There were numerous American allies who supported the Spaniards in the New World. Without them, “the conquest” would not have occurred, given its small number (and not just at first), so most likely the story would have been another. The story of the conquest of America could also have been told as the liberation of the weakest American peoples, subjected by the strongest. But that would be another story, too.

Cristobal Colón himself, who arrived at the new territories at the end of the fifteenth century, was very clear that contact with the natives had to be made amicably, greet them, give them gifts and ask them about existing routes and products. It makes sense that when you get to a place without knowing anything or very little about it your best guide, advisor, and assistant will be the one who does know it.

Guacanagarix with Cristobal Colón

Guacanagarix with Cristobal Colón

Alliances began very soon on the Caribbean islands. In most of them, there were always tribes that allied with the Spaniards such as that of the chief Guacanagarix on the island of La Española and Agüeybaná and Caguax on the island of San Juan Bautista (Puerto Rico).

Of the five chiefs of the island of Espanola, four rebelled against the Spanish: Caonabo, Guarionex, Behechio, and Cayacoa. The exception was Guacanagarix, chief of the territory of Marien, where Columbus landed the first time and with which he always maintained his alliance.

Agüeybana greets Ponce de león

Agüeybaná greets Ponce de león

In Puerto Rico, the chief Agüeybaná received Juan Ponce de León kindly when he landed in 1508 with the intention of settling on the island, a reception imitated by many other indigenous chiefs. Then, Agüeybaná assisted Ponce de León in his explorations. Successive exchanges between the two chiefs resulted in a peaceful alliance between the inhabitants of the island and the Spaniards. Agüeybaná, according to Taino customs, became a guaitiao of the newcomers, that is, ally or friend of foreigners.

On the continent, alliances were numerous and relevant, both at the beginning of the conquest and in successive years and even during the processes of independence of American nations.

In Mexico, the nations besieged by the Aztec Empire did not hesitate to support Hernán Cortés to remove the yoke to which they were subjected. Totonocas and Tlaxcaltecas were decisive in the battles over the capital of the Empire, Tenochtitlan.

The fat chief of Cempoala (totonaca), offered his niece to Cortés as a means to ratify the established political alliance”. The Xochimilcos, Otomíes, Huejotzingos, Cholusenses, Chinantecos and Chalqueños, joined Tlaxcaltecas and Spaniards.

Totonaca indians

Totonaca indians

Before embarking on the final attack on Tenochtitlan, Cortés spoke to his army and allies in Texcoco:

” …None of you will blaspheme the name of God or the Virgin Mary. No one will make pendence with his companions, nor put his hand on the sword to offend them. None of them will do violence to women, under the penalty of life. No one will take the property away from their neighbor. No one will punish any Indian unless he’s his slave. No one will turn into pillage in a private house unless the general allows doing so. No Spaniard will treat the American allies badly, on the contrary, will do all he can to stay with them in good harmony.”

In the territory of Nuevo León, the aid from the Tlaxcaltecas was remarkable. Since their alliance with Hernán Cortés, they had become effective collaborators of the Spaniards.

Viceroy Luis de Velasco signed an agreement with the Republic of Tlaxcala (March 14, 1591) for four hundred families to move north, granting them equal privileges as the Spaniards, such as receiving rights of territories, using weapons, putting the treatment of “Don” before their names, horseback riding, etc. With these families a chain of towns and villages were systematically established: Mezquitic, Venegas, Venado, San Luis Potosí, Guadalcázar and Santa María. In the same year of 1591, they founded, in the surroundings of Saltillo, the town of San Esteban.

Pedro de Alvarado, one of Cortés’ captains, who had departed south in 1524 to conquer Guatemala, led Tlaxcalans and other Mesoamericans in his army. Once in Guatemalan territory, he allied with the Cakchiqueles, one of the indigenous Mayan peoples of the highlands of the Midwest of Guatemala. With their alliance, they defeated the Quichés, the Zutuhiles, and the Pipiles and conquered the city of Iximché.

Kaqchikeles

Kaqchikeles

The first Spanish capital of Guatemala, Tecpán, was founded near Iximché on July 25, 1524. Later the Quichés would also join the Spanish.

In the Peru of the Inca Empire, before the civil war between Huáscar and his brother Atahualpa, the Huancas, Cañaris, and Chachapoyas peoples lived subject to the Inca.

During this civil war, the Cañaris sided with Huáscar. Atahualpa had gotten the support of the northern confederation (Caranquis-Quitus-Puruhaes), and he went down to Tomebamba to make an alliance with the Cañaris. However, they had already taken the side of Huáscar, so they finished off Atahualpa’s guard and arrested him.

