HERNAN CORTEZ
1485-1543




Hernándo Cortés Pizarro
only son of upper-class
Conquest of Mexico:
o had had experience in Hispaniola & Cuba beforehand
 1504- 18 to Hispaniola
 1511-conquer Cuba, w/ Diego Velasquez (made Cuban gov)
 made mayor-judge of Santiago
o mission:
 1519
 to round up stranded Spanish on Yucatan mainland
 cancelled at last minute (disputes between him & Cuban governor)
 disobeyed his recall & forged ahead
o attack on Montezuma’s Aztec Empire:
 Veracruz, burned ships once landed (cannot go back)
 gained Native allies –
 exploited pre-existing jealousies between Aztecs &
surrounding peoples
 welcomed by Montezuma, takes Mont. Prisoner
 fights off Spanish forces come to arrest him
 siege of MC, they kill Mont., kills new emp., they surrender, New
Spain
 http://www.pbs.org/conquistadors/cortes/cortes_flat.html
5 letters to Emperor Charles V =
o justification for his “illegal” actions
o rationalization
from Second Letter to the Spanish Crown




written 1522
arrived at Mexico City but before began invasion (@1519)
Mexico City = “Tenochtitlan” (“Temixtitan”)
*C/C*
o metaphors, comparisons
o gives perspectives, frame of reference
 city
 as big as Seville or Cordoba
 canals & bridges (like Venice)
 canoes on canals
 bridges = 10 horsemen wide
 bridges = drawbridges over moats – remove them & enemy can’t get in
 market squares
 twice as big as Salamanca
 60K people
 gold, silver, brass, lead, copper, tin, stone, shells, bones, feathers
 lime, cut stone, adobe bricks, tiles, wood


chickens, partridges, quails, ducks, flycatchers, widgeons, pigeons, turtledoves, canes,
parrots, eagles, owls, sparrows, falcons, hawks
rabbits, hares, stags, dogs (small gelded dogs for eating)
medicine: herbalists (like apothecaries)
barbers
fruits & vegetables
syrups, aloe
colors for paints
pots, earthenware
economy = sold by number & size (not by weight); Wts. & Measures judges









 temples
 no women allowed
 priesthood = wear black, don’t comb hair, from 7 until married; 1st born only
(primogeniture); fasting
 Great Temple
 bigger than the Seville cathedral
 “none better in any place”
 burial for chiefs
heathen savages
 idols
 blood sacrifice
 (Cortes Christianized the temple w/Mary & saints images  caused “some sorrow”)
o conversion*
 Aztecs = “not natives of this land”
o Cortez claims that that’s their excuse for being savages, that they might have
erred in what they believed
o Cortez forbade sacrifices – by King’s laws & Numbers (he who kills = killed)
 houses
 aqueducts
 unemployment?
 many craftsmen came each day, waiting to be employed
 dress
 more elegance & courtly manner than elsewhere
 manners
 polite, well-mannered
“I will say only that these people live almost like those in Spain, and in as much harmony and order as
there, and considering that they are barbarous and so far from the knowledge of God and cut off from all
civilized nations, it is truly remarkable to see what they have achieved in all things.” (59)
o C/C to Spain
o interesting point at the end
 ****questions GOD, religion, Bible, Roman Catholic Church,……****
 If they did all this w/o God, w/o RCC, then do we really need it?
 Was it necessary after all?
 Why weren’t they mentioned in the Bible?
STYLE:
 highly descriptive
 use of C/C to give perspective, point of reference
 sense of wonder, awe, respect
 echoes mission of conversion
 subtly subversive: questioning God
 irony:
o respect & wonder…and then slaughters them??!!