Hernán Cortés

Spanish conquistador

• Born: c. 1485
• Birthplace: Medellín, Extremadura, Castile (now in Spain)
• Died: December 2, 1547
• Place of death: Castilleja de la Cuesta, near Seville, Spain

Cortés skillfully led a small band of Spaniards and numerous Mexican Indian allies to the heart of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán (later Mexico City), and within two years he conquered the powerful Aztec Empire. His most lasting contribution has been the exploration and settlement of the New World.

Early Life

Hernán Cortés (ehr-NAHN kawr-TEHZ) came from a Spanish region, Extremadura, where so many of the New World conquistadores originated. Although Cortés was born into a Spanish noble (Hidalgo) family, his parents Martín Cortés de Monroy, an infantry captain, and Catalina Pizarro Altamirano were of limited means. At the age of fourteen, Hernán was sent to school in Salamanca to prepare for a career in law. Cortés soon abandoned his studies and decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the Spanish army, serving in Naples. In 1504, at the age of nineteen, hamstrung by what he perceived as limited possibilities in the Old World, the restless youth, like so many of his class, decided to board a ship bound for the Spanish Indies.

In many ways, the impressionable Cortés was a product of his times. Renaissance Spain was undergoing tremendous ferment during the last decades of the fifteenth century. For more than seven centuries, Spanish Catholics had fought an epic struggle against Islamic Moors called the Reconquista (reconquest), and in 1492, under the unified leadership of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, the Moors’ final stronghold, Granada, fell. The Reconquista markedly influenced succeeding generations of Iberians: It united Spain’s divided kingdoms and regions into a strong nation-state with a powerful army; it rallied the country together under the banner of Catholicism the young nation would embrace the faith with such religious fervor that it would take on the responsibility of defender of the Church throughout Europe and the New World; and it opened up economic possibilities for those Hidalgos who fought for the Crown and were rewarded for their efforts. Militarism, the rise of a Spanish national identity, the Catholic faith, and the seemingly unlimited potential for personal aggrandizement imbued succeeding generations of Hidalgos with a sense of commitment, purpose, and service to their Crown.

In the same year that Granada fell, Christopher Columbus made the first European discovery of the New World, opening new military, religious, and economic possibilities for the expansion-minded Spanish state and for ambitious Hidalgos such as Cortés. Cortés secured a position as a notary on the island of Santo Domingo in the Caribbean and was given a small grant of Mexican Indians who provided labor and commodity tribute (encomienda). For six years, Cortés profited from Indian labor, but once again he grew restless. In 1511, he joined Diego Velázquez’s military conquest of Cuba , serving as a clerk to the treasurer. Rewarded by the conquistador Velázquez, who subsequently became governor of the island, Cortés was rewarded with another encomienda in Cuba and a government position. In Santiago de Baracoa, Cuba, Cortés attended to his bureaucratic duties, became a prominent local merchant, raised cattle, and had his encomienda Indians mine gold.

Life’s Work

Just when it appeared that Cortés would settle down and tend to his thriving business concerns, reports began filtering back to Cuba from advance scouting expeditions of a fabulous Aztec Empire on the Caribbean mainland. In 1519, Governor Velázquez commissioned the thirty-four-year-old Cortés to lead an expedition to the Mexican mainland. As Cortés outfitted his expedition with men, ships, and provisions, Velázquez had second thoughts about Cortés’s arrogant, pretentious manner. Fearing that he could not control his ambitious commander, Velázquez ordered the commission revoked. When Cortés learned that the governor planned to rescind his orders, he quickly set sail from Cuba on February 18, 1519, with 550 Spaniards, several Cuban Indians and black slaves, a few small cannons, sixteen horses, several mastiff dogs, and eleven small ships.

Cortés’s two-year assault on the heavily populated Aztec Empire, against almost insurmountable odds, was one of the most formidable challenges of the age of exploration and conquest. Driven by the traits shared by all Reconquista Hidalgos religious zeal, dedication to the Crown, and a lust for glory and gold Cortés, both in his personal correspondence and in his riveting speeches to his men, evinced a single-minded obsession: to conquer the Aztecs or die trying. Chroniclers describe the conquistador as being of average height with a pale complexion and a muscular frame. The standard that he carried into battle was particularly appropriate; fashioned of black velvet, embroidered with gold, with a red cross laced with blue-and-white flames, its motto was emblazoned in Latin: “Friends, let us follow the Cross; and under this sign, if we have faith, we shall conquer.” From the moment the expedition landed off the coast of Yucatán until the final assault on the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in 1521, Cortés stayed true to that motto and never considered retreating or compromising.