Cañaris

Cañaris

Atahualpa managed to escape and return to Quito, where after gathering his armies, he returned to Tomebamba, and made a generalized massacre of all the Cañaris, destroying their city.

Almost from the very arrival of the Spaniards in Tumbes, some Tallan curacas did not hesitate to support them and on Pizarro’s trip to Cajamarca, both they and the Chimús warned them to beware of Atahualpa.

Huáscar defeated and taken prisoner by Atahualpa’s army, both his followers and his allies decided to join Pizarro, to whom they provided logistical and military support to defeat the rival Incas.

After Francisco Pizarro captured Atahualpa in Cajamarca, the Cañaris went to meet with the Spanish chief. Their hatred against Atahualpa was so strong that they would be the first ethnic group of the Inca Empire to form an alliance with the newcomers. Shortly after the Cañaris joined, Pizarro would also receive the support of the Chachapoyas, the Huancas, and the Huascarista Manco Inca.

With all of them, he set out to conquer Cuzco. During Spanish rule, the Cañaris accepted it and converted to the Christian religion, fighting for years against the rebellious Incas of Vilcabamba. Finally, Cañaris and the Spanish defeated the Incas in the Battle of Sacsayhuamán.

The Cañaris also joined the hosts of Sebastián de Benalcázar in their conquest of the kingdom of Quito. In the “Relation” of Tomebamba (a town north of the Inca empire), it is stated that both the presence of Benalcázar in these lands (the first Spaniard to do so) and that of Almagro, was motivated by the appeal they made to both the main Cañaris caciques.

There is no doubt about the attitude adopted by these bellicose peoples of the north of Quito, enemies of the descendants of the Inca Huayna Capac, demonstrated by the existing information, that their loyalty to the Crown of Spain was equally absolute and the same can be said of the Chachapoyas, not only of those who were present in Cuzco upon Pizarro’s arrival but of the entire population of the land explored by Alonso de Alvarado in 1535.

As a consequence of the enmity of the Chachapoyas with their neighbors, the alliance with the Spanish was even more firm. Cieza de León says that when Alvarado arrived in the company of his men, thirteen in total, to Cochabamba: “… they were well received from the natives, because from all over the region they came to see them showing themselves as friends …”. Cieza mentions an army of three thousand indigenous warriors confederated with Alvarado to subdue the indigenous groups of the eastern region of Chillao (in the center of the upper Marañón), which had been hostile to the Spanish, and highlights the decisive management of a principal of the allies, called Guamán, who managed to win over the wills of the bellicose defenders of Chillao.

The policy of establishing alliances with the natives was a strategy that Alonso de Alvarado cultivated with a prudence that Cieza de León, so critical of the conduct of some conquerors, recognizes without reservation. The firmness of these alliances and the loyalty of the indigenous people who signed them is evidenced by a report written by a “ladino” Indian, a native of Cochabamba, son of a main chieftain, which expands on Cieza’s information on the Guamán “ambassador ”By Alonso de Alvarado. In exchange, the Indian makes a request for grants to the Crown as a reward for his long collaboration in the campaigns to conquer Peru.

Huanca indians performing the huaylas dance

Huanca indians performing the huaylas dance

The Huancas for their part celebrated the coming of the Spaniards (they hoped to get rid of the slavery of Atahualpa) and considered them their saviors, so they joined them. The 9th Inca Pachacuti had inflicted an enormous punishment on them for having risen up against his empire. He ordered the two hands of the men and the right hand of the women cut off. Since then they had been subjected to the Inca state.

They stocked and equipped their new allies with cattle, food, and clothing. And at the time, when facing the last military resistance of the hosts that remained loyal to Atahualpa, the Spanish and Huancas decided to risk “everything for everything.” Later, with thousands of warriors, they would contribute to combat the resistance of Manco Inca.

Coat of arms granted to the Huanca people by Felipe II

Coat of arms granted to the Huanca people by Felipe II

They were recognized by the Crown of Spain for their help in the fight against the Incas. Felipe II awarded them a coat of arms as a sign of the union between both nations. The curacas and the Huanca nobility regained their privileges and the Spanish government, through Royal Decree, prohibited the establishment of large estates in Huanca territory.

