Less than three years had passed since he set foot on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, he had destroyed the greatest power in Mesoamerica with a relative handful of men.
Like many of those who would eventually become conquistadors, Hernan Cortés was born in the Castilian province of Extremadura, in the small city of Medellín.
His father Martin Cortés de Monroy, was a captain in the Spanish army and his mother, Catalina Pizarro Altamirano.
They were a fairly famous and minor noble family.
Hernán Cortés was also a distant cousin to Francisco Pizarro, the explorer who conquered the Incan empire in Peru.
When Cortes‘ was fourteen he was sent by his parents to study law at the University of Salamanca, in west-central Spain.
Francisco López de Gómara, who served as Cortes‘ secretary, described him as ruthless, haughty, mischievous, and quarrelsome, and “a source of trouble to his parents.”
Certainly he was “much given to women,” frustrated by provincial life, and excited by stories of the Indies Columbus had just discovered.
He set out for the east coast port of Valencia with an idea of serving in the Italian wars, but instead he
“wandered idly about for nearly a year.”
Clearly Spain’s southern ports, with ships coming in full of the wealth and colour of the Indies, proved a greater attraction.
In 1504, he sought passage on a ship to Santo Domingo, Hispaniola (modern day Dominican Republic).
Cortés began farming in the Spanish colony, which brought him much wealth, and he owned several native slaves, eventually he was able to try exploration when he joined a mission led by Diégo Velasquez in 1511.
When he returned, he promised to marry Catalina Suarez, the sister of his friend Juan Suarez, but backed out at the last minute.
Velasquez, now governor of Cuba, imprisoned Cortés for not upholding his promise, because he was also a relative of Catalina, and Cortes‘ refusal to marry her, would have brought shame on his family.
Eventually, Cortés agreed to marry Catalina, but relations between Velázquez and Cortés remained tense.
1517 – The Aztec priests mark the sighting of a comet in the night sky. They believe the comet was a sign of impending doom.
Spanish First Contact in Mexico
The first European to visit Mexican territory was Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba.
Cordoba’s reports on his return to Cuba prompted the Spanish governor there, Diego Velasquez, to send a larger force back to Mexico under the command of Hernan Cortes.
Cortés was appointed to lead an expedition to conquer the interior of Mexico in 1518.
Velázquez then withdrew the order because he grew suspicious of Cortés’ strong will and thirst for power.
Cortés disobeyed Velasquez and sailed for the coast of Yucatán in February, 1519,
He had 11 ships, 508 soldiers, about 100 sailors, and—most important—16 horses.
His expedition landed near Potonchan, a city ruled by the Maya.
The locals did not want to deal with the Spanish, but before long the two sides were battling.
The Spanish, with their armor and steel weapons, easily won and soon local leaders asked for peace.
The lord of Potonchan gave the Spanish 20 women, one of whom was Malinali.
Malinali was born sometime around 1500, in the town of Painala.
Malinali was born in the town of Painala, where her father was chieftain.
When her father died, her mother remarried the chief of another town and they had a son together.
Supposedly, not wishing to jeopardize her new son’s inheritance, Malinali’s mother sold her into slavery in secret, telling the people of the town that she had died.
Slavers from Xicallanco, bought her and sold her to the lord of Potonchan when the Spanish arrived in 1519.
Malinali was initially given to Alonso Hernandez Portocarrero and was baptized as Doña Marina.
Around this time, some began calling her “Malinche,” and it is by that name that she is now best known.
Cortes noticed Malinche had a gift for languages realized how valuable she was, so he took her back for himself.
She was fluent in Maya and Nahuatl, and quickly picked up Spanish.
In March 1519, Cortes landed at the town of Tabasco, where he learned from the natives of the great Aztec civilization, then ruled by Montezuma II.
Cortés sailed to another spot on the southeastern Mexican coast and founded Veracruz, mainly to have himself elected captain general and chief justice by his soldiers as citizens, thus shaking off the authority of Velázquez
On the mainland Cortés did what no other expedition leader had done: he exercised and disciplined his army, welding it into a cohesive force.
But the ultimate expression of his determination to deal with disaffection occurred when he sank his ships.
By that single action he committed himself and his entire force to survival by conquest.
Cortes and some reaming 400 soldiers then marched into Mexico, aided by a native woman, known as Malinche, who served as a translator.
Malinali, more commonly known as “Malinche,” was a native Mexican woman who was given to the conquistador Hernan Cortes as a slave in 1519.
Malinali , even more importantly, helped Cortes‘ understand local cultures and politics.
Malinali became pregnant by Cortes‘ and they had a son named Martin sometimes referred to as “El Mestizo”.
Metizo, was a term traditionally used in Spain, Latin America, and the Philippines.
Originally , the term signified a person of combined European and Native American descent, regardless of where the person was born.
Due to instability within the Aztec empire, Cortes was able to form alliances with other native peoples like the Tlascalans, who were then at war with Montezuma.
