Rebecca Earle’s “The Body of the Conquistador” – A Book Review by Amanda Leavitt, MA Gastronomy

Rebecca Earle’s “The Body of the Conquistador” – A Book Review by Amanda Leavitt, MA Gastronomy

As soon as Christopher Columbus planted his feet on the shores of America, he confidently established that European settlers were there to expand the European empire. He would shortly realize that there were unforeseen challenges he would encounter and have to overcome to survive as a colony. Rebecca Earle explains through The Body of the Conquistador that Spanish settlers believed the maladies that befell them were heavily influenced by their diet, and even more profoundly, she walks the reader through how food and climate played a major role in defining the differences between the “Amerindians” and the colonists.

The book is broken into six chapters, in two parts. The first half focuses on setting up the framework the Spaniards operated by, called humoralism. The premise of this ideology, widely used throughout Europe at the time, is that there is a balance of “humors” that define a human body’s resiliency and temperament. This was a primary tool in establishing the difference between an “Amerindian” and a European. Essentially, a European is said to have a warmer, more Sanguine temperament, whereas an Amerindian is colder and apathetic. Earle’s later chapters quite literally focus on the health and body of the conquistador (as she named her book), underscoring an assertion made early on: “food helped create the bodily differences that underpinned the European categories of Spanish and Indian” (Earle 2014, 5). 

Earle also balances the arguments between the impact of diet and the impact of climate on the Spaniard’s overall wellbeing during the era of colonization. As the Spaniards were navigating new crops, livestock, and general diets, they also were in a new environment with different temperatures, humidity, and air. Earle plainly states, “Unfamiliar environments were always trying to the European body” (Earle 2014, 85). As highlighted earlier, the Spaniards were falling ill at an alarming rate, and they simply attributed this to a new environment. Not only this, but they also believed that the environment would impact their mental health as well, with some of the wives of settlers writing, “Look after your health because in that land too much vice will finish you off” (Earle 20212, 89).  

This flowed into her next argument, explaining that bodily survival was not only a mental feat but a spiritual one as well. While Spaniards were far from home, humoralism and their faith allowed them to feel deeply connected to their roots while starting anew in America. Naturally, food and dining as they did at home was another way to strengthen that connection. Simply put, “the essential thing is to ensure that there is wheat and wine” (Earle 2014, 67), two items that are not only European pantry staples, but also core to Christianity.  In highlighting this phrase, Earle fortifies her argument that diet played an essential role in settling the Americas.

The later chapters concretize Earle’s position by digging deeper into the impact the diet had on the European body, as well as the foods Europeans newly encountered during their conquests. As the Native Americans thrived in this environment, the colonists desired to thrive as well, despite drastic changes to their climate and diet. 

Throughout the book, readers get first-hand recorded accounts from colonial settlers & leaders, as well as doctors of the time. These accounts elaborate on their mentality, from the fear of changing climates from royal cosmographer, Henrico Martinez, to letters from the wives of the settlers, filled with concern for the impact all of these changes would have on their husbands. In providing the accounts from both learned, official, and lay witnesses, Earle establishes that no matter the background, the Spaniard mentality was uniform. 

Earle expertly navigates the two sides of the colonial story, especially in the chapter around maize. While early on, she elaborates on how Spaniards were struggling to adjust to the new foods they had access to, she later digs into the time after Spanish food had made its way to the colonies, and how the Spaniards observed that the Amerindians had no initial interest in enjoying any of them. 

Earle argues that “colonisation was as much a physical enterprise, as an economic or ideological one.” (Earle 2014, 2) The first few chapters of the book break down the European outlook on colonisation, and how climate and diet played an early role in determining the success and direction colonizing the Americas would take. These ideas also tended to simultaneously imply colonialist superiority while also explaining the resiliency of the Amerindians in the New World. For example, “[Indians] suffered less from stomach ailments” while “Spaniards…were afflicted by numerous digestive disorders.” (Earle 2014, 20). Earle highlights here, as well as throughout the book, that while colonists were succumbing to illnesses they believed to be brought on by eating the foods in the Americas, that same diet was the source of Amerindian strength. 

There is an undertone throughout the first half of the book, at the beginning of the conquest, of strife as the Spaniards attempt to overcome the challenges of diet and climate. However, things take a turn for the better as fruit and sweets are introduced to the colonies. The Spaniards livened up as they had access to sweets they had trouble getting in Spain, plus discovering new fruits through trade. This chapter highlights not only the upturn in trade within the colonies, but also a turning point for the Spaniards in their mood, as The Anonymous Conquistador said of chocolate “This drink is the healthiest and most sustaining food in the world” (Earle 2014, 131), and since it helped with hunger and combating the heat, the Spanish were almost literally reinvigorated by chocolate. As they continued to adjust, their diet morphed from Iberian to American, becoming a settled people in the New World.

This book is an effective collection of accounts and explanations that demonstrate the power food had to cause initial strife for the colonists but also the power to strengthen them. Earle expertly navigates the different stages of awareness for the Spaniards, from their preconceived ideologies to ingenuity that would allow them to thrive. 

Sources:

Earle, Rebecca. The Body of the Conquistador: Food, Race and the Colonial Experience in Spanish America, 1492-1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.