(1485–December 2, 1547), was the Spanish explorer who conquered Mexico. In 1504, at the age of nineteen, Cortez came to the island of Hispaniola and was given a land grant by Governor Diego Columbus, Christopher Columbus’ son. After establishing himself as a wealthy hidalgo, Cortez joined Diego Velasquez in the conquest of Cuba in 1511. There he became a gentleman farmer and alcalde (town mayor). In 1518, Governor Velasquez commissioned Cortez to lead an expedition to the Yucatan in Mexico, along with Captain Pedro de Alvarado.
On February 10, 1519, before embarking for Mexico, Cortez addressed his force of approximately 500 men, supplied with sixteen horses and ten cannons:
Soldiers of Spain, we are standing upon the verge of the greatest adventure ever undertaken by so small a body of men. We now leave the known world behind us: from this time forth we plunge into a region never before trodden by men of our race or religion. The hazards of this adventure I shall not dwell upon; they are well estimated by the bravest among you.
But I speak now of the immortal glory you will bring to Spanish arms, and to yourselves, the successful accomplishment of the mission before us. The shores we shall storm are lined with teeming millions of savages, unfriendly if not openly hostile.
We have only our swords and our good right arms to protect us against their overwhelming numbers. Therefore let not childish strife or inner dissension weaken the front we must present to the enemy. If we go as united as we go courageously, we have nothing to fear, nothing to lose. …
We are on a crusade. We are marching as Christians into a land of infidels. We seek not only to subdue boundless territory in the name of our Emperor Don Carlos, but to win millions of unsalvaged souls to the True Faith. …
Let us therefore enter upon our labors, so auspiciously begun, and in the name of our God and our Emperor carry them joyously, confidently to a triumphant conclusion.84
Shortly after landing, on July 10, 1519, Hernando Cortez sent his First Dispatch to Queen Juana and her son, Charles V, from the city he founded, named Vera Cruz (City of the True Cross). In the dispatch, he stated:
It seems most credible that our Lord God has purposefully allowed these lands to be discovered … so that Your Majesties may be fruitful and deserving in His sight by causing these barbaric tribes to be enlightened and brought to the faith by Your hand.85
Cortez then ordered his ships sunk in the harbor, causing his men to realize they either had to be victorious or die. In an era of Crusades to free the Holy Land from the Turks, and his own country having just driven the last of the Moors from Granada less than thirty years prior, Cortez led his troops inland as Crusaders in a Holy cause.
At the same time the Reformation began in Europe through Martin Luther, Cortez embarked to free a nation from barbaric pagan cannibalism. His troops soon met with one horrendous sight after another: human hearts that had been cut out of living prisoners found nailed to temple walls; pyramid style temples covered with human blood; bodies of men and boys without arms or legs; human skulls stacked on poles; hundreds of thousands of human skulls regularly arranged in piles; gnawed human bones piled in houses and streets; wooden houses, built with gratings, jammed full of captives being fattened up for sacrifice; pagan priests matted with dried human blood, cover with the stench of carrion, practicing sodomy; humans sacrificed on pagan altars and then rolled down temple steps where frenzied hoards ate their bodies; devotees eating the fresh carcasses of those who were sacrificed; roasted human arms, legs and heads; warriors eating the corpses of those they slew in battle, etc. … 86 This was a result of their religion, which believed that all the universe was one and that people were just a part of the universe. They believed that the Sun god needed human blood to live and that the Aztecs were responsible to feed him the blood he needed daily.
As the Spanish troops went from town to town, the Indian tribes were elated that they would be set free from the Aztec rule. Cortez immediately freed the captives awaiting sacrifice, broke the idols, rolling them down the temple steps, erected a cross and preached Christ unto them. Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Cortez’ personal secretary and chaplain, reported one such instance in Cozumel:
So Jeronimo de Aguilar preached to them about salvation, and, either because of what he told them, or because of the beginning they had already made, they were pleased to have their idols cast down, and they even assisted at it, breaking into small pieces what they had formerly held sacred. And soon our Spaniards had left not a whole idol standing, and in each chapel they set up a Cross or the image of Our Lady, whom all the islanders worshipped with prayer and great devotion. …
They begged Cortez to leave someone behind to teach them to believe in the God of the Christians; but he did not dare consent, for fear they might kill the preacher, and also because he had few priests and friars with him. And in this he did wrong, in view of their earnest request and supplications.87
After defeating the Tabascan tribe, Cortez preached to them through the interpretation of Jeronimo de Aguilar, a Catholic priest who had been shipwrecked on Yucatan eight years earlier and had learned the language. As reported by Gomara:
Cortez told them of their blindness and great vanity in worshipping many gods and making sacrifices of human blood to them, and in thinking that those images, being mute and soulless, made by the Indians with their own hands, were capable of doing good or harm. He then told them of a single God, Creator of Heaven and earth and men, whom the Christians worshiped and served, and whom all men should worship and serve.
