An Unlikely Soldier’s Vivid Account

“The army withdrew, each company returning to its garrison.” So begins the memoir of a veteran who claimed to have fought in the conquest campaigns of South America. In this firsthand account, the author boasts of extraordinary courage and resilience in the face of constant danger, adding: “I went to Miento, a place which, despite its promising name, was little more than a shortcut to the grave—there, I once again found myself almost constantly in armor, just as in the old days, even while eating, drinking, and sleeping.”

The narrative continues with a description of a Spanish force of 5,000 soldiers encamped on open plains, where they faced relentless attacks from Indigenous warriors. “It was uncomfortable here, and we lacked everything,” the veteran recalls. On several occasions, the Spanish conquistadors rode out to engage the “Indians” in battle, each time “gaining the upper hand and killing all the Indians who came against us.” But when Indigenous reinforcements arrived, the situation shifted dramatically. “Many of us were killed, including some officers, among them my lieutenant. The Indians made off with horses and seized our company’s banner.”

Three Spanish soldiers gave chase to recover the standard, “trampling and cutting down many Indians.” One of the pursuers fell in combat, but the other two succeeded in reclaiming the flag. “But then my other companion went down, a spear piercing his body. My leg was struck hard, but I killed the chieftain who held the banner, tore it from him, and then rode off at a gallop. On the return, I trampled and killed more people than I could count—but I was badly wounded, with three arrows in me and a deep lance wound in my left shoulder. These injuries caused me great pain. But I made it back to our camp, where I fell from my horse as soon as I arrived.”

A Revealing Twist: The Woman Behind the Armor

At first glance, this memoir reads like a typical 16th-century account by a Spanish conquistador—filled with swagger, graphic violence, and a conspicuous lack of reflection. The tone is boastful, almost reminiscent of Lope de Aguirre’s infamous pride in slaughter, and the tension is exaggerated beyond even the most dramatic chronicles of the era, such as those by Bernal Díaz del Castillo. Yet this was no ordinary征服者’s report; it was, in fact, the translated account of a most unusual figure: not a 16th-century man, but a 17th-century woman—Catalina de Erauso.

In 1599, Erauso escaped from a Basque convent and, by 1603, had made her way to the West Indies disguised as a man. For two decades, she lived as a conquistador, participating in military campaigns across the Americas until her biological sex was discovered and she was prosecuted as a cross-dressing criminal. Returned to Spain, she became an international celebrity, received by the king and even the pope.

The Imagined Conquistador and Cultural Transformation

Erauso’s life as a conquistador was both a celebration and a parody of the conquest ideal. Her story raises profound questions about the evolution of conquistador culture in the early 17th century. How did she escape severe punishment for her deception? Was it, as she claimed, because she remained a virgin? Or was it because, by the 1620s—a full century after the stunning news of the Aztec Empire’s discovery and fall had swept across Europe—Europeans had lost the appetite for condemning the conquistadors?

If the latter explanation holds, then much credit belongs to a man who had died decades before Erauso’s return: Bartolomé de las Casas, who had arrived in the Americas a full century earlier. Las Casas symbolized the early Caribbean era just as Erauso came to represent the complex, late-stage conquistador culture.

Bartolomé de las Casas: From Conquistador to Critic

Bartolomé de las Casas was the son of a Seville merchant who had accompanied Columbus on his later voyages and supplied the early conquerors of the Caribbean. The young Las Casas witnessed and participated in the exhilarating yet morally fraught early years of conquest, full of both opportunity and disillusionment.

From the very beginning, among the merchants, captains, settlers, and missionaries, there were Spaniards who took a deep interest in the peoples and places they encountered. Some sharp-eyed observers wrote about their experiences and debated them with their peers, and a few took this curiosity to its logical extreme. Las Casas’s father was no doubt dismayed when his son developed a profound interest in the Taíno people, abandoned the family business, and became a missionary.

Las Casas went even further: he gave up his encomiendas—land grants with Indigenous labor forces in Cuba and Hispaniola, the very symbols of colonial success—and joined the Dominican Order. He devoted his life to a movement urging the Spanish crown to replace conquistadors with missionaries as governors of new colonies. Though his experimental communities in Guatemala and Venezuela saw little success, and the Spanish Empire never established a utopian religious colony, his advocacy was far from ignored.

The Legacy of Las Casas: Reform and Resistance

Las Casas’s efforts to protect Indigenous peoples provoked enormous controversy, compelling even the king to take notice. His ideas were reflected in the New Laws of 1542, which included provisions to exempt Indigenous peoples from slavery and prevent Spanish holders of encomiendas from passing them down as inheritances. Though these laws faced fierce resistance and even rebellion from conquistadors, they had a lasting impact on colonial development.

Las Casas’s A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies became a lifelong bestseller. Until his death in 1566, he enjoyed royal protection and the right to petition against colonizers’ abuses in both publications and courts.

It is important to note that Las Casas was not an anti-imperialist in the modern sense, nor a humanitarian or human rights activist as we understand those terms today. He never openly condemned the Spanish Empire or questioned its right to colonize, but he did vehemently oppose and condemn the brutal methods employed by many of his countrymen.

Cultural and Social Impacts: Two Sides of the Spanish Conquest

The stories of Catalina de Erauso and Bartolomé de las Casas represent two divergent responses to the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Erauso’s narrative—though exceptional in its gender deception—embodies the glorification of military prowess, personal honor, and the conquistador ethos that continued to captivate the European imagination long after the initial conquests.

Las Casas, meanwhile, represents the conscience of the conquest—the voice that questioned its morality and sought to mitigate its horrors. His writings not only influenced Spanish policy but also fueled the Black Legend, the propaganda campaign by rival European powers to portray Spanish colonization as exceptionally cruel.

Together, these figures illustrate the complex, often contradictory nature of the Spanish Empire: a system that could produce both brutal conquerors and compassionate critics, often within the same generation.

Modern Relevance: Reexamining the Conquest

The legacies of both Erauso and Las Casas continue to resonate today. Erauso’s story has been reclaimed by modern scholars as an early example of gender nonconformity and a challenge to traditional narratives of conquest as exclusively male endeavors. Her life raises questions about identity, performance, and the ways in which individuals navigated—and sometimes subverted—the rigid social structures of their time.

Las Casas’s work remains foundational in the fields of human rights and colonial history. While his advocacy was limited by the prejudices of his era , his efforts to document and oppose atrocities established important precedents for humanitarian intervention and ethical colonialism.

Conclusion: The Many Faces of Empire

The conquest of the Americas was never a monolithic process. It produced figures as diverse as the cross-dressing soldier Catalina de Erauso and the reformist priest Bartolomé de las Casas—individuals who, in their own ways, both embodied and challenged the values of their time.

Their stories remind us that history is rarely simple or straightforward. The Spanish Empire was built through violence and exploitation, but it also fostered debates about justice, morality, and human dignity that continue to shape our understanding of colonialism’s legacy. By examining these contrasting figures, we gain a richer, more nuanced perspective on one of the most transformative periods in world history—a period whose echoes still reverberate in the Americas today.