Tales That Defy the Ordinary

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Conquistador: Hernán Cortés’ Aztec Odyssey

How a bastard lawyer from Medellín marched into Mexico and broke the world.

He didn’t arrive with permission.
He arrived with nerve.

In 1519, Hernán Cortés sailed west with 11 ships, 500 men, 16 horses, ten small cannon, a few dozen African and Indigenous slaves—and the sort of militant Catholicism that burns cities into footnotes. He wasn’t authorised by the Crown. In fact, the governor of Cuba had revoked his orders. Cortés simply ignored him. He wasn’t there to follow instructions.

He was there to take everything.

Close-up of a conquistador’s face wearing a steel helmet, symbolising Spanish invasion of the Americas
Empire behind the eyes: The steel mask of civilisation—fitted over greed, faith, and fire. Image credit unplash.com

One Man’s Mutiny is Another Man’s Empire

Before the gold, before the blood, before the empire collapsed into ash and myth—there was paperwork. Cortés landed on the Gulf Coast, quickly ‘founded’ a town called Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, and had his loyalists appoint him as Captain-General. Instant legitimacy, courtesy of his own signature.

Then he scuttled the ships. Not in a romantic, Cortés-burns-the-boats way, but pragmatically. He sank most of them to kill any hope of retreat. His men would march inland or rot at the shoreline. Mutiny, solved.

This wasn’t a campaign.
It was a hijack.

Enter the Aztec Empire: Gold, Gods, and Bad Omens

The Aztecs were no jungle tribe. They were a civilisation. A brutal, brilliant, bleeding-edge empire of cities, trade, astronomy, poetry, and public ritual sacrifice. Their capital, Tenochtitlan, floated like a vision on Lake Texcoco—home to perhaps 200,000 people. More populous, more organised, and more advanced than anything Cortés had ever seen.

But empires rot from the inside.

Vassal states chafed under Aztec rule. Tribute was heavy. The annual bill in blood—paid through ritual sacrifice—was heavier still. Cortés didn’t conquer the Aztecs alone. He didn’t have to. He allied with the Totonacs, then the Tlaxcalans, and built a native coalition of tens of thousands who saw him not as a saviour, but as a weapon.

They handed him the blade.
He brought the Spanish steel.

Malinche: Translator, Strategist, Survivor

There is no conquest without her.

Malinche, or Doña Marina as the Spaniards called her, was a Nahua noblewoman sold into slavery and gifted to Cortés after his early skirmishes. She spoke both Nahuatl and Mayan dialects and became the essential voice between Cortés and the native world. She wasn’t just a translator—she was a strategist, cultural interpreter, and advisor.

In later centuries, Mexican nationalism would brand her a traitor. In truth, she navigated a world of knives and picked the blade that offered survival. Her presence made conquest possible. Her story makes it uncomfortable.

First Contact with Moctezuma: Theatre of Power

When Cortés finally reached Tenochtitlan, Emperor Moctezuma II welcomed him with gifts, rituals, and suspicion. Some claim the emperor believed Cortés was Quetzalcoatl—a returning god. It’s romantic nonsense. Moctezuma knew Cortés was dangerous. He just hoped hospitality would tame him.

He miscalculated.

Cortés took him hostage inside his own palace. Not openly—a velvet coup. Moctezuma remained emperor in name, but Spanish guards stood at the doors. Cortés ruled from behind the throne. For a brief moment, the city held its breath. Two civilisations shared a palace.

Then Spain sent reinforcements—under someone else’s flag.

Print showing Hernán Cortés entering Tenochtitlan and meeting Moctezuma in 1519
llustration of First Contact -  The moment two worlds shook hands—with knives behind their backs.

The Night of Sorrows

While Cortés was away fighting a Spanish rival sent to arrest him, his lieutenant Pedro de Alvarado panicked. During a festival, he and his men slaughtered hundreds of Aztec nobles and priests. It was a massacre dressed up as pre-emptive security.

The city erupted.

Cortés returned to chaos. The streets turned against him. The Spanish attempted to flee Tenochtitlan under cover of night. They carried too much gold. The causeways were narrow. The Aztecs attacked from canoes and rooftops. Hundreds of Spaniards drowned in the lake, pulled down by their own stolen treasure.

They called it La Noche Triste—The Night of Sorrows.

Cortés wept.
Then he regrouped.

Siege, Smallpox, and Systematic Collapse

The Spanish retreated to Tlaxcala, licked their wounds, and planned the real conquest.

They returned with boats—flat-packed brigantines, built inland, dragged piece by piece to Lake Texcoco. They blockaded the capital, cut its causeways, and choked it from the water. Meanwhile, smallpox spread through the empire like fire through dry reeds. It killed warriors, nobles, even the new Aztec emperor Cuitláhuac. It turned resistance into ruin.

In August 1521, after 75 days of siege, Tenochtitlan fell. The city was razed. The canals clogged with bodies. Cortés walked through the ruins like Caesar in a feathered helmet. He had broken the back of the greatest empire in the Americas.

What Came After: Spoils and Spectres

Cortés didn’t find El Dorado.
He found mud, gold dust, syphilis, and a Crown that took credit but offered little thanks. He was made governor of New Spain—then slowly stripped of power and investigated for corruption.

His later years were spent chasing recognition, not treasure. He died in Spain, wealthy, bitter, and largely forgotten by the court he served. His body was buried, moved, hidden, and finally rediscovered in Mexico, where his legacy remains radioactive.

To some, he is the father of modern Mexico.
To others, a genocidal parasite in armour.

The truth is crueler and messier than either myth.
He was a man who saw gods in gold and made kingdoms bleed to hold it.

Legacy of the Broken Empire

The fall of the Aztecs wasn’t a straight line of muskets and miracles. It was betrayal, alliance, ambition, disease, translation, misunderstanding, desperation, greed, and cultural annihilation—disguised as progress. It was aided and abetted by indigenous enemies of the empire, whose reward was Spanish rule in place of Aztec rule.

Cortés didn’t conquer Mexico.
He shattered it—and rewrote the ruins in Castilian script.

And for a brief, burning moment, one lawyer from Extremadura held the future of an entire continent in the palm of his bloodstained hand.

Early colonial portrait of Hernán Cortés, Spanish conquistador and governor of New Spain, painted circa 1525
Hernán Cortés as painted in 1525—just four years after he brought an empire to its knees. More images and details can be found on the Cortés Wikipedia page.

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