In short, after he had explained the Mysteries to them, and how the Son of God had suffered on the Cross, they accepted it and broke up their idols. Thus it was that with great reverence, before a large concourse of Indians, and with many tears on the part of the Spaniards, a Cross was erected in the temple of Potonchan, and our men first, kneeling, kissed and worshiped it, and after them the Indians.88
Meeting resistance with the Cempoallan tribe, before they finally relented, one of Cortez’ men suggested accommodating them for the time being. Cortez adamantly replied:
How can we ever accomplish anything worth doing for the honour of God if we do not first abolish these sacrifices made to idols?89
Cortez and his men fought numerous battles against insurmountable odds. His small band repeatedly engaged victoriously against the deadly spears, arrows and ambushments of the murderous tribes. Cortez would not have been so successful if it had not been for the Indian tribes who fought along side him as he championed their cause of being free from the bloody Aztecs, who continually required quotas of prisoners to be sacrificed. In giving battle instructions to his troops, Cortez exhorted:
Sirs, let us follow our banner which bears the sign of the Holy Cross, and through it we shall conquer!90
When ambassadors from Montezuma arrived bearing gifts for them, Cortez took the opportunity to preach to them through an interpreter. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a soldier who served with Cortez, recorded the scene:
When Tendile and Pitalpitoque [ambassadors of Montezuma] saw us thus kneeling, as they were very intelligent, they asked what was the reason that we humbled ourselves before a tree cut in that particular way. As Cortez heard this remark he said to the Padre de la Merced who was present: “It is a good opportunity, father, as we have good material at hand, to explain through our interpreters matters touching our holy faith.”
And then he delivered a discourse to the Caciques so fitting to the occasion that no good theologian could have bettered it.
After telling them that we were Christians and relating all matters pertaining to our holy religion, he told them that their idols were not good but evil things which would take flight at the presence of the sign of the cross, for on a similar cross the Lord of Heaven and earth and all created things suffered passion and death; that it is He whom we adore and in whom we believe, our true God, Jesus Christ, who had been willing to suffer and die in order to save the whole human race; that the third day He rose again and is now in heaven; and that by Him we shall all be judged.
Cortez said many other things very well expressed, which they would report them to their prince Montezuma. Cortez also told them that one of the objects for which our great Emperor had sent us to their country was to abolish human sacrifices and the other evil rites which they practiced.91
Upon reaching Mexico city, Montezuma asked Cortez if he was the god Quetzalcoatl, who was predicted to return from the east, as a white man with a beard and blue eyes, to stamp out human sacrifice and deliver the oppressed. Cortez replied:
It was true that we came from where the sun rose, and were the vassals and servants of a great Prince called the Emperor Don Carlos, who held beneath his sway many and great princes, and that the Emperor having heard of him and what a great prince he was, had sent us to these parts to see him, and to beg them to become Christians, the same as our Emperor and all of us, so that his soul and those of all his vassals might be saved.92
Montezuma was in awe of Cortez and his men, primarily because of the signs and portents that had ominously foretold Quetzalcoatl’s return and the end of the Aztec empire, such as: the water of the lake around Mexico City boiling over due to volcanic eruption, the sky being lit with northern lights, comets, earthquakes, the temple of the sun god catching fire, the king’s sister revived from her grave saying strange beings would enter the country and ruin it, an eerie wailing noise at night, etc … 93 According to soldier Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s account, Cortez discoursed with Montezuma further:
We told them we were Christians and worshipped one true and only God, named Jesus Christ, who suffered death and passion to save us, and we told them that a cross (when they asked why we worshipped it) was a sign of the other Cross on which our Lord God was crucified for our salvation; and that the death and passion which he suffered was for the salvation of the whole human race, which was lost, and that this our God rose on the third day and is now in heaven, and it is He who made the heavens and the earth, the sea and the sands, and created all the things that are in the world, and He sends the rain and the dew, and nothing happens in the world without His holy will.
