The Role of the Letrado in the Colonization of America

Abstract

When people speak of the Spanish conquest of America, they generally mention the outstanding figures, either heroic or odious, like Pizarro, Alvarado, Cortés, Benalcázar, Nuño de Guzmán, De Soto, Cabeza de Vaca, etc., but they forget those other figures, whose names in many cases have not even come down to us, who played just as important parts as the better-known leaders and who were the veritable “motors” of the conquest—and even more of the colonization: the royal scribes, the judges, the oidores, in a word, the letrados or men of the law. This statement is neither exaggerated nor one-sided. The letrados were the organizers of the Spanish empire, the empire that was able to sustain itself for three and a half centuries—or four up to the loss of the Antilles. There today in Santiago de Cuba a monument stands on San Juan Hill, near those of the mambi and of the American soldier, which is inscribed to the Spaniard as a ”homage to the defender of the last Spanish territory in America (1492-1898).“