Although the enemy enjoyed an overwhelming numerical superiority the population of Tenochtitlán has been estimated at three hundred thousand in 1519 Cortés was able to take advantage of a number of favorable factors. First, Cortés shrewdly perceived that many of the Indian subject provinces chafed under and bitterly resented Aztec rule. The Spanish invasion signified to Indians such as the Tlaxcalans and later the Tarascans a fortuitous opportunity to ally themselves with the foreign invaders, to overturn onerous Aztec tribute, and to regain their independence. These subject populations provided Cortés with literally thousands of warriors and also complicated matters politically for the Aztec emperor Montezuma II . The emperor, who was coronated in 1503, had squelched serious rebellions throughout his reign. Yet, after more than a century of Aztec imperial rule, subject provinces who had provided commodity tribute and human sacrifice victims to the Aztecs on an unprecedented scale saw hope in an alliance with the Spaniards.

Cortés also benefited from the Aztecs’ fatalistic religious vision. The Aztecs believed that the world had been destroyed and reborn by the gods on four separate occasions. Every fifty-two years, the cycle of destruction was at risk and the world might be destroyed. Cortés arrived in Mexico in the fateful fifty-second year (ce atl). Moreover, the Spanish at first were believed by the Indians to be gods, or at least, messengers of the gods. Native myth told of a light-skinned, bearded god, Quetzalcóatl, who believed in love, compassion, and mercy, and who forbade human sacrifice, practiced oral confession, baptism, and ascetic denial. This god, according to myth, had left the Valley of Mexico centuries before, vowing one day to return to reclaim his kingdom. The Christianity espoused by the Europeans almost surreally approximated the Quetzalcóatl cult. Montezuma, a devout philosophical and religious thinker in his own right, at times appeared almost mesmerized by the religious implications of the Spanish expedition.

Cortés did little to discourage the religious uncertainties of the indigenous population. The Spanish possessed the technological advantages of Spanish steel, muskets, crossbows, and armor. In addition, Cortés used psychological ploys to startle unsuspecting Aztec emissaries at propitious moments. From the deafening noise of the Spaniards’ small cannons to the judicious use of the horses and menacing dogs two animals that the Indians had never seen before Cortés created an aura of invincibility around his troops that fortified his Indian allies, created indecision in the minds of the Aztec leadership, and bolstered the confidence of his soldiers.

Yet Cortés faced daunting odds. His expedition had lost its legal sanction from Velázquez, and he was perilously close to becoming an outlaw in the eyes of the Crown. Cortés, however, feigned ignorance of the revoked commission and founded a settlement on the coast of Mexico, La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (later Veracruz), claiming all the lands that he conquered for the king of Spain, Charles V. He shrewdly dispatched a ship to Spain with a letter to the king professing his loyalty to the Crown. Still, Cortés faced serious problems from Velázquez supporters in his midst.

Time and again on his climb to Tenochtitlán, the Spanish commander demonstrated his uncanny ability to act decisively before the Aztecs and their allies could react. For example, at Cholula, the last major city on Cortés’s route to the Aztec capital, the Spanish learned that they were about to be ambushed by an Aztec army. Cortés ordered a preemptive strike and massacred more than six thousand Indian warriors. An Indian version of the conquest denies the ambush and characterizes Cortés’s massacre as premeditated. From that point on, no serious attempts were made by the Aztecs to stop Cortés’s advance on Tenochtitlán.

Another bold move was the decision to put Montezuma under house arrest while the Spanish stayed in the capital. As “guests” of the emperor, Cortés and his troops could ensure that Montezuma was not organizing an uprising. The decision to rule through the emperor bought the Spanish valuable time.

When the Aztecs revolted on July 1, 1520 (called La Noche Triste, “the sad night,” by the Spanish), Cortés was forced to abandon Tenochtitlán. Bernal Díaz relates that 860 Spaniards died during the battle. Despite this overwhelming defeat, Cortés rallied his armed forces, convinced more than one hundred thousand indigenous allies to join his cause, and launched a tactically brilliant land and naval invasion of Tenochtitlán less than a year later. Cortés’s devotion to this cause was too much for the Indians, who by this time had been decimated by smallpox infection and were dying by the thousands in Tenochtitlán. On August 13, 1521, after fierce hand-to-hand combat in the capital, the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc, surrendered.

