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485 – December 2, 1547

1485 – December 2, 1547

ernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro

During the Spanish campaign, Cortés allied with a number of the tributaries and rivals of the Aztecs, including the Totonacs, and the Tlaxcaltecas. After eight months of battles and intrigue, which overcame the diplomatic resistance of the Aztec Emperor Montezuma to his visit, Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan on November 8, 1519, where he took up residence. After an Aztec attack on Nauhtlan, a city on the coast, that left several Spaniards dead, Cortés took Montezuma captive in his own palace and ruled through him for months. After the massacre at the Main Temple of Tenochtitlan and a rebellion by the population of the city, Cortés and his men had to fight their way out of the capital city during the Noche Triste in June, 1520. However, the Spanish and Tlaxcalans would return with reinforcements and a siege plan that led to the fall of Tenochtitlan a year later. The collapse of the Aztec Empire was a major milestone in the formation of New Spain, which would not be formalized by the Spanish Crown un

Fue hijo único de un hidalgo extremeño, llamado Martín Cortés y de Catalina Pizarro Altamirano. Por vía materna era primo segundo de Francisco Pizarro,

Cortés was fairly well educated and had family connections, so when he arrived in Hispaniola in 1503 he soon found work as a notary and was given a plot of land and a number of natives to work it for him. His health improved and he trained as a soldier, and took part in the subjugation of those parts of Hispaniola that had held out against the Spanish. He became known as a good leader, an intelligent administrator, and a ruthless fighter. It was these traits that made Diego Velázquez select him for his expedition to Cuba.

At the end of December 1520, Cortés' army moved toward Tenochtitlán; the boats followed later, transported in pieces overland by 8,000 native carriers.

n February 1519 he accompanied the army, led from Cuba by Hernán Cortés, that was to conquer Mexico.

Tenochtitlán

With the mighty Aztec Empire in ruins and the Maya decimated in Central America, only one formidable native kingdom remains in the New World: the gold-rich Inca, high in the frigid mountains of Peru. Francisco Pizarro, an illiterate conquistador in the ruthless mold of Hernán Cortés sets out with 200 men to defeat the last great New World Empire.