Hernan Cortez

Hernan Cortez

Hernando Cortes was born in a town called Medellin, Spain in the year 1485. He was 14 years of age when he was sent to the University of Salamanca to learn law. His parents were both from the middle class families, but not wealthy. They wished their single son, Hernando, would become a lawyer to hold up the family, but he came home after only two years.

The first major achievement of Hernando Cortez was being the chief of the expedition to Cuba. This happened when he was discharged of his orders by Velazquez. He left in secret on February 18, 1519 with 600 armed forces and sailors, 200 Indian slaves, and 16 horses. When he was traveling he heard a report about the grand Aztec empire, and decided that he would conquer the Aztecs. So Hernando established a small colony-Villa Rica de Cruz and formed a small government. They marched into the Indians villages, tore down their religious statues, and converted them to Christianity. After a while, Hernando received full control of the Indians. Then, with the same skill, Hernando decided to conquer the Aztecs. When Hernando came into Mexico, all of the Aztecs believed that he was the most powerful God that they ever had.

When he was about 18, he sailed for the island of Hispaniola, then the Spanish headquarters in the West Indies. Cortes first married Catalina Xuares a Spanish woman. They never had any children. After Catalina died, Cortes remarried Dona Juana de Zuniga. They had four children, one son along with three daughters. He became really wealthy after he found New Spain. Cortes came back to Spain in 1540 and lived there for the remainder of his life. He died close to Seville, 2nd of December 1547 at the age 62.

Hernando had some good sides, but he as well had many bad sides. Hernando destroyed the ancient people of the Aztecs and their ways of living. And the most horrible thing he did was to change natives against their will. Just because they were unusual and were different than him, he changed them so everyone was the same. Even though he was an extremely brave explorer and a famous man, I suppose that he was pathetic in the senses that the people he fought against were different and weaker than him, because he could not fight anyone stronger than him. He relied on his armed forces power because he was kind of frightened of the South American citizens, and any other people who were different than him.

The number of things that made him well-known was that he conquered the Aztec empire and additional Indian ethnic group of South America. He bragged with his weaponry and terrified them. And when they brought him gifts and he was not satisfied, he put them in chains. He destroyed their ancient religion and culture by tearing down their religious statues, taking their possessions, taking over their royal treasuries, and converting them to Christianity. In the end, the whole Aztec empire vanished because of Hernando, either by war or the foreign diseases Hernando and his followers brought. All in all, Hernando made a very large and dire impact on the Aztecs and on the new world.

Hernando found a lot of new things like medical drugs and found new foods like: Potatoes, Tomatoes. After Cortez already conquered the Aztecs he showed them how to deal with money and gave them modern technology. He also built up the crushed empire that he destroyed. He also found new riches like tobacco. He wiped out the Aztecs, which made the rest of the Indian tribes happier because they were saved. Cortez also helped Spain discover new land and made them richer.