Hernán Cortés

• 1. Introduction

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  More than twenty years after sailing for Mexico, Hernán Cortés pushed through a crowd to reach the emperor Charles V. The emperor demanded to know who he was. "I am a man," replied Cortés, "who has given you more provinces than your ancestors left you cities."

  The boast had a basis. Cortés led an expedition that brought down the Aztec Empire and placed large parts of mainland Mexico under the King of Castile. Yet his career was as tangled as it was spectacular.

  This documentary asks how a notary with almost no military experience toppled an empire. It asks why a conqueror who wrote so often to his king ended up watched and restrained by that king. And it asks how a dead man's bones could still start a fight long after his death.

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• 2. Notary in the Indies

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  Bartolomé de las Casas knew Cortés's father. He called Martín Cortés "a very poor and humble squire, although an Old Christian and they say a nobleman". His son was born around 1485 in Medellín, in Extremadura, a poor and desolate province of the Kingdom of Castile. His mother was Catalína Pizarro, and through her mother he was a distant relation of Francisco Pizarro, who later conquered the Inca Empire.

  According to his chaplain and biographer, Francisco López de Gómara, the boy was pale and sickly. At 14 he was sent to study Latin with an uncle in Salamanca. Later historians wrongly treated this private tutoring as enrollment at the University of Salamanca. After two years he came home, to the irritation of parents who had hoped for a profitable legal career. Gómara called the 16-year-old ruthless, haughty and mischievous, and restless in a small provincial town while news of Christopher Columbus streamed into Spain.

  Law followed him anyway. Cortés trained and worked as a notary, first in Valladolid and later in Hispaniola. Together with his two years in Salamanca, this gave him a working knowledge of the legal codes of Castile. He would later apply that knowledge to justify a conquest nobody had authorized.

  A plan to sail with Nicolás de Ovando, a family acquaintance newly appointed as Governor of Hispaniola, fell through when Cortés was injured. He spent the next year drifting through southern ports such as Cádiz, Palos, Sanlucar and Seville. He finally left in 1504. The ship's commander, Alonso Quintero, tried to deceive his superiors and reach the New World ahead of them to seize personal advantages. That mutinous conduct may have served as a model for Cortés's own later career.

  In Santo Domingo, the capital of Hispaniola, the 18-year-old registered as a citizen, which entitled him to a building plot and farmland. Ovando soon granted him an encomienda, a right to the labour of certain subjects, and made him notary of the town of Azua de Compostela. In 1506 he took part in the conquests of Hispaniola and Cuba. The expedition leader rewarded him with a large estate and Taíno slaves.

  In 1511, Cortés joined Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar in the conquest of Cuba. At 26 he became clerk to the treasurer, charged with making sure the Crown received the quinto, its customary one-fifth of the profits. Velázquez, by then governor of Cuba, was impressed and made him his secretary. Cortés was twice appointed alcalde, or magistrate, of Santiago. He gained an encomienda to supply Indian labour for his mines and cattle. In 1514 he led a group demanding that more Indians be assigned to the settlers.

  The friendship soured over a woman. Cortés became involved with Catalina Xuárez, the sister-in-law of Velázquez, and the governor believed he was trifling with her affections. Under pressure from Velázquez, Cortés married her, reluctantly. He hoped the match would win him the goodwill of both her family and the governor.

  Nearly 15 years into his life in the Indies, Cortés had missed the first two expeditions to Mexico. Francisco Hernández de Córdoba led the first and Juan de Grijalva the second. When word arrived that Grijalva had planted a colony on the mainland, rich in silver and gold, Velázquez decided to send help. In October 1518 he named Cortés captain-general, and Cortés was warned to move fast before the governor changed his mind.

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• 3. Burned Ships

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  Within a single month, Cortés had gathered six ships and 300 men. His experience as an administrator, lessons from earlier failed expeditions and a gift for persuasion all helped. Velázquez's jealousy exploded, and he tried to hand the expedition to someone else. Cortés simply recruited more men and ships in other Cuban ports.

  At the last minute Velázquez revoked the charter. Cortés ignored the order and sailed anyway in February 1519, an act of open mutiny. He stopped at Trinidad, in Cuba, to hire more soldiers and buy more horses. His fleet then numbered about 11 ships, carrying 500 men, some of them seasoned slaves, along with 13 horses and a small number of cannon.

  The expedition landed on the Yucatán Peninsula, in Maya territory. There Cortés met Geronimo de Aguilar, a Spanish Franciscan priest. Aguilar had survived a shipwreck and then a period of captivity among the Maya before escaping. He had learned the Chontal Maya language and could translate. Cortés's own military experience was almost nonexistent, yet he proved an effective leader and won early victories over the coastal peoples. In March 1519 he formally claimed the land for the Spanish crown.