The enmity of these tribes in general with the Inca authorities had been traditional and, from the beginning of the march on Cuzco, it has already been said that they accompanied the Spanish. The chronicler Sancho de la Hoz, Pizarro’s secretary, has left us important information about these peoples, who collaborated in the settlement of the Spaniards in Xanxa, Peru: “… celebrating his coming a lot, because with it they thought they would come out of slavery in that those foreign people had them (referring in this case to the Incas). The same chronicler also informs us that in Andahuaylas (south of present-day Peru): “… there were people from neighboring regions who had been fleeing from Quito’s troops who, from Cuzco dominated by Quizquiz, were acting throughout the region in a devastating campaign; and, of course, the support that Manco Inca initially gave to the Spanish has been sufficiently highlighted ”

When Hernando Pizarro led the defense of Cusco against the siege of Manco Inca, two hundred Spanish soldiers were propped up by “more than thirty thousand auxiliary Indians,” among whom were many Cañaris and Chachapoyas.

A little later, when the Incas surrounded the city of Lima, the Yungas of Lima (Lurigancho, Surco, Chilca), the huaylas of the Central Andes and again their neighbors, the Huancas, collaborated in the lifting of the siege. Also neighbors of these, the Yauyos, the Tarmas and the Chankas, at another time showed their alliance with the Spanish.

The Peruvian historian Waldemar Espinoza, in the destruction of the Empire of the Incas, for his part, focuses almost all his attention on the outstanding role that, as allies of the Spanish conquerors, the Huancas of the rich agricultural valleys of Jauja, Concepción and Huancayo played. , in the Central Andes of Peru.
At another time in history, during Peru’s independence process, royalist armies had a large indigenous component. They were described by their superiors, such as General Pezuela, as soldiers ready to be killed at their posts. The curious thing is that after three centuries of Spanish presence in those territories, most of those Indians did not speak the language of Cervantes; Their native languages, being Quechua and Aymara the majority, were protected by the laws of the Crown, which is why many Spanish middle managers learned their languages to give them instructions in battle; It is not surprising that there was such loyalty to Spain, which was always very respectful of the local traditions and cultures of its subjects.

In Peru the regiment of Noble Patricians of Cuzco was formed, whose officer corps was made up of the descendants of the 13 Inca blood houses. That is, in the middle of the war of independence, the descendants of the Inca empire continued with the nobility status of their ancestors within the Spanish social structure.

In the Río de la Plata region, the Guaraníes allied with the Spanish to defend themselves against their great enemies, the Guaykurúes of the neighboring Chaco region, and from attacks by the Portuguese. When in the middle of the 16th century the first Spaniards arrived in the lands of the Guarani in Paraguay, a large number allied with them. The Spanish integrated into the region using the traditional system of this town, of exchange of goods and women. Many Spaniards had children with Guarani women, and those mestizos formed a creole population. This is how the Guaraní language became general in areas of northeastern Argentina and Paraguay, a country where even today a large part of the population is bilingual.

Guaraní woman

Guaraní woman

Indigenous women, from their role as procreators, became the first link between Guaraníes and Spaniards, at the same time that they integrated all their relatives into the incipient colonial order, who immediately recognized them the status of tovayá or “brother-in-law”.

Through the marriage of their daughters, the Guarani sealed an alliance, which also included the most illustrious of both nations, as was the case with the unions of Captains Gonzalo de Mendoza with Dona Isabel de Irala and Pedro de Segura with Dona Geneva de Irala in the last years of their government.

This did not cease the abuses, so the Spanish Crown banned the rancherías in 1543, in two Royal Cédulas in which conquests and discoveries in the Río de la Plata were suspended: “… Since we are informed that in our Indies have been made and make ranch entrances … and the naturals of them have received and receive damage and wanting to put the remedy of it … we send that none and some people of any state and condition that are are able to make tickets, rancherias.”

Jesuit mission

Jesuit mission

From the 17th century onwards, Jesuit priests installed several Aboriginal missions in Paraguay, southern Brazil, and northeastern Argentina. There, many Guarani found protection from abuse. The missions were a major stop on the expansionist aspirations of the Portuguese, who led the bandits engaged in the hunting of Indians to sell them as slaves in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

After several Portuguese incursions in 1641, a large troop of Paulist bandits was defeated at the Battle of Mbororé. Although they attacked again in 1562 and in 1676 the Governor of Paraguay managed to stop them thanks to the participation of the Jesuit militias.

