Hernán Cortés: short biography
Few lives are as interesting as that of Hernan Cortes a Castilian who, being born at the bottom of the nobility stratum, would become one of the most important people for the history of Spain due to the conquest of a vast territory such as the Aztec Empire and the peoples adjoining. In this lesson from a TEACHER we bring you a short biography of Hernán Cortés where we will talk about the practically unknown early years of him and then move on to the most important stage that was when he arrived in the New World.
Index
- From his birth to his arrival in the Indies
- First encounters with the Aztecs
- The conquest of the Aztec Empire
- From governor of new Spain to the political struggles for his legacy
From his birth to his arrival in the Indies.
We start this short biography of Hernán Cortés talking about the early years of him. He was born in Medellín (Badajoz) in 1485 into a family of noblemen from Extremadura and was a student at the University of Salamanca.
In 1504 he went to the Indies, which were recently discovered by Christopher Columbus and he worked as a scribe and landowner on the island of Hispaniola, now known as Santo Domingo.Towards the year 1511 he would participate in the expedition to the island of Cuba, acting as secretary of the Governor Diego Velázquez Cuéllar, who became a member of his family when he married his sister-in-law. Therefore, the governor would grant him the position of mayor in the city of Santiago.
In the year 1518 we will find him in command of an expedition to the Yucatan, although out of envy the governor himself was relieved just before leaving. So many were the envies that there were before our characters that the governor had already imprisoned him on some other occasion, accusing him of a conspirator and a traitor.
It is now when we will see the true cunning of our character, because being warned of his dismissal, he prepared his departure and in In the year 1519 he left with about eleven ships, in which there were six hundred men, sixteen horses, and fourteen pieces of artillery. He arrived in Cozumel and Tabasco, where I would defeat the Mayans, which were established in said lands. In this other article by a PROFESSOR we discover the religion and culture of the Mayans.
After his victory, he would receive, among other presents, an Indian, Malinche, also known as Dona Marina, who went down in history as his counselor, interpreter and her lover. In the same way, and defying the governor's power, he felt strong enough to create a city, which was built in the Gulf of Mexico, its name being VeraCruz.
Image: SlideShare
First encounters with the Aztecs.
But if the biography of Hernán Cortés it is because he was the conqueror of the Aztec Empire. After the conquest of the Yucatan, the indigenous peoples gave him information about a very warlike people, which had numerous treasures, a very important element for those warriors who had crossed the ocean to seek fortune and who only sought to improve his life.
That way, Hernán Cortés had knowledge of the Aztec Empire. This was the moment when our character had his ships burned, an act that has gone down in history as an iron determination to finish what was started; although we must also know that he did it in part for fear that his men would leave after know that the great Empire possessed (according to the figures that have reached us) about fifteen million population.
Before starting his actions towards the Aztecs, we have to know that Hernán Cortés had clashes, which would later give rise to alliances with the Toltecas and the Tlaxcalans, peoples that were under the yoke of the Aztecs and saw the possibility of being liberated. In this way, the army of Cortés would have to be added to the armies of these peoples that were added and that were the most important element to end the rule of the Aztecs.
The Castilians were advancing, taking first the city of Choula, after that Hernán Cortés, accompanied by his men, They entered the capital of the Empire, Tenochtitlán, which is very well described by Bartolomé de las Casas in his work. It was at that moment that Montezuma, the emperor of the Aztecs, and Cortés met.
Possibly one of the elements by which the emperor decided to become a vassal of the king of Castile was the idea on the part of the natives that the Castilians were divine beings sent by Quetzalcóatl. According to the diaries of some of those who were in the conquests, this was because had never seen horses or dogs, the armor they wore or most shockingly, the weapons of fire.
The conquest of the Aztec Empire.
We continue with this short biography of Hernán Cortés speaking, now, of the end of the Aztec Empire. Around 1520 we will find an attack on the part of the governed Diego Velázquez towards the city of VeraCruz, forcing Cortés to leave the capital of the Empire and left it to his second Pedro de Alvarado who had orders to maintain the good work of the natives.
After the governor's troops were defeated at Cempoala in 1520, where many of the men joined his cause, he returned to Tenochtitlán. When he got to it he found a strong agitation between the indigenous and the Castilians because Pedro de Alvarado had committed some outrages against the cults of the place, in addition to having behaved like true ambitious stealing everything they found from value.
In this way and to control the situation They took Moctezuma prisoner and forced him to pacify his people, but the only thing that he achieved was that they assassinated the emperor himself who was killed by a stone thrown at his head. Thus, Cortés was forced to flee the city hastily with his men, this day is known as the "sad night" and it took place on June 20, 1520.
During the flight, many of Cortés's men were captured and many others drowned in the lake that protected the city because they carried too many valuables with them. Greed had killed them. We know that a large part of the men who remained in the city served as human sacrifices of the Aztec people for their gods.
The end of the Aztec Empire occurred in the year 1521 when the battle of Otumba took place, which the Castilians won thanks to the indigenous peoples allied to Cortés. After this, Cuauhtémoc (nephew of Moctezuma) the emperor of the Aztecs, marched again to Tenochtitlán, which also fell after a siege that same year.
Once the enemies of Castile had been defeated, the lake city was destroyed and the lake city was built in the same place. a new one with the name of Mexico.
Image: History Magazine
From governor of new Spain to the political struggles for his legacy.
After the taking of the Aztec Empire, we will find other expeditions to the Yucatan, Honduras or Guatemala, whose His purpose was to expand the territories of the Crown in the new lands, in addition to obtaining products valuable. It was also the moment for which he wrote the Relationship letters sent to the Castilian monarch himself, who at that time was none other than Carlos I.
In this short biography of Hernán Cortés we find that in the year 1522 he obtained the title of Governor and Captain General of New Spain, as the territory belonging to Mexico was called. But he would not enjoy this position much, because in the year 1528, when the Castilian Crown saw the need to put a stop to ambitions and outrages that were being attacked in his new territories, he decided to send officials from the Peninsula, who arrived in New Spain and later to the Peru; These charges were annual and thus prevented people from being able to settle into power and steal whatever they wanted.
Once he arrived in the Peninsula, he had to face a series of accusations, of which he would be acquitted. On the other hand, the emperor named him Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca (the only noble title granted by of the Crown to the Castilians within the Indies), in addition to maintaining the honorary title of captain general. After this, he left in the year 1530 again to Mexico where he led some more expeditions, like the one that he annexed Lower California between the years 1533-1539.
At the end of his life, he decided to go back to Castile to claim other grants from the Crown, participating in the year 1541 in the battle of Algiers. Waiting for the reply from the Crown, he settled in Castilleja de la Cuesta (Seville), a place where his literary and humanistic gathering soon became famous. On December 2, 1547, he died in that town without receiving any response from the Crown.
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