Officially known as Hernan Cortes de Monroy y Pizarro, the man better known as Hernan Cortes was a Spanish conquistador, explorer, fortune hunter, and soldier who is both acclaimed in reviled in history as the man who led the expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and acquire vast territories of mainland Mexico for Spain.[1] Hernan Cortes was born in 1485 in Medellin, near Seville, Spain and died of pleurisy en route to Mexico in December 1547.[2] The parents of Cortes, Martin Cortes and Catalina Pizarro Altamirano, were of upper class origin but were suffering from "reduced circumstances" [3] at the time of Hernan's birth. The young Cortes suffered from ill health in childhood. By the time he was a teenager, his parents enrolled him at the University of Salamanca at the age of fourteen, hoping he would eventually pursue the law.[4]
Cortes did not do well at university. His nature was too restless and he was too easily distracted to focus on his studies. Cortes failed out of the University of Salamanca after two years and returned home. Around this time, stories were pervasive in Medellin about adventure and lucrative opportunities in the "New World."[5] It was at this point that Cortes decided to devote his life to adventure and decided to follow the life of a soldier. He sought military service under respected military strategist Gonzalo de Cordova, but en route to Italy he took extremely ill and had to remain in Valencia for over a year, where he endured "great hardship and poverty."[6]
In 1504, Cortes boarded a shop led by Alonso Quintero, an ambitious man who often purposefully lost his companions in order to secure greater gain for himself.[7] Quintero was never very successful, but one biographer maintains that "his ambition rubbed off on the young Cortes."[8] In 1511 Cortes accompanied Diego Velasquez de Cuellar to help colonize Cuba, a successful expedition. Seven years ...