CORTÉS, HERNÁN. - Born at Medellín in 1485, died at Seville on 2 December 1547. Ambitious and greedy for glory and adventures, in 1504 he was at Santo Domingo, in 1511 in Cuba. In 1519 he commanded the expedition for the conquest of the kingdom of the Aztecs. He entered the city of Mexico on 8 November 1519. Fierce reprisals against the Indians who had rebelled were carried out by Alvarado, whom C. had left as lieutenant in Mexico. C. was able to win only because the Indians of Tlascala remained faithful to him (1520). In 1521 he succeeded in taking King Guatimozino prisoner. Charles V appointed him on 5 October 1522 captain general of New Spain. His subsequent attempt to extend the conquest of Central America failed. A man of culture (he had studied law at Salamanca) and deeply religious (he protected the Franciscan missions in Mexico), he is among the most complex figures in the history of Spanish expansion.
Bibliography9 worksE. Pardo Bazán, H. C. y sus hazañas, Madrid 1914; J. Babelon, La vie de Fernand C., Paris 1928; M. Solana y Gutiérrez, Enayo biológico sobre
BIBL.: E. Pardo Bazán, H. C. y sus hazañas, Madrid 1914; J. Babelon, La vie de Fernand C., Paris 1928; M. Solana y Gutiérrez, Enayo biológico sobre H. C., Oaxaca 1933; id., D. H. C. Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, México 1938; R. S. Chamberlain, Two unpublished documents of H. C. and New Spain, in The Hispanic American Historical Review, 18 (1938), pp. 514-25; S. de Madariaga, H. C., Buenos Aires 1941; L. Torres, H. C. conquistador de México, 2nd ed., Madrid 1942; H. R. Wagner, The rise of Fernando C., Berkeley 1944; cf. also E. Sanchez Alonso, Fuentes de la Historia Española e Hispano-Americana, 2nd ed., Madrid 1927, with complete bibliography.
Petrocchi, Massimo. “Cortés, hernán.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IV, coll. 664–665. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1950. https://azioneromana.com/article/cortes-hernan.
MLA
Petrocchi, Massimo. “Cortés, hernán.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IV, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1950, coll. 664–665. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/cortes-hernan.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec4_cortes_hernan,
author = {Petrocchi, Massimo},
title = {Cortés, hernán},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {IV},
pages = {664--665},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1950},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/cortes-hernan}
}
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