That we believe in Him and worship Him; but that those whom they look upon as gods are not so, but are devils, which are worse, and they could see that they were evil and of little worth, for where we had set up crosses such as those his ambassadors had seen, they dared not appear before them, through fear of them, and that as time went on they would notice this. …
He explained to him very clearly about creation of the world, and how we are all brothers, sons of one father and one mother who were called Adam and Eve, and how such a brother as our great Emperor, grieving for the perdition of so many souls, such as those which their idols were leading to Hell, where they burn in living flames, had sent us, so that after what he [Montezuma] had now heard he would put a stop to it and they would no longer adore these Idols or sacrifice Indian men and women to them, for we were all brethren, nor should they commit sodomy or thefts.
He also told them that, in the course of time, our Lord and King would send some men among us who lead very holy lives, much better than we do, who will explain to them all about it, for at present we merely came to give them due warning. And so he prayed him to do what he was asked and carry it into effect.94
After that, Montezuma showed Cortez and his men their temples. There was a theatre made of human skulls and mortar, wherein Gonzalo de Umbria counted 136,000 skulls, which included those in the steps and on poles. A tower was made of skulls too numerous to count. There were obsidian knives, stone altars, black-robed priests with hair matted down with human blood, idols with basins for human blood, walls and steps covered with human blood and gore, an idol made out of seeds kneaded and ground with the blood of virgins and babies, pits where the human bodies were thrown after people had eaten off the arms and legs, etc. …
Bernal Diaz del Castillo recorded Cortez’ comments to Montezuma after viewing all the horrible sights:
Our Captain said to Montezuma through our interpreter, half laughing: “Señor Montezuma, I do not understand how such a great Prince and wise man as you are has not come to the conclusion, in your mind, that these idols of yours are not gods, but evil things that are called devils, and so that you may know it and all your priests may see it clearly, do me the favour to approve of my placing a cross here on the top of this tower.”95
Soon after, Cortez placed Montezuma under house arrest in his own palace, destroyed the pagan idols and caused a great uproar in the city. Montezuma, who had developed a friendship with Cortez, tried to quell the rage, only to be pelted with rocks by his own people. Deeply depressed and feeling a seemingly providential loss of control over his empire and his life, Montezuma died soon after. Bernal Diaz del Castillo recalled the Spaniards response:
Cortez wept for him, and all of us Captains and soldiers, and there was no man among us who knew him and was intimate with him, who did not bemoan him as though he were our father, and it is not to be wondered at, considering how good he was.96
Cortez then fought his way out of the city with a miraculous fight, although with great loss to his ranks. He then battled overwhelming thousands of Aztecs in fighting his way back to the coast. After several months of recovery, Cortez decided to mount a last final attack on Mexico City.
On December 26, 1520, Cortez addressed his force of 540 soldiers and 40 cavalry, who were armed with eighty crossbows and nine muskets, saying:
My brothers, I give many thanks to Jesus Christ to see you now cured of your wounds and free from sickness. I am glad to find you armed and eager to return to Mexico to avenge the deaths of your comrades and recover that great city. This, I trust in God, we shall soon do, because we have with us Tlazcala and many other provinces, and because you are who you are, and the enemies the same as they have been, and we shall do so for the Christian Faith that we proclaim …
The principal reason for our coming to these parts is to glorify and preach the Faith of Jesus Christ. …
We cast down their idols, put a stop to their sacrificing and eating of men, and began to convert the Indians during the few days we were in Mexico.
It is not fitting that we abandon all that good that we began, rather, we should go wherever our Faith and the sins of our enemies call us.
They, indeed, deserve a great whipping and punishment, because, if you remember, the people of the city, not satisfied with killing an infinite number of men, women, and children in sacrifices to their gods (devils, rather), eat them afterward, a cruel thing, abhorrent to God and punished by Him, and one which all good men, especially Christians, abominate, forbid, and chastise.
Moreover, without penalty or shame, they commit that accursed sin because of which five cities, along with Sodom, were burned and destroyed.
Well, then, what greater or better reward could one desire here on earth than to uproot these evils and plant the Faith among such cruel men, by proclaiming the Holy Gospel?
Let us go, then, and serve God, honor our nation, magnify our King, and enrich ourselves, for the conquest of Mexico is all these things. Tomorrow, with the help of God, we shall begin.97
In 1521, Hernando Cortez and his men conquered Mexico City and ended the Aztec empire. Inscribed on his coat of arms was the latin phrase:
Judicium Domini apprehendit eos, et fortitudo ejus corroboravit bracchium meum. (The judgement of the Lord overtook them; His might strengthened my arm.)98