  At Tabasco he met resistance and won a battle. The defeated people handed over twenty young women, and Cortés had them all converted to Christianity. One of them was La Malinche, also called Doña Marina. She spoke both Nahuatl and Chontal Maya, so Cortés could now speak to the Aztecs by passing words through two interpreters, Aguilar and Malinche. She became his mistress and the mother of his son Martín.

  On Easter Sunday 1519, at San Juan de Ulúa, Cortés met two governors of Moctezuma II's Aztec Empire, Tendile and Pitalpitoque. In July his men took over Veracruz. That step cut Cortés loose from the governor of Cuba and placed him directly under the orders of King Charles. Then he scuttled his ships, so that no one could think of retreat.

  The king's response to this gamble would take years to arrive, and meanwhile the road inland lay open.

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• 4. Allies and a Massacre

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  Moctezuma II, the tlatoani or ruler of the Aztec Empire, repeatedly refused to meet Cortés. At Veracruz the Spaniard had spoken with some of the Aztecs' tributaries and asked them to arrange a meeting. The refusals did not move him. Leaving a hundred men behind, he marched on Tenochtitlán in mid-August 1519. His column held 600 soldiers, 15 horsemen, 15 cannons and hundreds of indigenous carriers and warriors.

  On the road, Cortés built alliances with peoples such as the Totonacs of Cempoala and the Nahuas of Tlaxcala. The Otomis and then the Tlaxcalans fought the Spanish in three battles between the 2nd and the 5th of September 1519. Bernal Díaz recalled that "they surrounded us on every side". Cortés kept releasing prisoners with messages of peace. The Tlaxcalan leaders Xicotencatl the Elder and Maxixcatzin also realized the Spanish were enemies of Moctezuma. They persuaded their war leader, Xicotencatl the Younger, that an alliance was wiser than killing the newcomers.

  In October 1519, Cortés marched to Cholula, the second-largest city in central Mexico, with about 1,000 Tlaxcalteca at his side. There he massacred thousands of unarmed nobles gathered in the central plaza, then partly burned the city. Historians disagree about why. It may have been a calculated effort to frighten the Aztecs waiting at Tenochtitlán. Cortés himself claimed, when he was later investigated, that he wanted to make an example because he feared native treachery.

  By the time he reached the Aztec capital, the Spaniards commanded a large army. On the 8th of November 1519, Moctezuma received them peacefully in the island city of Tenochtitlán. Some accounts hold that Moctezuma let them in deliberately, hoping to learn their weaknesses and crush them later.

  Moctezuma gave the Spaniards lavish gifts of gold. They were not placated, and the gold only sharpened their appetite for plunder. In his letters to King Charles, Cortés said he learned something odd. The Aztecs, he wrote, took him for an emissary of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl, or for Quetzalcoatl himself. A few modern historians contest that belief.

  Then news came that Aztecs had killed several Spaniards on the coast while those men were supporting the Totonacs. Cortés answered by seizing Moctezuma as a hostage in his own palace, and so ruled Tenochtitlán indirectly through him.

  Far away in Cuba, Velázquez had not forgotten the man who defied him, and a second fleet was already on its way.

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• 5. The Siege

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  Pánfilo de Narváez arrived in Mexico in April 1520 with 1,100 men, sent by Velázquez to oppose Cortés. Cortés left 200 men in Tenochtitlán and took the rest to confront him. Despite being outnumbered, he overcame Narváez and persuaded the defeated men to join his own ranks.

  Back in the capital, his lieutenant Pedro de Alvarado had committed a massacre in the Great Temple, and it triggered a local rebellion. Cortés hurried back. On the 1st of July 1520, Moctezuma was killed. Spanish accounts say his own people stoned him, though some claim the Spaniards murdered him once they saw he could not calm the crowds.

  Facing a hostile population, Cortés decided to flee toward Tlaxcala. The escape across the Tlacopan causeway became known as the Noche Triste. It took place on the night of the 30th of June to the 1st of July 1520. The Spanish rearguard was massacred. Much of the looted treasure was lost in the panic, along with the artillery. After the battle of Otumba the survivors reached Tlaxcala, having lost 870 men.

  With help from their allies, and with reinforcements from Cuba, the Spaniards recovered. Cortés adopted a policy of attrition. He cut off the city's supplies and subdued the cities allied with the Aztecs. During the siege he built brigantines on the lake and destroyed the city block by block, so as to avoid fighting among its streets.

  The Mexica fell back to Tlatelolco and even ambushed their pursuers, inflicting heavy losses. Tlatelolco was the last part of the island to hold out. The siege ended in Spanish victory and the destruction of the city.

  Trouble also came from inside Cortés's own camp. In January 1521 he put down a conspiracy led by Antonio de Villafana, who was hanged for it. On the 13th of August 1521, Cuauhtémoc, the tlatoani of Tenochtitlán, was captured, and the Mexica were conquered. Cortés claimed the land for Spain and renamed the city Mexico City. The conquered region then served as a base for further colonization of the Americas, using methods that included slavery and ethnic cleansing.

