Captain from Castile

This morning I awoke to the strains of "Conquest". Some of you younger ones know this tune as one played by the USC band at their games. Well, we elderly folk remember it from the movie "Captain from Castile", made many decades ago and starring Cesar Romero as Cortez, and Tyrone Power as the Captain from Castile.

I followed the sound and found my husband in the den watching TV. I asked him if it was the USC band playing, and he said no, it was the movie. He always scans the TV schedule. and when he sees that that movie will be screened, he makes sure to watch the last scenes. They are very stirring, since the score is played really loud. Da-dum, da-da-da-dum-da dum-da-dum-da da da da DUM! Da Dum! The last scene shows the little rag-tag coterie of Cortez once more on the march after they have conquered the Aztecs. The voice-over says "---many died, but many returned to Spain, rich with gold----either way, they were secure in the knowledge that they had participated in the opening of a new world". A Spanish priest then runs forward to catch up with a young Indian girl carrying a baby, a baby he surely had baptized. He offers to carry the baby for her, and she hands the child over to him. I cried then --- that baby----one of our ancestors? A Mestizo? Was he a founding father of Nuevo Galicia? The score thunders on. They march on, to conquer the New World.