> What I’ve read on the matter says that Pizarro et al were always severely outnumbered by their allies as well. Why “discounting their native allies”? Were they so few that they didn’t matter?
When your allies massively outnumber you, it's not such good news as you might imagine. At war most of the time your allies turn on you as soon as they feel they don't need you to win (and almost certainly after you win). Who wants to share a victory with losers.
The ability of conquistadors to first make local allies so effectively (without any prior knowledge of language, culture or local politics) is insane, their ability to keep their "allies" in check even more so.
When people write "look how outnumbered they were" they don't mean Zack Snyder's "300", it's more of a Machiavelli thing I'd say.
When your allies massively outnumber you, it's not such good news as you might imagine. At war most of the time your allies turn on you as soon as they feel they don't need you to win (and almost certainly after you win). Who wants to share a victory with losers.
The ability of conquistadors to first make local allies so effectively (without any prior knowledge of language, culture or local politics) is insane, their ability to keep their "allies" in check even more so.
When people write "look how outnumbered they were" they don't mean Zack Snyder's "300", it's more of a Machiavelli thing I'd say.