Hernan Cortes a spanish conquistador explored the western countries and conquered Tenochtitlan.
Hernan Cortes was born in Medellin, Spain in 1485. His family was a respected military family, but were very poor. At the age of fourteen he was sent away by his parents to learn latin. His parents were very poor and wanted him to study law because he was the future of the family. Not satisfied at study law he decided he wanted to explore the western countries and actually set sailed to Santo Domingo in 1504.
Cortes had reached Hispaniola in a ship that was commanded by Alonso Quintero. While he was in South America, he first served as a soldier in an expedition of Cuba that was led by Diego Velazquez in 1511. In 1517, a sailor named Cordova, reached Yucatan while commanding an expedition commanded by Velazquez. He was then injured and only a little bit of his crew returned back to Cuba again, and they brought back
…show more content…
He arrived in Mexico with 1,100 men. Cortes then left some men in Tenochtitlan and took the rest to fight Narvaez. He won Narvaez and convinced the rest of his men to join him. In Tenochtitlan, Pedro de Alvarado Cortes’s lieutenant, committed a massacre that triggered a rebellion.
Cortes returned to Tenochtitlan to find out that Moctezuma was then killed. He was stoned by his own people. Cortes decided to run away and the spaniards managed to escape from Tenochtitlan through the Tlacopan causeway. One of Cortes men had small pox and when he died it spread through the whole city resulting in 3 million aztecs being killed. Most of the treasure from Tenochtitlan was lost.
Cortes and his men regrouped and attacked Tenochtitlan in 1521. The city had already crumpled to the ground. Cortes had finally conquered Tenochtitlan for Spain. Cortes then decided to build Mexico city on the ruins. Cortes was then appointed as the governor of New Spain by king Charles the