Biography
Hernán Cortés was born in Medellín, in Extremadura, in the Kingdom of Castile. The year is generally given as 1485, but some sources suggest 1483 or 1484. He was the son of Martín Cortés de Monroy, a hidalgo, and Catalina Pizarro Altamirano, and was related to Francisco Pizarro. Around the age of fourteen he was sent to Salamanca to stay with an uncle, where he studied Latin for about two years. Later historians wrongly made him a student of the university, and he earned no degree.
He crossed to the Indies in 1504 (some sources say 1506) and settled in Hispaniola, where he received an encomienda and held a notary's post under Governor Nicolás de Ovando. In 1511 he followed Diego Velázquez in the conquest of Cuba, became alcalde of Santiago there, and his strained relations with that governor, who had him imprisoned for a time, weighed on the rest of his career. He married Catalina Suárez in Cuba; she died in 1522.
In 1519 Cortés left Cuba with eleven ships. He founded the Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, whose town council named him captain general, a title Charles V confirmed in 1522. It was in this setting that he wrote his letters of relation. The first is lost, replaced by the letter from the council of Veracruz. The second, titled Segunda carta de relación, is dated from Segura de la Frontera on 30 October 1520, and was printed in Seville in 1522, by Jacobo Cromberger according to the record for this book. It recounts the march on Tenochtitlan, the meeting with Moctezuma, then the loss of the city on the Noche Triste. The third is dated 1522 and was printed in 1523, the fourth is dated 1524 and was printed in Toledo in 1525. The fifth deals with the Honduras expedition.
After the fall of Tenochtitlan, Cortés governed New Spain. From 1524 to 1526 he led the Honduras expedition against his lieutenant Cristóbal de Olid, who had rebelled. In 1529 he obtained the title of Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca and married Juana Ramírez de Arellano that same year, whom other sources call Juana de Zúñiga. The viceroyalty, created in 1533, was entrusted to Antonio de Mendoza, in office in 1535, and Cortés agreed to remain under his orders. He had children from several unions, including Martín, born around 1522 or 1523 to La Malinche. His principal witness among his comrades in arms is Bernal Díaz del Castillo, whose Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España is judged one of the most reliable.
He returned to Spain and took part in 1541 in Charles V's expedition against Algiers, where a storm nearly cost him his life. He died on 2 December 1547 at Castilleja de la Cuesta, near Seville, at about sixty-two. His remains were first buried at San Isidoro del Campo in Seville, sent in 1566 to Texcoco, then moved in 1794 to the Hospital de Jesús in Mexico City, which he had founded. His bones, rediscovered in 1946, have rested there since. The five letters are his only surviving writings.
