboney were red, or ‘any colour that they find. Some of them
confined to western and isolated parts of central paint their faces, others the whole body, some only
Cuba, and the south-west corner of Hispaniola. round the eyes, others only the nose.’ Oviedo tells
They still constituted perhaps as much as 10% of us that the Arawaks of Hispaniola and Cuba
Cuba’s population, and though experts differ tattooed their bodies with ‘the images of their
regarding exactly how much territory they held, it is demons … in black colour’. The Ciboney are
significant that, despite having Arawak names, the specifically described as using red and yellow paint,
five western-most Cuban ‘provinces’ mentioned by while the Ciguayo are said to have stained
early Spanish writers — Guanahacabibes, themselves completely black with charcoal, some
Guaniguanico, Marien, Habana, and Hanábana — encountered in battle by the Spaniards in 1498
all contain widespread evidence of Ciboney being described as ‘all painted and spotted, black
occupation but little of Arawak. and red’.
With the exception of the Lucayos, Arawak Body ornaments comprised pendants, ear-plugs,
Indians were generally shorter than the Spaniards. and nose-plugs of gold or coloured stone, and
They had a copper-coloured complexion described necklaces of seeds, seashells, or beads of a variety
by contemporaries as ‘reddish’, ‘clear brown’, or ‘a of materials, including marble, clay, bone, and
chestnut colour’, and deformed their skulls from white, green, and red stones. One bead necklace
birth so that they had broad, flat foreheads. This presented to Columbus comprised 800 stone beads,
may have been a factor in the claim made by some but most comprised probably no more than a few
Spaniards that ‘their skulls were so thick that the score. Green and white stones might also be
Spaniards often broke their swords in hitting them.’ inserted in the cheeks and forehead. Caciques and
The Ciboney, however, didn’t indulge in cranial nitaínos were distinguished by their ornaments, Las
deformation. The Arawaks appear to have worn Casas describing such men as wearing in addition
their black hair in a variety of styles, Las Casas bracelets, anklets, earrings as large as bracelets,
describing it as long and tied in a knot either on the and, as a symbol of a cacique’s rank, a pectoral
forehead or at the back of the skull. Columbus’ variously described as moon, disc, or fleur-de-lis
companion Diego Chanca says that the Arawaks of shaped and ‘as large as a plate’. All these