Cortés proved to be an able administrator of the colony, which he renamed New Spain. Charles V , facing troubles from nobles in Spain, was understandably reluctant to let conquistadores such as Cortés become too powerful. Royal officials replaced Cortés soon after the conquest, and Cortés returned to Spain to argue his case before the king. Although Cortés never became governor of New Spain, he was allowed to choose twenty-two towns of encomienda Indians (approximately twenty-three thousand Indians). Cortés chose the richest settlements in the colony. Moreover, he was named captain-general and awarded the title of Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca.

While at the royal court, Cortés married the daughter of a count, further ingratiating himself with the Spanish aristocracy. He returned to New Spain in 1530 and lived there for ten years, where he introduced new European crops and products, looked for silver and gold mines, and encouraged exploration. Cortés’s wealth and status made him a target of Crown officials who distrusted his independent demeanor and feared his political contacts with the nobility in Spain. His last few years were spent in frustration in Spain. In 1547, he fell ill and died at his estate, Castilleja de la Cuesta, just outside Seville. According to his wishes, his bones were moved to Mexico in 1556.

Significance

More than any other conquistador, Cortés embodied the characteristics of the group of fearless men who, imbued with the heady ideals of the Reconquista, forged a massive Spanish Empire in the New World. Committed to service to the Crown, convinced that their cause was noble and just, comforted by the belief that they brought Christianity and civilization to barbarian peoples, and clearly motivated by material gain and glory, Cortés and his fellow conquistadores, at times ruthlessly and at times diplomatically, conquered the numerically superior Indians during the early sixteenth century. Unlike other conquistadores, however, Cortés had a strong commitment to the religious conversion of the indigenous. Moreover, he demonstrated himself to be an able and fair administrator in the first years after the conquest; again, a trait not shared by many conquerors. Although Cortés was denied the political post that he thought he deserved, he became one of the wealthiest men in the empire.

Bibliography

Collis, Maurice. Cortés and Montezuma. New York: New Directions, 1999. Extensively researched, and highly accessible account of the meeting between Cortés and Montezuma provides many details to make the points of view of both men, and their followers, come to life. Includes illustrations, map, and index.

Cortés, Hernán. Letters from Mexico. Edited and translated by Anthony Pagden. Rev. ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Nota Bene, 2001. Self-serving letters written in the heat of battle by the conquistador, which detail conditions in Mexico during the conquest and give insight into the character of Cortés. Includes illustrations, maps, bibliographic references, index.

Díaz del Castillo, Bernal. The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, 1517-1521. Edited by Genaro García. Translated by A. P. Maudslay. Reprint. Introduction by Hugh Thomas. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. A classic, riveting, first-person narrative of the conquest recollected by Díaz in his old age. Although Díaz believed that he was never given his just due he was rewarded with a paltry encomienda in the hostile backlands of Guatemala his account is relatively balanced. His descriptions of the Spanish entry to Tenochtitlán and the great Aztec market at Tlateloco are stunning.

León-Portilla, Miguel, ed. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Translated by Lysander Kemp. Expanded and updated ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. A compilation of Aztec and early missionary sources that offers a much-needed corrective to the Spanish versions of the conquest. Although these sympathetic “native” sources are as biased as the Spanish accounts they reject, this is an evocative portrayal of the Indian defeat. Some of the Aztec poetry included is powerful and moving and gives readers a sense of the psychological loss felt by the Aztecs.

Padden, R. C. The Hummingbird and the Hawk: Conquest and Sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico, 1503-1541. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1967. A provocative account of the conquest that emphasizes Cortés’s religious zeal and the fundamental importance of human sacrifice to the Aztec faith. Nowhere else in the literature are Cortés’s religious motivations portrayed so prominently. Good bibliography of the secondary literature included.

Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico. Reprint. New York: Modern Library, 2001. A standard mid-nineteenth century, secondary narrative of the conquest that relies heavily on Spanish chroniclers. Extraordinarily detailed account of the background, motivations, and battles of the conquest.

White, Jon Manchip. Cortés and the Downfall of the Aztec Empire. 2d ed. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1996. A psychological and analytical portrait of Cortés and Montezuma that places both leaders in their religious and cultural milieus.