HISTORY: Spanish Colonisation of the Aztecs

1. HISTORY: Spanish Colonisation of the Aztecs

2. Who was Cortez • Hernando Cortez was born in the small town of Medellin in south-western Spain in 1485. When he was about 18, he sailed for the island of Hispaniola, then the Spanish headquarters in the West Indies. He was a soldier and a farmer before he sailed for Diego Velasquez to help conquer Cuba in 1511. Velasquez became the governor and Cortez was elected mayor-judge of Santiago. • When Juan de Grijalva reported his discovery of Mexico in 1518, Velasquez picked Cortez to build a colony there. Velasquez soon suspected Cortez would go beyond his orders and cancelled the expedition. Unfortunately for Velasquez, Cortez had already assembled men and equipment and set sail. He rounded the peninsula at Yucatan and touched Mexico on the coast of what is now the state of Tabasco. During the battle with Indians there, he took many captives including a young Aztec princess. She became his interpreter and advisor • Cortez spent the next seven years establishing peace among the Indians of Mexico and developing mines and farmlands. In 1528 he went home and was received with great honor by Charles V, but he missed the adventure of the New World. He returned to Mexico as a military commander. He explored Lower California from 1534 to 1535 and fought the pirates of Algiers in 1541. The same year he led an expedition against the Maya of Yucatan. Cortez died near Seville on December 2, 1547.

3. W h y d i d C o r t e z c o n q u e r t h e A z t e c s ? • The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The invasion began in February 1519 and was acclaimed victorious on August 13, 1521, by a coalition army of Spanish conquistadors and Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés and Xicotencatl • In 1517 Cuban governor Diego Velázquez de Cellar, commissioned a fleet of three ships under the command of Hernández de Córdoba to sail west and explore the Yucatán peninsula. Córdoba reached the coast of Yucatán. The Mayans at Cape Catoche invited the Spaniards to land, upon which Córdoba had the Spaniards read the Requirement of 1513 to them. Córdoba took two prisoners whom he named Melchor and Julian to be interpreters. On the western side of the Yucatán Peninsula, the Spaniards were attacked at night by Maya chief Mochcouoh (Mochh Couoh). Twenty Spaniards were killed. Córdoba was mortally wounded and only a remnant of his crew returned to Cuba.