  From 1521 to 1524 Cortés governed Mexico in person, and the question of who really ruled it was about to be asked in Spain.

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• 6. Crown and Cross

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  On the 15th of October 1524, Cortés wrote to the emperor and admitted, in blunt terms, that he had disobeyed many royal orders. The same letter reminded Charles that the conquest of Mexico was due to Cortés alone. Historians note that his tone could only leave an unfavourable impression. Cortés had not been stingily rewarded, yet he complained at once that he and his comrades were underpaid.

  King Charles named him governor, captain general and chief justice of the new territory, called "New Spain of the Ocean Sea". Four royal officials were appointed alongside him, which in effect put him under close observation. Cortés began building Mexico City, tearing down Aztec temples and buildings and raising a new city on their ruins. It soon became the most important European city in the Americas.

  He founded new cities and sent men out to extend Spanish rule across New Spain. In 1524 he imposed the encomienda system and kept many grants for himself and his followers, who saw them as just rewards. Later arrivals and rival factions protested that this favouritism shut them out.

  In 1523 the Crown sent Francisco de Garay with a military force to settle the northern region of Pánuco. Bishop Fonseca, an enemy of Cortés, may have influenced that decision. Cortés took it as a setback. In his fourth letter he portrayed himself as the victim of a conspiracy by Velázquez, Diego Columbus, Fonseca and Garay. The king then forbade Garay to interfere, and Garay gave up without a fight.

  In 1525 the Crown granted Cortés a coat of arms, a high honour. Its upper quarter held a black two-headed eagle on a white field, the arms of the empire. Below it stood a golden lion on a red field. Another quadrant showed three crowns for Moctezuma, Cuitlahuac and Cuauhtemoc, and a fourth showed Tenochtitlan. Around the shield, the lords of seven city-states Cortés had defeated appeared as prisoners bound with a chain closed by a lock.

  Cortés also cared about converting the conquered peoples. In his fourth letter he asked the king to send Franciscan and Dominican friars. He wanted them instead of secular priests, whom he feared would set a bad example. In May 1524 twelve Franciscans arrived, known as the Twelve Apostles of Mexico and led by Fray Martín de Valencia. Geronimo de Mendieta told a story that Cortés knelt at their feet as they approached the capital. One of the twelve, Fray Toribio de Benavente Motolinia, never mentions it. Franciscans nonetheless called Cortés "the new Moses".

  Later that year Cortés left the capital for Honduras, trusting the government to royal officials he did not fully control.

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• 7. Enemies at Home

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  Catalina Suárez died under mysterious circumstances on the night of the 1st to the 2nd of November 1522. Rumours spread that her husband had murdered her. An investigation questioned household residents and others. Its documents were published in nineteenth-century Mexico, and archival papers surfaced in the twentieth. Cortés was free to seek a wife of higher status.

  From 1524 to 1526 he led an expedition to Honduras. There he defeated Cristóbal de Olid, who had claimed the region under the influence of Velázquez. Fearing that Cuauhtémoc might lead an uprising in Mexico, Cortés took him along. The ruler was executed during the journey, a controversial act. Cortés also issued a decree to arrest Velázquez, which only deepened the unease of the Crown and the Council of the Indies. He was once quoted as saying it was "more difficult to contend against his own countrymen than against the Aztecs."

  At home, the officials he left in charge fell out. On the 12th of October 1524, before leaving, he had placed Alonso de Estrada, Rodrigo de Albornoz and Alonso de Zuazo in charge. Estrada and Albornoz quarrelled so fiercely that swords were drawn. Cortés sent back the two officials travelling with him, Gonzalo de Salazar and Pedro Almíndez Chirino.

  They spread a rumour that Cortés had died. In May 1525 they seized power and his property, and they tortured his majordomo and cousin, Rodrigo de Paz, to find his supposed treasure. Zuazo was forced into exile. At the end of January 1526, word reached Cortés's supporters that he was alive, and the two were deposed and arrested.

  Cortés reached Mexico City on the 19th of June 1526 and rested for five nights in the Franciscan monastery. Luis Ponce de León, a commissioner with power to investigate and even arrest him, arrived within days, then fell ill and died. His successor, Marcos de Aguilar, also died, in February 1527. Cortés was suspected of poisoning both men, and he refrained from taking the government. When he protested the punishment of one of his followers, Estrada exiled him to his country estate.

  Early in 1528 Cortés sailed to Spain to appeal to Charles V, bringing treasures and 40 Aztecs to impress the court. He showed that he had paid more than the required quinto and had spent lavishly on rebuilding Mexico City. Charles decorated him with the order of Santiago.

