He also used a native woman, Doña Marina, as an interpreter. His enmity with the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, resulted in the recall of the expedition at the last moment, an order which Cortés ignored.Īrriving on the continent, Cortés executed a successful strategy of allying with some indigenous people against others.
In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the mainland, which he partly funded. For a short time, he served as alcalde (magistrate) of the second Spanish town founded on the island. He went to Hispaniola and later to Cuba, where he received an encomienda (the right to the labor of certain subjects). Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish explorers and conquistadors who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.īorn in Medellín, Spain, to a family of lesser nobility, Cortés chose to pursue adventure and riches in the New World. Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca ( / k ɔːr ˈ t ɛ s/ Spanish: December 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the king of Castile in the early 16th century.
