Africans fought as conquistadors yet masters reclaimed them as property upon death.

Evidence

Juan Valiente accompanied Alvarado’s army in its march from Guatemala to Peru in 1534. In 1536 and 1540, Valiente fought with Valdivia’s army against the Araucanian Indians in Chile. In 1546, when Valdivia granted him an estate, and in 1548, Valiente became the first ladino to receive an encomienda. Significantly enough, when he died in 1553 (killed in action against the Arauca), his old master, Alonso Valiente had begun legal action to reclaim him and any property he had amassed. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 641