  In 1529 Cortés received the title of don and was named Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca. The valley was one of the wealthiest regions of New Spain, and he held 23,000 vassals in 23 named encomiendas in perpetuity. He also married a noblewoman, Doña Juana de Zúñiga. Their son Martín, born in Cuernavaca in 1532, became the second marquess. Cortés had already fathered another Martín, called "El Mestizo", by Doña Marina.

  The honours came with a catch. Cortés was never reinstated as governor and never again held an important office in New Spain.

  He came back to Mexico in 1530. Five years later Antonio de Mendoza was appointed viceroy to run civil affairs while Cortés kept military authority, a division that caused continual dissension. Cortés retired to Cuernavaca, about 30 miles south of Mexico City, to build his palace and pursue Pacific exploration. He quarrelled with Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán and disputed with Mendoza the right to explore what is now California.

  Cortés also built a mining fortune. By the early 1540s he owned 20 silver mines in Sultepec, 12 in Taxco and 3 in Zacualpan. In 1536 he explored the northwest of Mexico and discovered the Baja California peninsula. It was his last major expedition, and a few years later Francisco de Ulloa named the Gulf of California the Sea of Cortés.

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• 8. Debt and Afterlives

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  In 1541, Cortés returned to Spain hoping to answer the lawsuits his angry civilians had brought against him over debts and abuse of power. The emperor let him join the great expedition against Algiers, fought by a fleet under Andrea Doria. A storm nearly drowned Cortés as he chased the Pasha of Algiers.

  Having spent heavily of his own money on expeditions, he was deep in debt. In February 1544 he made a claim on the royal treasury and was ignored for three years. Disgusted, he set out for Mexico in 1547. At Seville he was stricken with dysentery. He died on the 2nd of December 1547 at Castilleja de la Cuesta, from pleurisy, aged 62.

  His will provided for his many mestizo and white children and for each of their mothers. Before he died he had the Pope remove the "natural" status of four children. One was Martín, his son by Doña Marina, said to be his favourite. He asked that his remains eventually be buried in Mexico, and the story of those remains took centuries to settle.

  First came the sources. His own five letters to Charles V, the cartas de relación, are his only surviving writings, and the first was long considered lost. They were written to show his efforts favourably, so they must be read critically. Gómara never set foot in the Americas and relied on what Cortés told him, with a taste for knightly romance. Bernal Díaz del Castillo wrote his eyewitness account against what he called "the lies of Gomara", and stressed that Cortés's men deserved remembering too. Las Casas accused the conquistadors, Cortés among them, of brutality. The Florentine Codex, compiled by Bernardino de Sahagún with native informants, is also unflattering. Scholars therefore tend to portray Cortés as either vicious and ruthless or noble and honourable.

  Even his name is unsettled. He signed his writings Hernando, and until the twentieth century most writers followed suit, as William H. Prescott did in 1843. Modern biographies now prefer Hernán. Díaz also left a portrait in words. Cortés was stocky and well proportioned, with a greyish face, a sparse black beard and eyes that seemed at times loving and at times grave.

  In Mexico there are few images of him. The Paso de Cortés is the pass between the volcanoes Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl that his soldiers crossed. Diego Rivera painted him as a powerful, ominous figure beside Malinche in a mural in the National Palace. In 1981 President Lopez Portillo tried to restore Cortés to public recognition. A nationalist group tried to destroy the bust unveiled in an official ceremony. A later monument to Cortés, Malinche and their son Martín was moved to a little-known park to quell protests.

  Abroad, he turned up in art. Antonio Vivaldi made him the hero of his 1733 opera Motezuma. John Keats, in his 1816 poem, mistakenly credited "stout Cortez" with staring at the Pacific, a feat that belonged to Vasco Núñez de Balboa. Neil Young recorded "Cortez the Killer" in 1975.

  The bones themselves travelled more than eight times. They were first buried on the 4th of December 1547 in the church of San Isidoro del Campo in Seville, and moved in 1550. In 1566 they were sent to New Spain, to the church of San Francisco de Texcoco. After Don Pedro Cortés, the fourth marquess, died in 1629, the viceroy ordered a move to the Franciscan church in Mexico City. It took nine years, while the body lay in the viceroy's palace. In 1794 the bones reached the Hospital de Jesus, which Cortés had founded, and bells rang across the city.

  After independence in 1823 desecration seemed imminent, so the mausoleum was removed and the statue and coat of arms were sent to Palermo, Sicily. The bones were hidden, and most people believed they had left Mexico. On the 24th of November 1946, a secret document credited to Lucas Alamán led to their rediscovery. The Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia authenticated them. One supporter of an indigenist vision of Mexico proposed burning them in front of the statue of Cuauhtemoc and flinging the ashes into the air. Soon afterward came the discovery of bones said to be Cuauhtémoc's, and a "battle of the bones" began.

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