In the context of American colonization, why are Spanish (and Portuguese?) “conquerors” called “conquistadors”, unlike the French, British and Dutch?

Does the word “conquistador” have different connotations from “conqueror”? If so, which?

If you called them “Spanish conquerors”, would you be making a point of some sort by not calling them “conquistadors”?

If you called the French and British “conquistadors” would that be wrong or making some kind of point?

Solution 1:

The association between conquistador and Spain is strong.

Before the 19th century, conquistador was only used as a proper noun in English, referring to Spanish titles or ships. For instance, Antonio de Ulla (1758) in A Voyage to South America mentions a ship called the Conquistador:

The two men of war on board of which we had been ordered, were the Conquistador of 64 guns, and the Incendio of 50 ... (Eighteenth Century Collections Online)

Conquistador enters English as a word referring to Spanish conquerors in the Americas. The Oxford English Dictionary first attests the term in English in the 19th century ("conquistador, n."), and denotes that it is "used of the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru":

= conqueror n.: used of the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru, in the 16th century.

1830 W. Scott Lett. Demonol. & Witchcraft i. 13 The honest conquestador owns, that he himself did not see this animating vision.

1872 H. W. Bates Illustr. Trav. IV. 230/2 The Conquistador..sailed in them across Tezcoco to the final assault on Tenochtitlan.

The fuller context of the 1830 quote involves a knight in service of Cortez ("the honest conquestador") describing that he didn't see a vision of St. James in battle (see 1834 edition). So certainly in origin, the term points to Spanish knights who conquered in the Americas.

Even a quick sample of Corpus of Contemporary American English results shows that association remains strong. Most results involve Cortes, distinguishing conqueror and indigenous people, and other allusions to Spain or the Spanish language.

Also, a collocation search for conquistador highlights that, by far, the most common collocation is Spanish (131 results out of 152 total uses); the next closest is century (17 results).

Whatever one's interpretation of the difference between conquistador and colonizer or between British and Spanish colonization practices, the association between conquistador and Spain is strong enough that a speaker would have good reason to regard "French conquistador" or "British conquistador" as an error, unless the context made clear an analogy was being drawn (e.g., arguing for similarity between Spanish and British colonization efforts, or describing someone like Sir Walter Ralegh as a conquistador for his travels in South America).

Solution 2:

The word conquistador appears to have entered English from Spanish. That is, it seems that the Spanish colonists in the Americas were referred to as conquistadores as a matter of course, possibly even during the initial Spanish colonization.

There are a number of references to a "title of conquerer". This one in particular, from the 1600s, in which an archbishop speaks of returning certain titles to the Spanish king, makes me think that it represented a legal concept, not simply a description.

El restituirle el derecho, y acciones de Patron, que le tiene quitado, y el Titulo de Conquistador de las Provincias, y gente del Parana, Uruguay, y Tape, que habiendolas conquistado V.M. con su hacienda, y con sus armas, y Soldados Españoles, a costa de muchas vidas, y trabajos, se nombran los dichos Padres Conquistadores, diciendo facilisamente, que esta conquista la han hecho ellos solos, y las llaman en sus libros impresos Conquista espiritual, hecha por las padres de la Compañia, no siendo hechas sino por Compañias, y Exercitos de Soldados de V.M. quitandole el titulo, y derecho de Conquistador, que es Lux belli, para darsele quiza a algun tyrano.

Or, in English:

The restitution to you of the right, and of the actions of Patron, that have been removed from you, and the Title of Conquerer of the Provinces, and the people of Parana, Uruguay, and Tape, for having Your Majesty conquered them with your Treasury, and with your weapons, and with Spanish soldiers, at the cost of many lives, the aformentioned name themselves the Conquering Fathers, saying with the utmost ease, that this conquest has been theirs alone, and they call it in their printed books the Spiritual Conquest, carried out by the Fathers of the Company, not having been done but by Companies, and Armies of Soldiers of Your Majesty, taking from you the title and right of Conquerer, which is lux belli, to be given perhaps to some tyrant.

In other words, it appears that people in Spain really did conceive of the colonization of the Americas in terms of conquest. Remember that in those days, conquest was not necessarily considered immoral, and could even have been considered as a moral justification for the actions of Spain.

On the other hand, it seems as if France and Britain, at least, did not tend to refer to their colonists as "conquererers", despite there having been certain similarities. It is true that these European powers also subjugated the indigenous nations, and the authority excercised by, for instance, some British colonial governors could be compared with that exerted by the Spanish conquerers. However, least in the case of Britain, a large number of the initial colonists were religious refugees looking to set up Christian colonies, not simply soldiers and such looking for personal advancement (although there were crypto-Jews among the Spanish colonists who also were fleeing religious persecution). They probably did not see themselves as conquerers.

Alternately, since Britain primarily conquered the more sparsely populated regions of North America, and since the civilizations with which they came into contact had models less similar to what most Europeans of the time would have recognized than did many of those from Mexico downward, they may not have applied the concept of conquest to their domination of the pre-existing cultures. Further, the case of France, their colonial model in the Americas was notably different, with a significantly smaller population.

So in essence, since Spain referred to the leaders of the colonial conquests as conquistadores, and Britain and France did not refer to them by similar names, naturally when the term entered the English language it was taken as the title of leaders, as opposed to a generic description.