These frequent attacks by the bandits forced further militarization of the missions. The reductions began to fortify and form militias armed with firearms and trained in modern war tactics, thanks to training with veterans of the European wars. In this way, permanent militias were formed, which, in exchange for participating in campaigns convened by the Governors of Asunción and Buenos Aires, were freed from the mita. Los Guaraníes contributed numerous contingents of troops in the battles for the Colony of Sacramento in the years 1680, 1704, and 1735 with up to 4,000 warriors on each occasion.

From the earliest days of the conquest of America, the Spanish crown granted the Native Americans the same legal status as free men, equating them to the peninsular vassals. This was the condition that the Guarani had Viceroyalty of Peru.

In North America, Florida, the Timucuas, and Appalachees were allies of the Spaniards in the face of attacks by the English and the Creeks, which escalate from 1700 from South Carolina. In 1793 the few hundred remained, they left with the Spaniards when they left Florida, and a few remaining joined the Seminoles.

Yamasee indian

Yamasee indian

The Yamasee who first contacted the Europeans in 1521, with the expedition of Ponce de León, were not free of their influence until the seventeenth century, when they decided to go to St. Augustine, Florida, and there they were involved in the wars between Spaniards and English to dominate the region. Although they initially helped the Spaniards, in 1687 they rebelled against them by allowing the English to expel the Spaniards from the Carolinas, in exchange for a settlement in the area, whose name was not recorded. When the Treaty of Paris of 1763 was signed, by which the territory known as Florida was ceded to England, the Yamasee established there moved to Cuba with the Spanish.

Guajiro kid

Guajiro kid

On the Colombian-Venezuelan border, the Guajiros Indians have historically occupied a good part of the territory. In their domains, they were a total curse on independence troops. Many of the reinforcements of the English entered that area into the country and in the annals of British military history, there are whole volumes that speak of the fierce resistance of those natives to those who called them barbarians, but who recognized them as brave and determined by the cause of the king of Spain.

Caquetios de Coro, Venezuela

Caquetios de Coro, Venezuela

In Venezuela, the fierce struggle of the Caquetios de Coro Indians, who were more realistic and Spanish than numerous white Creole traitors, still resounds. These Indians were loyal to Spain since the conquest, had rejected the English and French pirates during the 16th and 17th centuries, and when the war of independence came, they relentlessly fought the troops of Francisco Miranda. Their last redoubts were finally defeated in 1823. Their loyalty was punishable by blood, as of the more than 8,000 Caquetios Indians who inhabited the town before the war, just under 1,800 survived the conflict.

In Chile, the offerings of indigenous tribes of logistical and military assistance to the king’s cause were permanent in nature. In 1813 Chief Villacurá declared himself and his rulers loyal to the King and arranged all his resources to fight every last man in the defense of Chillán.

In 1817 half a dozen chiefs and so many other nobles offered the king all his means to fight. The Araucan riders were extremely skilled and respected by the Spaniards, they always fought with their traditional clothes, as did the native European peoples alongside the Romans. All their nobles were given positions of officers in the army and dressed in Europe’s own decorum.

Mapuche woman

Mapuche woman

For their part, the Pehuenches fought to the death throughout the Chilean mainland and in Argentine Patagonia against the independence forces. Their struggle was so extensive that they were not defeated until 1832, a time for which, battles for independence such as those of Ayacucho, Pichincha, and Junín were almost forgotten history. In the southern cone also the Spaniards had the support of the lafkenches, wenteches, boroganos, reches, and in general all the Mapuche world.

I conclude with an admirable paragraph of Carlos Arturo Calderón Muñoz in his “Letters from Colombia: The King’s Indians”:

“From San Bonifacio de Ibagué, Colombia, the half-breed that this writes, cannot accept that the Indians fought forced in favor of the King. Spain had no colonies, but provinces. The motherland was the land of joyful and proud beings who were unknown to the rigor of the feudal world of the Middle Ages, were free, or arrogant depending on who judged them, because they had learned to live under the enemy fence. They did not give up but made the struggle for subsistence their usual action, surrendering has never been their custom. They were heirs to Rome, so they carried civilization, they did not ravage in works of mass looting as Islam usually does. Aymara, Quechua, Guarani, the multiple Mayan dialects, the more than 65 indigenous languages of my native Colombia, and many hundreds of others across the continent survive today because they were respected, maintained, and legally protected by The Spanish Crown.”

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On This Day

1556 Felipe II is crowned king of Spain in Valladolid.
1844 The Duke of Ahumada creates the Guardia Civil.
1899 Marconi establishes communication between the two sides of the English Channel.
1939 Spanish Civil War: General Franco enters Madrid victorious.
1979 Nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island power station (Pennsylvania).

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