Cortes Armor (from the Royal Armory)

Cortes Armor (from the Royal Armory)

Hernán Cortes was a prominent Spanish Conquistador who went on an expedition against the Aztec empire. The attached image is of the armor he used during the trip. It was placed in a Spanish museum to honor his legacy and represents some of the mythos surrounding him. Cortés legacy was built on letters to the King that allowed him to become one of “…the most recognizable of God’s agents… [due to their] rapid publication and wide circulation…” (Restall, 14). He became a symbol of imperial policy, and his accounts were a justification of imperial actions, as they showed him spreading civilization and Christianity throughout the New World. Yet, it’s important to remember that these were HIS texts. They were biased. Despite this, subsequent historians held them up, as seen with his armor being placed in a museum, and from this quote by historian Charles Gibson in 1966, “Although no conquistador rivaled Cortés in military skill or in the capacity to control the conquest aftermath, all subsequent campaigns were… modeled upon the conquest of the Aztec empire” (Restall, 19). Yet, Cortés was not the first to use many of his now-famous tactics, as plenty were commonly used or simply myth— like burning his ships. Furthermore, much of the credit for the invasion should be given to the native warriors who fought alongside him. He had plenty of native allies, as many other groups like the Huejotzincans sought to exploit the Spanish arrival to challenge the Aztécs. These groups, “…saved Spaniards from starvation, rescued individual Spaniards, acted as spies, and fought along with Spanish horsemen in sorties against the besiegers” (Restall, 49). Without these services, Spaniards most likely wouldn’t have been able to get a foothold in the New World— as they had no idea how to speak the languages or what was edible among the new plants and animals.

Publisher: R. Bentley & Son

“Aztec Empire from ‘[Through Spain: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure. ... Illustrated.].’” Europeana Collections. Accessed November 13, 2018. https://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/9200387/BibliographicResource_3000117289164.html.

Matthew Restall, Seven Myths of Spanish Conquest, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003)

1886

Teddy Wolfe

Public Domain Marked

This image has been taken from scan 000027 from "[Through Spain: a narrative of travel and adventure. ... Illustrated.]". The title and subject terms of this image have been generated from tags, created by users of the British Library's flickr photostream.

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