Hernan Cortes
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Hernan Cortes was the Spanish conqueror of Mexico. The child of low Spanish nobility, he was born in 1485 in Medellin, Extremadura, and sent at age 14 to the University of Salamanca. Two years later he abandoned his education and, after several years of wandering, sailed (1504) to Santo Domingo to seek his fortune in the New World. He participated in the conquest of Cuba by Diego de Velazquez de Cuellar and in 1519 led an expedition that, after renouncing Velazquez, set out to conquer Mexico from the Indians.
Cortes explored the coast of Mexico, finally stopping near modern Veracruz, where he founded a city in order to legitimize his expedition. After gaining valuable information regarding the political situation in the highlands, Cortes marched inland, made an alliance with the Indians of Tlaxcala (the traditional enemies of the Aztecs), and began to pose as Quetzalcoatl. The Indians believed that this legendary ruler and deity would eventually return to Mexico from the east. Consequently, Montezuma II, the Aztec king, was too mystified to organize resistance, and the Spaniards entered Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, unopposed in November 1519.
After several months Cortes went to the coast to defeat a rival Spanish force under Panfilo de Narvaez. When he returned, he found the Aztecs, who had been brutalized by his lieutenant Pedro de Alvarado, in revolt. Forced to withdraw, the Spanish suffered heavy losses on the so-called noche triste ("sad night") of June 30, 1520. Cortes, however, returned in 1521 to besiege Tenochtitlan. It fell, after 3 months, on Aug. 13, 1521 --only because an epidemic killed many defenders.
The conquest thus completed, Cortes distributed the spoils, giving himself huge landholdings in various parts of Mexico. He returned several times to Spain, where he was entitled the marques del Valle de Oaxaca. His other exploits included expeditions to Honduras (1524) and Baja California (1536) and participation in the unsuccessful Spanish attack on Algiers in 1541. He died near Seville on Dec. 2, 1547.
Robert Patch
Bibliography: Corts, H., Letters from Mexico, ed. and trans. by A. Pagden (1986); Marks, R., Fortune Favors the Bold (1993); Prescott, W. H., History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843; abr. ed., 1986); Thomas, H., Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico (1994).
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 Hernan Cortes
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