The key to Cortés’s subsequent conquests lay in the political crisis within the Aztec empire; the Aztecs were bitterly resented by many of the subject peoples who had to pay tribute to them.
The ability of Cortés as a leader is nowhere more apparent than in his quick grasp of the situation—a grasp that was ultimately to give him more than 200,000 Indian allies.
The nation of Tlaxcala, for instance, was in a state of chronic war with Montezuma II, ruler of the Aztec empire of Mexico, resisted Cortés at first, but became his most faithful ally.
Cortés, rejected Montezuma’s threats to keep away from the Aztec capitol, and entered the city in November, 1519, with his small Spanish force and only 1,000 Tlaxcaltecs.
Montezuma however, received him with great honor, in accordance Aztec culture and partially due to Cortes’ physical resemblance Quetzalcoatl, whose return was prophesied in Aztec legend.
Cortés then decided to seize Montezuma , in order to control the country through its monarch, but Spanish politics and envy were soon to torment Cortés throughout his meteoric career.
A Spanish force from Cuba, led by Pánfilo Narváez, to deprive Cortés of his command while holding the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán by little more than the force of his personality.
Cortés marched against Narváez, defeated him, and enlisted his army in his own forces, but to do so , he had to leave Tenochtitlán under the command of his most reckless captain, Pedro de Alvarado.
On his return, he found the Spanish garrison in Tenochtitlán besieged by the Aztecs.
Alvarado had massacred many leading Aztec chiefs during a festival and Montezuma died under mysterious circumstances while in custody.
Hard pressed and lacking food, Cortés decided to leave the city by night.
The Spaniards’ retreat from the capital was performed, but with a heavy loss in lives and most of the treasure they had accumulated.
After six days of retreat Cortés won the battle of Otumba over the Aztecs who were chasing him in pursuit.
Cuauhtemoc, the young nephew of Montezuma, took over as emperor, and the Aztecs drove the Spaniards from the city.
Cortes mounted an offensive against Tenochtitlan, finally defeating Cuauhtemoc’s resistance on Aug. 13, 1521.
In all, some 240,000 people were believed to have died in the city’s conquest.
House by house, street by street, building by building, his men pulled down the Aztec capitol of Tenochtitlan’s walls and smashed them into rubble.
After his victory, Cortes razed Tenochtitlan and built Mexico City on its ruins.
In 1520, Culhuacan is conquered and is soon incorporated into the colonial administrative region of New Spain.
It quickly became the premier European center in the New World.
Invaders led by the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes overthrew the Aztecs by force and captured the city Tenochtitlan in 1521.
After subduing the neighboring territories he laid siege to the city itself, conquering it street by street until its capture was completed.
This victory marked the fall of the Aztec empire.
It also made Cortés the absolute ruler of a huge territory, from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean and he now needed Malinche more than ever to help him govern his new empire.
He kept her close to him, but later , Cortes encouraged Malinche to marry Juan Jaramillo, one of his captains.
She would eventually bear Jaramillo a child as well.
In the meantime, Velázquez was mounting an insidious political attack on Cortés in Spain through Bishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca and the Council of the Indies.
Cuauhtemoc, the last Aztec emperor, in Ixcateopan, Mexico, and was tortured and executed by Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes .
To say that modern Mexicans have mixed feelings about Malinche is an understatement.
Many of them despise her and consider her a traitor who helped the Spanish conquer their ancestors.
Others forgive her treachery, pointing out that as a slave given away freely to the invaders, she didn’t feel loyalty to her native culture.
Some see her as a powerful woman, who enjoyed a level of freedom and influence that few women, whether native or Spanish, had at the time.
In 1524 his restless urge to explore and conquer took Cortes south to the jungles of Honduras.
The two arduous years he spent on this disastrous expedition damaged his health and his position.
His property was seized by the officials he had left in charge
, and reports of the cruelty of their administration and the chaos it created,aroused concern in Spain.
The Spanish bureaucrats sent out a commission of inquiry under Luis Ponce de León, and, when he died almost immediately,
Cortés was accused of poisoning him and was forced to retire to his estate.
In 1528 Cortés sailed for Spain to plead his cause in person with the king.
He brought with him a great wealth of treasure and a magnificent entourage.
He was received by the court at Toledo, and confirmed as captain general (but not as governor), and created Marqués del Valle.
He also remarried, into a noble family.
The Spanish introduced a new class system to Mexico.
He returned to New Spain in 1530 and found the country in a state of anarchy.
Cortes also had many accusations made against him—even that he had murdered his first wife, Catalina, who had died under suspicious circumstances earlier that year.
After reasserting his position and reestablishing some sort of order, Cortes‘ retired to his estates at Cuernavaca, about 30 miles (48 km) south of Mexico City.
There he concentrated on the building of his palace and Pacific exploration.
Finally a viceroy was appointed, so, Cortés returned to Spain.
By then he had become thoroughly disillusioned, his life made miserable by litigation.
In the end he was permitted to return to Mexico, but he died before he had even reached Seville.
