conquistadores

Cultural  

1. The Spanish military leaders who established Spanish rule in the New World by overthrowing Native American governments. (See Hernando Cortés and Francisco Pizarro.)

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Example Sentences

But the preoccupations among the conquistadores are plunder, religious conversions or, in Magellan’s case, an impulse to bring the world to his feet by making it navigable.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 23, 2026

Peru's largest archaeological sites are located outside Lima in places such as Cusco, which was the capital of the Inca Empire and fell to Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century.

From Reuters • Nov. 22, 2023

Los villanos aquí incluyen un ejército de conquistadores españoles no muertos que intentaron y fracasaron en su deseo de utilizar la selva para sus necesidades, en concreto, asaltar un árbol con poderes curativos.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 31, 2021

Wikipedia, in reference to this sixteenth-century bloom of conquistadores, says of Extremadura that its “difficult conditions pushed many of its ambitious young men to seek their fortunes overseas.”

From The New Yorker • Jan. 6, 2020

Numerous as were the Native American victims of the murderous Spanish conquistadores, they were far outnumbered by the victims of murderous Spanish microbes.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond