A conquistador is a person who is out to conquer new territory. Conquistador was the name given to the 15th to 17th century Spanish and Portugese soldiers who conquered much of the world. Many of them were soldiers. The conquistadors were ruthless when it came to conquering native civilizations.
Conquistadors were men who came mostly from southern and southwestern Spain. But, some of the men came from Germany, Greece and other countries. These men typically came from fairly poor families and were in search of adventure. But, they had to have enough money to purchase their own weapons.
Many of them were former soldiers who had fought for Spain in previous wars such as the “re-conquest of the Moors (1482-1492) or the ‘Italian Wars’ (1494-1559)”. History has many records of conquistadors “murdering and tormenting native populations”, so much so that that the native populations of many Caribbean islands were “essentially wiped out by a combination of conquistador abuses and European diseases".
