The _conquistadores_ were as superb horsemen as the world has seen. Their animals were loved and pampered. During the early years in the Americas they were relatively rare and expensive (few survived the tempestuous sea journey from Europe to become breeding stock), and just the sight of them terrified Indians. The fearful impact of a cavalry charge, lances flying or thrusting, swords slashing, and wardogs sometimes racing beside the horses, goes far to explain how small groups of Spaniards were able to triumph over great numerical odds. Pedro de Casteñada, one of the historians of the Coronado expedition, put it thus: “after God, we owed the victory to the horses.”
Desperation also played a part. The adventurers often found themselves hundreds of miles from any possibility of help. Stamina in the face of hunger and hardship, courage and energy in opposition to attack and fear were the basic elements of salvation. Of necessity the men adopted whatever methods promised to carry them to their goals. Religious fanaticism was another motive. To Cortés’s men, the Aztecs, who regularly offered human sacrifices to a heathen god, were an abomination and deserved to be annihilated, or at least enslaved, if they did not accept the Christian salvation held out to them. This attitude carried over, in somewhat lesser degree, to all Indians, even though Spain’s rulers constantly exhorted gentleness, and missionaries went with every major group to offer heaven to souls lost in darkness. That is, if Indians had souls, which many Europeans of the time sincerely doubted.
Finally, every _conquistador_ was stirred to action by his own credulity. The Church had brought him up to believe implicitly in miracles. A large part of his education consisted of peopling the unknown world with marvels and monsters. A favorite tale, though by no means the only one, dealt with seven Catholic bishops and their congregations who fled from the invading Moors to the island of Antilia. There they burned their ships and diligently built seven glorious cities, for naturally Christian settlements would be more dazzling than pagan ones. _Mas allá_: there is more beyond. A wondrous dream, Spanish-style. It carried, in succession, Pánfilo Narváez, Hernando de Soto, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, and Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo into what became the United States. There reality at last took command.