sixteen horses for the Mexican coast. On
reaching land, he promptly burned his
ships to end any idea among his men of
retreating from his intended conquest of
establishing a new colony on the main-
land. Cortes organized acabildo,ortown
government, at Veracruz, then had the
town appoint him as captain of an expedi-
tion to the interior, in this way escaping
the authority of Velazquez.
At this time a powerful Aztec empire
was ruling from a populous and wealthy
capital, Tenochtitlán, built on a series of
lakes and islands in the highlands of what
is now central Mexico. To defeat the Az-
tecs, Cortez allied with their enemies, the
Totonac and Nahua people, and gathered
more allies in Tlaxcala, where he rein-
forced his small force of Spanish infantry
and horsemen. On reaching Tenochtitlán,
Cortes and his men were received as guests
at the palace of the Aztec king, Monte-
zuma, who believed Cortes to be a legend-
ary god Quetzalcoatl. Cortes soon took
the king prisoner, a hostage for the good
behavior of the Aztecs.
On hearing of a second expedition ar-
riving to relieve him of his command,
Cortes left Tenochtitlán in the hands of
one of his captains, Pedro Arias de Avila,
and returned to the coast. There he de-
feated his opponents and persuaded many
of their company to join his army. On re-
turning to Tenochtitlán, Cortes found the
city in revolt against de Avila, who was
ruling the Aztecs as a tyrant. In the fight-
ing Montezuma was killed and Cortes was
forced to flee in what became known as
La Noche Triste, or “The Unhappy Night.”
Cortes waited two years in the hills near
the city and finally gathered his men for a
siege. Eventually the Spanish horses and
artillery overcame the city’s defenders;
Cortes made the new emperor Cuauhté-
moc a prisoner.
King Charles I of Spain appointed
Cortes governor of the colony of New
Spain. Under Cortes’s rule, the ancient Az-
tec city was destroyed and a new colonial
capital was raised. The Aztecs were con-
verted to Catholicism and served their
conquerors as peasant laborers; Cortes also
imported slaves from Africa to work on
the plantations of New Spain. But his defi-
ance of Velazquez’s orders in sailing to
Mexico also made the king of Spain suspi-
cious of Cortes’s motivations and loyalty,
andobserversweresenttokeepaneyeon
the colony and its governor.
Ever defiant, Cortes suspected Diego
Velazquez of trying to undermine him, and
issued an order for Velazquez’s arrest. The
king of Spain then sent an investigator to
uncover the facts of the case. When the
investigator died under mysterious circum-
stances, his successor appointed a replace-
ment for Cortes, who was exiled from New
Spain by his replacement. Cortes returned
to Spain to answer the charges against him
in 1528. He was received by Charles V, re-
warded for his success with a title, Mar-
quis of the Valley of Oaxaca, but stripped
of his authority of governor.
Cortes returned to Mexico in 1530 and
disputed his right to explore northern
Mexico with the new governors and ad-
ministrators of the colony. He set out in
1536 and reached Baja California and the
Pacific coast of Mexico. Returning to Spain
in 1541, he joined an expedition against
the Barbary pirates of North Africa, then
found himself back in Spain with heavy
debts and disregarded by the Spanish
court. Unable to make his case in the
Spanish court, he felt himself the victim of
injustice and neglect. Without prospects in
Spain, he decided to return to the colonyCortes, Hernán