The Unlikely Conquistadora: Catalina de Erauso’s Defiant Journey

In 1603, a young Basque woman named Catalina de Erauso disguised herself as a man and fled to the Americas, where she would spend two decades as a conquistador. Her memoir—filled with vivid accounts of battles, injuries, and near-death encounters—reads like a classic 16th-century conquest narrative. Yet Erauso was no ordinary soldier. Her story reveals the blurred lines between heroism and brutality, gender norms and rebellion, in the fading era of Spanish conquest.

Erauso’s exploits included fighting Indigenous warriors in the Andes, surviving multiple wounds, and even reclaiming a stolen Spanish flag in a dramatic solo charge. Her eventual exposure as a woman shocked colonial society, yet instead of punishment, she gained fame, receiving audiences with the Spanish king and the pope. Her life forces us to reconsider who could be a conquistador—and what that identity truly meant.

The Age of Conquest: From Columbus to Cortés

The Spanish conquest of the Americas began as a chaotic enterprise driven by individual ambition. When Columbus first reached the Caribbean in 1492, he envisioned gold and converts—but what followed was a wave of unregulated violence. Men like Hernán Cortés (who toppled the Aztec Empire in 1521) and Francisco Pizarro (conqueror of the Incas in 1532) operated with minimal royal oversight, relying on private funding and mercenary armies.

These early conquistadors were adventurers, not bureaucrats. They carved out personal fiefdoms, often clashing with each other and even rebelling against the Spanish crown. Their successes relied on alliances with Indigenous groups, technological advantages (like steel and horses), and devastating epidemics that weakened native populations.

The Voice of Dissent: Bartolomé de las Casas

Not all Spaniards endorsed the brutality of conquest. Bartolomé de las Casas, a former encomendero (landholder using Indigenous labor), became the most vocal critic of colonial abuses. His 1542 A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies documented massacres, enslavement, and exploitation, sparking international outrage.

Las Casas’s advocacy led to the New Laws of 1542, which aimed to protect Indigenous rights—though enforcement was spotty. His writings became foundational to the “Black Legend,” a critique of Spanish cruelty perpetuated by rival European powers. Yet Las Casas was no modern abolitionist; he still believed in Spanish imperial mission, just a more “humane” version.

The Conquistador Mythos: Art, Propaganda, and Legacy

By the 17th century, the conquistador had evolved from a rogue adventurer into a state-sanctioned hero. Official portraits depicted them as noble figures, mirroring royal imagery. A series of paintings glorifying Cortés’s conquest of Mexico circulated widely, reinforcing the idea of Spanish destiny in the New World.

Historian Antonio de Solís’s 1684 History of the Conquest of Mexico further sanitized the conquest, framing it as a divinely ordained triumph rather than a messy, violent scramble for power. The rebellious, individualistic spirit of early conquistadors was replaced by a narrative of imperial unity.

The Last Conquistadors: Imitators and Pretenders

As the age of conquest waned, a new breed of aspirants emerged. Martín de Ursúa, a 17th-century bureaucrat, styled himself as a modern Cortés, seeking to conquer the Itza Maya in Guatemala. Unlike his predecessors, Ursúa operated within imperial bureaucracy, using political connections rather than sheer audacity.

Even outside the Spanish Empire, the conquistador archetype persisted. William Walker, an American filibuster, invaded Nicaragua in the 1850s, declaring himself president in a bizarre echo of Cortés’s self-appointed titles. Like the conquistadors, Walker was driven by personal ambition—but without state backing, his schemes collapsed.

The Other Conquistadors: Africans and Indigenous Allies

Conquest was never exclusively a Spanish endeavor. Enslaved Africans, like Alonso de Illescas, shipwrecked off Ecuador in 1553, forged their own alliances with Indigenous groups, establishing independent communities that resisted colonial control. Indigenous leaders, too, leveraged Spanish alliances to expand their own power.

These stories complicate the traditional narrative, showing conquest as a fragmented, often contradictory process—not a unified campaign of domination.

The Enduring Legacy

The conquistadors left a contested legacy. In Latin America, they are both celebrated as founders and reviled as oppressors. Their myths persist in literature, from Cervantes’s Don Quixote (a parody of knightly conquests) to modern reevaluations of figures like Catalina de Erauso.

More broadly, the conquistador model—private actors pursuing imperial expansion—foreshadowed later colonial ventures. Their blend of violence, opportunism, and self-mythologizing remains uncomfortably familiar in the history of empire.

Five centuries later, the conquistadors still force us to ask: Who gets to write history? And whose stories are forgotten?