¡Santiago y a ellos! Caballería ligera de Castilla en la conquista de México

Abstract

In the first decades of the 16th century the cavalry had to measure up to both the pole weapons and the artillery being used on the battlefields of Western Europe. The Italian Wars, characterized by the clash between Castilian imperial and French war machines, provided the context in which artillery, arquebuses and pikes started to be considered as the backbone of European armies. In the course of the following centuries, the infantry would consequently play a crucial role, to the cost of mounted forces. In the colonies, on the other hand, the natives were not familiar with horses, and, providing the terrain made it possible, the Castilian light cavalry could move freely. As a result the cavalry corps returned to its previous splendour on the battlefields of the Americas, despite its limited size, because the indigenous population was unable to develop the weapons, formations and tactics to resist it. In this study we will examine the Conquest of Mexico making particular reference to the accounts of the Spanish and the mestizas, in order to investigate the manoeuvres of the Castilian mounted forces during the most important battles of the campaign.